The Woodlands

This guide to The Woodlands in Philadelphia opens with soldiers knocking on the mansion's front door one spring morning in 1778 to arrest its owner, William Hamilton, on a charge that could hang him: high treason. You'll hear about Hamilton's path there, a bachelor who inherited the estate as a boy, grew into one of Pennsylvania's richest men, and sided with the king when the Revolution split the city, and about his first arrest, acquittal, and what happened when soldiers came back a second time. The guide also follows what Hamilton built here afterward, filling the grounds with thousands of plant species during his later years. Stand at the front door and picture the two knocks before walking the looping paths past thirty thousand graves.