Friendship Hill National Historic Site

Friendship Hill is one of those NPS sites that you truly have to WANT to come to because honestly I can’t imagine why for the most part anyone is coming to Point Marion, PA.
Now what you’re coming to see is the house of Albert Gallatin.
Albert Who you no doubt will say?
Well, Albert is sort of the equivalent of Chuck Leavell with the Stones. While he’s not a member, he’s the glue which keeps the band together at this point. Ditto that for Gallatin who while not one of history’s heavy hitters was the Secretary of the Treasury during the Jefferson and Madison administrations. In that time he reduced the national debt, purchased the Louisiana Territory and funded the Lewis & Clark exploration for starters.
Prior to being Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin was elected to the Senate but was bounced as a dirty trick as he did not meet the residence requirements of being a citizen for nine years. Gallatin, having been born in Switzerland, was less than a year short of the requirement but a group of PA Federalists outed him. Two years later Gallatin was easily elected to the House of Representatives and eventually founded what would be today known as The House Ways and Means Committee.
In the mix he also had a large hand in the Treaty of Ghent, was a Minister to France/U.K. and he founded New York University. Not everything was perfect for Gallatin as he also was coerced into a disastrous run at being William H. Crawford’s running mate and his first wife died only months after they were married.
But overall Gallatin while still in the shadows of history compared to Washington, Jefferson & Adams had a profound impact on how the early history of our country turned out as evidenced by the number of schools, school districts, rivers, streets, counties and cities which were named after him both in this country and in his native Switzerland.
As for the house, it’s a self guided tour as normally there is only one ranger on duty. Most of the rooms are either unfurnished or minimally at best. The ubiquitous NPS park video is short and sweet with an actor playing Gallatin simply talking as a «floating head» for a few minutes.
There are several trails and if you want remote and scenic with wildlife this is your place.
Also noteworthy is that you can take a short walk down one of the trails to the gravesite of Gallatin’s first wife.

Secluded and always just about empty. Cool, if somewhat creepy house. Lots of land to tromp around in. You may just get lucky and spook a whole flock of turkeys. Oh, and the granite curbs in the parking lot and the bathrooms are real nice, if somewhat of an example of government pork barrel.