It's peaceful now, but this Pennsylvania park was a place of scandal during the American Revolution

Graeme Park in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is peaceful now. But generations ago, it was owned by a woman who was left heartbroken and abandoned.

"We have some lovely paths," said Graeme Park volunteer docent Jim Miller. "There's a very nice Park Creek, it's called, it's a little river."

He said many couples run to the sprawling estate in Horsham to tie the knot. However, he added, Graeme Park was also the site of some 18th-century marital and political intrigue around the time of the Revolutionary War.

Miller loves to tell the story of the home first owned by colonial Gov. William Keith before it changed into the hands of the Graeme family.

"In 1737, Dr. Thomas Graeme, who was Governor Keith's son-in-law, purchased the property," Miller said.

His youngest daughter, Elizabeth Graeme, later inherited the house. Just before the American Revolution started in 1775, she married a British loyalist. Graeme Park office administrator Carla Loughlin said that man used Elizabeth to deliver a scathing letter to Gen. George Washington.

"The letter basically said: Your troops are undisciplined, they're not trained, they're not well-outfitted," Loughlin said.

Loughlin said Elizabeth Graeme later swore she did not open, and did not know what was inside, that letter.

Elizabeth Graeme later found herself alone as her husband fled treason charges and returned to Europe. Loughlin said the American government then seized Graeme Park and almost everything inside from Elizabeth Graeme.

"And then when the house was confiscated, she submitted a list of furnishings that she wished she be allowed to keep," Loughlin said. "And that harpsichord was on the list. So, it was obviously something that was very important to her."

Graeme Park may be peaceful now, but Miller is excited to share its story as a political and marital battleground in the nation's war for independence.

"Oh, it's lovely that this is a local site which has connections to colonial history," Miller said.

After all that scandal and after all this time, Graeme Park will be one of several sites where you can hear the Declaration of Independence read during July Fourth weekend.