Philadelphia was, of course, the nation’s capital from 1790-1800. There was no White House, but George Washington had to live somewhere. And on important occasions, Hamilton could be counted on to be in that somewhere too.

The Philadelphia house in which George Washington lived while serving as president in Philadelphia was a mansion that had previously housed “financier of the American Revolution” Robert Morris. Morris believed in Washington—and American Independence—so much that he personally loaned money to the future president so he could undertake his daring 1776 raid on Trenton.

Washington described the home as “the best single house in the city”—even though he allowed that it would require additions to be added on starting immediately.

In accordance with Hamilton’s advice in a 1790 letter, the presidential mansion was at least occasionally open to all comers—as it should be in a republic. Hamilton very well may have attended some of these weekly public “levees.”

But we know for sure Hamilton came in person to the large house at (then) 190 Market Street for cabinet meetings with the president, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry Knox, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and the rest of the cabinet.

In Hamilton: An American Musical, the number “Cabinet Battle #2”—in which the country’s appropriate stance on the war between Revolutionary France and Great Britain was contemplated—would have happened here.

Washington and wife Martha Custis Washington kept a number of enslaved people in Philadelphia. They often retired to Mt. Vernon, in Virginia, when Congress was not in session.

When he became president, John Adams began his administration here as well. Adams, after 1800, would go on to become the first president to occupy the White House—though it was unfinished and incompletely furnished.

Also interesting about this building is that its exact location was lost to history for decades. After the departure of the government, it became a hotel for a period, and was eventually demolished.

As Philadelphia changed over the years, no one could quite recall where it had been. Then, in 2000, as the Welcome Center for the Liberty Bell was being redesigned, builders stumbled upon parts of it.

Something of an uproar—and a poignant metaphor for all of American history—ensued when it was discovered that the Liberty Bell portico would be just steps from the quarters of George and Martha Washington’s enslaved people. Ultimately,  interpretive exhibits about slavery were added to the modern site which visitors can see at Independence Plaza.