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Old Rising Sun Tavern, , by David J. Kennedy, c. 1891.
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Watercolor of the Old Rising Sun Tavern.

Credit: Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Today's Bethlehem Pike was an Indian trail before colonists widened it into the "King's Road," connecting Philadelphia to the Lehigh Valley. Originally opened in 1746 at the fork with the Old York Road, the Rising Sun Tavern served as a gathering place where men could meet and discuss the momentous events of the day. What would become the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was founded there in 1775, when abolitionists agreed to take up the case of Dinah Nevill, a black woman whose insistence that she was free-born helped fuel the anti-slavery movement in America. The tavern was demolished in 1891.

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