Philadelphia gets the party this year and it’s celebrating its status as the birthplace of independence like it really means it. Still, let’s not forget what’s right up the road.

The towns and villages of Montgomery County are separated from the nation’s fifth-largest city by a boundary that didn’t exist during the Revolution. It wasn’t carved out of Philadelphia County until 1784, after the war was over.

But the ground was there. And in the fall and winter of 1777, that ground was where the survival of the whole American experiment was decided. Our nation’s story unfolded in Pottstown, Cheltenham, Montgomeryville, Trappe, and Whitemarsh just as much as it did within what is now the city limits.

“When George Washington marches his troops from Brandywine, they go through Valley Forge and then attack Germantown to try to liberate occupied Philadelphia,” says David Young, executive director of the Historical Society of Montgomery County. When the attack failed, “the Continental Army retreated up Skippack Pike, up Bethlehem Pike, up Germantown Pike, up Ridge to Montgomery County.”

And the Philadelphia story followed them every step of the way.

Up the pikes

On October 4, 1777, Washington attacked Germantown, aiming to drive the British out of occupied Philadelphia.

But the Continental Army couldn’t dislodge the redcoats from Cliveden, the stone mansion on Germantown Avenue that marks the separation between the Mt. Airy and Germantown neighborhoods. So the estimated 11,000 American soldiers turned around and walked north, following what are now Germantown Pike, Bethlehem Pike, and Skippack Pike into territory that is now Montgomery County. At that time, however, that boundary had yet to be established. For all those soldiers knew, they were marching through uninterrupted farmland.

“They wound up going a distance of up to 26 miles, which is the distance between Cliveden and Towamencin Township,” says Young, “So you can think of it as a revolutionary marathon.”

Washington moved up and down that road for months, sleeping in various homes, churches, and taverns along the way. A few of those taverns still exist, such as Blue Bell’s Broad Axe Tavern, as do churches and meeting houses that became field hospitals for the Germantown wounded. The army was hungry, of course, and needed shelter. So soldiers commandeered horses, livestock and food from farmsteads along the way.

While the Americans lost that battle, which history remembers as the second-largest of the entire Revolution, it became an important turning point. The French watched Washington mount a large, coordinated attack on a fortified British position and concluded the Americans might actually have what it took to win.

New Yorkers may point to the great victory at the Battle of Saratoga, which took place at the same time as the defeat in Pennsylvania, as decisive in convincing the French to come to the aid of the colonies. But local historians beg to differ.

“The Battle of Germantown is significant strategically, because it impressed the European allies to come on to the American side,” says Young.

Lafayette, who arrived in America four months earlier, joined the battle at Germantown. More importantly, France committed money and naval support soon after. By the end of the year, Von Steuben came to Valley Forge and started turning the Continental Army into a more professional force.

“They set out in Montgomery County to become a professional fighting army essentially,” Young says, “trained by European officers.”

The Continental Army spread across the territory now known as Montgomery County from October through December 1777, camping at Whitemarsh, Whitpain, Towamencin, and Lower Salford.

The British tried to bait Washington into a decisive fight, resulting in skirmishes at Fort Washington and Edge Hill in November and early December as each side tried to claim high ground.

“If the British knock the Americans off any of those hills,” Young says, “the United States doesn’t happen.”

They didn’t. The Continental Army crossed at Matson’s Ford near Conshohocken and Swedes Ford near Norristown, moved up through Gulph Mills, and settled in at Valley Forge for the winter.

A profound presence

Driving through Valley Forge Park today, you see the breadth of the place, but unless you’re there for a re-enactment, you don’t see many people. The rolling hills are pristine, with just a few carefully tended structures to suggest the soldiers who lived there.

But from December 1777 to June 1778, those 12,000 people were such a large presence that they dwarfed the surrounding towns, creating an encampment bigger than most cities in the colonies.

“At that time, some estimates suggest that Valley Forge was the fourth largest town in America,” says Young.

By May 1778, the army was moving again. Lafayette led a force to what’s now Barren Hill, narrowly avoided getting trapped by the British, and pulled back to Conshohocken. The following month, the British abandoned Philadelphia, and Washington’s army marched out of Valley Forge, across Montgomery County, through Bucks County, and into New Jersey for the Battle of Monmouth.

The Battle of Monmouth in June 1778 was the last major engagement in the north. The British never retook Philadelphia. The army that had retreated up Skippack Pike eight months earlier had become a fierce force.

Still there

Montgomery County is full of what they left behind, much of which lies far beyond the rolling hills of Valley Forge.

Towamencin Mennonite Churchyard has four American officers buried there, including General Francis Nash, namesake of Nashville, Tennessee. The marker on his grave was placed in 1844 by John Fanning Watson, Philadelphia’s first historian, on behalf of the citizens of Norristown and Germantown. Plymouth Meeting Friends Meeting served as a hospital. Taverns along Skippack Pike that still stand today were watch points for troops moving between encampments. Markers sit on Church Lane and Paper Mill Road, where the British made their turn, trying to surround the Americans.

The wake of the campaign is everywhere, if you know where to look.

“It’s all around you,” Young says. “History is caught as much as it is taught, as they say, so the Montgomery County story has not been told as well as it could have been. A lot of it is left out of the way Ken Burns tells the story. But you can see it in historic markers and township historical societies and county-owned sites like Peter Wentz Farmstead and Pennypacker Mills, where Washington set up for headquarters or war councils.”

Where the line landed

When the time came to draw the boundary that created Montgomery County, shared history had little to do with the decision. At the time, Germantown and Chestnut Hill weren’t even part of Philadelphia, and didn’t get absorbed into the city until the Consolidation Act of 1854.

Rather, it was practical. Village farmers didn’t want to ride into Philadelphia every time they had legal business, and preferred the established market town of Norristown.

Young wonders whether that’s why so many Chestnut Hillers feel so connected to the neighbors that live just north. The business patterns, family structures and transportation networks all predate the political boundary.

“People just became more accustomed to conducting their business locally than going into Philadelphia,” Young says. “Sectionalism has been baked into the Philadelphia governance structure for quite a long time.”

'History unleashed'

“The county’s 250 commission has been organizing to spotlight the good work being done at local levels,” says Young. “The recent ‘History Unleashed Kickoff’ at St. Thomas by a coalition of historic organizations is a good example, as are upcoming readings of the Declaration of Independence at houses that were standing when it was signed.”

Young’s organization alone holds 900 family files with roots going back four and five centuries. Church records. Burial grounds. Records of the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad.

And the county’s 28 historical societies are stepping up, he says, as are a handful of dedicated historic sites.

“It’s people of all kinds, finding their way into the American story,” he says. “That’s Montgomery County.”

The Historical Society of Montgomery County is at 1654 DeKalb Street in Norristown. For information on historic sites and 250th programming, visit hsmcpa.org.