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The Assembly Room of Independence Hall
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
18:30 ESDT, June 21, 2004
© 2004 Will Brown, All Rights Reserved.
The room visible through the doorway is the is the Supreme Court Chamber which served as the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania between 1776 and 1787.
Following the establishment of the new Federal government, it also housed the United States District Court, the Circuit Court, and for two days in February of 1791, the United States Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania coat of arms above the judges bench was placed there in 1785. The King's coat of arms occupied the same spot nine years earlier until on July 8, 1776, the day of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place, a crowd flooded through the arches and tore the King's coat of arms down. (Information supplied by Isabel Jenkins of the National Park Service).