The photograph arrived at the Philadelphia Museum of American History in a cardboard box, wrapped in tissue paper and accompanied by a handwritten note from an elderly woman named Dorothy Callahan. Curator Elena Rodriguez held the sepia-toned image up to the light and found herself looking at a formal family portrait dated 1915.
A distinguished man sat in an ornate wooden chair in an elegant parlor. A woman in a high-necked lace dress stood beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder. Three children surrounded them, two boys in matching sailor suits and a girl in a white pinafore with ribbons in her hair. The room behind them spoke of wealth, with Persian rugs, oil paintings, velvet curtains, and crystal chandeliers.
But it was the chair that drew Elena’s attention. She reached for a magnifying glass and focused on the backrest positioned directly behind the man’s head. Carved into the wooden crest was a symbol she had seen only once before in her studies of American Constitutional History: a half sun with rays extending upward, rising above a horizon line.
Elena called Dr. Marcus Williams, the museum’s leading expert on 18th-century American furniture. When he arrived and examined the photograph, his reaction was immediate. The chair appeared to be a replica of the Rising Sun chair, the iconic piece used by George Washington during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Independence Hall.
The original chair still exists, preserved in Independence Hall where tourists view it behind protective glass. Benjamin Franklin himself had commented on the carved sun, noting that throughout the convention he wondered whether it was rising or setting. After the Constitution was signed, he concluded it was indeed a rising sun.
The idea that someone had commissioned a private replica, displayed so prominently in a family portrait, was completely unknown to historians. Marcus noted that the photograph’s composition deliberately emphasized the chair. The man sat perfectly centered, the camera angle and lighting illuminated the carved backrest, and the symbol was clearly visible in the frame.
Elena called Dorothy Callahan that afternoon. Dorothy, 92 years old, lived in a modest row house in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood. She explained that the people in the photograph were her great-grandparents, William and Catherine Hartley, and their three children, William Jr., Robert, and little Elizabeth.
Dorothy said the photograph was taken in the spring of 1915. Her grandmother Elizabeth, the little girl in the picture, had told her stories about sitting perfectly still for nearly an hour while the photographer set up his equipment. Dorothy also recalled that the chair was her great-grandfather’s most prized possession. After William Hartley died in 1932, the chair disappeared, and no one in the family knew what happened to it.
Dorothy said her grandmother mentioned the chair was a gift from someone important. But Elizabeth was just a child when the photograph was taken, and by the time she was old enough to ask questions, her father was gone and her mother refused to talk about it.
Elena began researching William Hartley’s background. In the archives of the First Pennsylvania Bank, which had absorbed Hartley & Sons Bank, she found records showing the Hartleys were prominent in Philadelphia banking from 1880 to 1933. Then, in a box labeled “Personal Correspondence 1910-1920,” she found a letter dated February 1915.
The letter was written on stationery with an embossed letterhead reading “Harrison Family Trust, Philadelphia.” It thanked William Hartley for his discretion and financial expertise in managing a trust established for a special commission project. It referenced the creation of a replica requiring master craftsmen and a patron who understood its symbolic significance. The letter stated that upon completion, the chair would be delivered to Hartley’s residence as a token of appreciation and trust. It was signed Jonathan Harrison III.
William Hartley had not just owned a replica of the Rising Sun chair. He had financed the project, managed the trust, and received the chair as payment for his discretion.
Elena spent the next three days tracing the Hartley family through the decades following William’s death. The family sold their mansion on Rittenhouse Square in 1934, but no records mentioned furniture being sold or moved. Marcus suggested tracking down descendants of the Hartley children.
Elena located David Hartley, a retired professor in Boston and the grandson of Robert Hartley. David said his father told him about the chair. When the old man died, his children fought over who should inherit it. Robert wanted it, but William Jr. claimed it was rightfully his as the eldest son.
According to David, Elizabeth settled the dispute. She was only 24 at the time, but she convinced her brothers that the chair was too valuable and too historically significant to remain in any one person’s possession. She argued it should be preserved somewhere safe. David said his father never revealed where Elizabeth took the chair, only that she gave it to someone she trusted completely.
Elena began researching Elizabeth Hartley. Unlike her brothers, Elizabeth had become a historian and preservationist, one of the founding members of the Philadelphia Historical Society. Elena realized that if Elizabeth needed to hide something precious, she might have put it in plain sight.
At the Philadelphia Historical Society, head archivist James Chen led Elena to the basement archives. He showed her a section marked “Hartley Collection, Restricted Access.” Elizabeth Hartley had placed specific conditions on certain items in her donation. One item was to remain sealed until a specific date.
The inventory record read: “Item H237. Mahogany chair, 18th century style, donated by Elizabeth Hartley 1935. Sealed by donor request, not to be opened or examined until January 1st, 2025.”
The date was only about five weeks away. James agreed to make an exception given the historical significance and the thorough provenance. In the secure vault, they removed a canvas tarp and found the Rising Sun chair, preserved perfectly after nearly 90 years of careful storage.
Tucked into a carved recess behind the seat was an envelope marked “To be opened with the chair.” Inside was a letter in Elizabeth Hartley’s handwriting, dated October 15, 1935.
Elizabeth wrote that the chair was a perfect replica of the Rising Sun chair used by President Washington during the Constitutional Convention. Her father did not commission it, but he facilitated its creation through his role as banker and trustee for the Harrison family, who conceived the project in 1915.
She explained that Jonathan Harrison III had commissioned the replica as an act of faith in America’s future during the dark days of the Great War in Europe. Harrison wanted a second chair to exist as a private symbol that the sun was still rising, even in difficult times. William Hartley received the chair as payment for his discretion and his own faith in American ideals.
When her father died, Elizabeth believed the chair represented something larger than family pride or fortune. She donated it to the Philadelphia Historical Society with the condition that it remain sealed for 90 years, until 2025. She wrote that enough time would pass for the chair to be studied and appreciated for what it truly was: not a fake or a forgery, but a deliberate act of historical preservation created by skilled craftsmen in an era of global crisis.
Elena returned to Dorothy Callahan with new questions about the craftsmen. Dorothy recalled that her grandmother had mentioned letters from Catherine Hartley. She produced a small wooden box containing dozens of letters tied with faded ribbons.
In a letter dated August 1915, Catherine had written to her sister about the chair that arrived the previous month. She described the craftsmen who came to the house to ensure the chair had survived its journey. They were immigrants, one from Ireland, one from Italy, one from Russia. The Italian gentleman, Mr. Rossi, wept when he saw the chair in the parlor, saying it was the finest thing he had ever created. William paid them handsomely and swore them to secrecy.
Elena traced the craftsmen through immigration records, city directories, and genealogical databases. Thomas Brennan had come from County Cork, Ireland in 1889. Giovanni Rossi had fled economic hardship in southern Italy in 1895, bringing centuries-old woodcarving techniques. Jacob Friedman had escaped religious persecution in Russia in 1902, arriving with his tools and skills as a furniture maker.
These three men had pooled their diverse talents to create something extraordinary. They studied the original Rising Sun chair in Independence Hall, took precise measurements, selected the finest mahogany, and carved each detail with painstaking accuracy. They did it all in secret, sworn to silence, knowing their masterpiece would be hidden in a wealthy family’s parlor.
Three months later, on a cold January morning in 2025, the Philadelphia Museum of American History opened an exhibition titled “Two Suns Rising: The Secret History of America’s Most Symbolic Chair.” It brought together the replica chair, the 1915 family photograph, Catherine Hartley’s letters, Elizabeth Hartley’s 1935 letter, documents from the Harrison family archives, and immigration records for the craftsmen.
Dorothy Callahan attended the opening with members of her extended family. At 92, she moved slowly but her eyes were bright with excitement. She stopped before the enlarged photograph of her great-grandparents and said she wished her grandmother Elizabeth could see the story finally being told.
One moment stood out for Elena. An elderly man stood before the chair for a long time, tears streaming down his face. He approached Elena and said his grandfather was Giovanni Rossi. His family always knew he was a master carver, but they had no idea he had created something so important.
Six months after the exhibition opened, Elena stood in Independence Hall, in the room where the Constitutional Convention had taken place. She gave a presentation to National Park Service rangers about how the discovery offered new insight into how Americans in later generations related to the founding era.
She explained that in 1915, as World War I raged in Europe, private citizens decided the symbol of the Rising Sun needed to be preserved and duplicated. They were not government officials or museum directors. They were a banker, a philanthropist, and immigrant craftsmen. But they understood that this symbol mattered.
William Hartley commissioned the family portrait specifically to document the chair’s existence. He positioned himself to make sure the carved sun was visible. Elena described it as testimony, a record that said, “We believe. We believe in what this symbol represents. We believe the sun is still rising.”
The replica chair now resides permanently in the Philadelphia Museum of American History. Elena received letters from descendants of all three craftsmen, Thomas Brennan, Giovanni Rossi, and Jacob Friedman. Each family was moved to discover their ancestor’s role in creating something so significant.
The Harrison family also came forward, sharing additional documents. Jonathan Harrison III had written in his private diary: “The original chair belongs to history, to the people, but perhaps we, as individual citizens, need our own symbols to remind us of our responsibilities to this nation. The replica is not a copy. It is a commitment.”
Elena thought about Benjamin Franklin’s famous question, whether the sun was rising or setting. The beauty of the question, she realized, was that every generation had to answer it for themselves. In 1787, Franklin had seen it rising. In 1915, Jonathan Harrison and William Hartley had chosen to see it rising. In 1935, Elizabeth Hartley had preserved that choice for the future.
The answer was not carved into the wood, though the symbol remained constant. The answer lived in the choices people made, to create, to preserve, to honor, to believe. The story would continue, told and retold to new generations who would stand before the replica chair and see in its carved sun a reminder that every generation must choose, rising or setting.