Docent led tours of the Historic Conference House Museum

Take a docent led tour of the Conference House Museum also known as the Billiopp House located on Staten Island, New York and overlooking the Raritan Bay. This two-story grand fieldstone house was built by powerful landowner Royal Navy Captain Christopher Billopp About 1680. He wanted a home that would be an expression of his massive wealth, as well as a symbol of the stability of the colonies. Nearly a century later the Billopp House had become a center of colonial hospitality. Billopp’s great-grandson, loyal to the crown, offered his ancestral family home as the site of a meeting of great importance. It is Named The Conference House because it is the site of the only Peace Conference of the American Revolution. Continental Congress representatives Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge met here with British Admiral Lord Howe at his request on September 11,1776 in an unsuccessful effort to stop the American Revolution. The Americans had already written and signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776 and their course would not be altered. Though the group discusses options for a peaceful cessation of hostilities, no agreement was reached and the fighting continued for seven years. Today the Conference House Museum presents an interpretation of an 18th century colonial manor to the general public.