A 36,000-pound Revolutionary War rock monument has a moving day in Montco
The rock commemorates the Continental Army's encampment in Gulph Mills in 1777.
The answer to the question of how one moves a 7-foot, 36,000-pound historic rock is probably about what you would have guessed — very slowly, and carefully.
It was a process that took several hours Friday, beginning with workers hoisting the rock monument, which commemorates Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army encampment at Gulph Mills in December 1777, onto a truck. The Army was en route to its winter quarters in Valley Forge.
Once the rock-moving crews were able to load the cargo, it commuted from what had been a temporary location to its rightful home less than two very ponderous miles away.
The monument, created by the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution in 1892, was located near what is now the bustling Gulph Mills interchange of the Schuylkill Expressway, according to the society’s news release.
It had to be moved twice for roadwork projects, and for the last 40 years it has rested at Executive Estates Park in another part of Upper Merion Township.
On Friday it was placed at the encampment location on South Gulph Road near a gas station and the Savona restaurant.
In one piece.
—Anthony R. Wood and Alejandro A. Alvarez