If Silver Spring Township officials and a local real estate developer didn’t know that an old stone house on Route 11 is the reputed birthplace of the U.S. Bill of Rights before they started demolition there last week, they definitely know now.

On Jan. 6, workers began demolishing a two-story stone house at 7086 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township that most recently was the site of Stone House Auto Sales.

This just isn’t any stone house, however. Built in 1780 as the James Bell Tavern, the structure hosted the Stony Ridge Convention on July 3, 1788, a meeting of Anti-Federalists opposed to ratification of U.S. Constitution, which led to amending the document with the Bill of Rights.

Triple Crown Corporation, the property’s owner, legally obtained a permit from the township for the demolition, according to Christine Musser, a member of the township’s Conservation and Preservation Committee.

Read the article “Building Where Bill of Rights was ‘Born’ Partially Destroyed by Accident” on m.cumberlink.com.