Juneteenth's Origins Began In Philly Region

CHELTENHAM TOWNSHIP, PA — It's now a federal holiday.

As the nation celebrates Juneteenth on Thursday, the holiday's origins can be traced back to Montgomery County.

Soldiers who helped emancipate more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865 — the date commemorating Juneteenth — were trained at a camp in Cheltenham Township.

Camp William Penn served as a Union Army camp from 1863 to 1865 during the Civil War, the first installation where African American troops were trained.

Many of those troops traveled to Galveston, Texas, to free slaves two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. That was when word finally reached the last enslaved people in Texas that the Civil War had ended, and they were free.

Also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day and Jubilee Day, Juneteenth is the oldest-known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation making it a federal holiday, the first since the addition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

The family of Lucretia Mott, an abolitionist and women's rights advocate, leased land to the federal government for the military training camp located in Chelten Hills.

Click here to read more about Camp William Penn and the trained soldiers.