PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The statue of Robert Morris, located behind the Second Bank of the United States on Chestnut Street in Old City, was vandalized on Monday.
Independence National Historical Park said on social media that a vandal likely used a permanent felt-tip marker on the statue’s marble base to write “human traffic[k]er.”
So far, conservators have been able to lighten the graffiti but not remove it entirely.
Morris was commonly called the financier of the American Revolution. According to Independence National Historical Park, he made his fortune in the shipping business — which included auctioning enslaved Africans.
He was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence.