Answer. Happy 4th everyone!!
The famous piece of furniture is the rising sun chair. British soldiers occupying Philadelphia in the winter of 1776-77 burned the furnishings used by the Congress for firewood. So today the hall's most famous artifact is the chair George Washington used while serving as President of the Constitutional Convention. The chair bore the carving of a sun, and during the convention, Benjamin Franklin said he tried to determine if the sun was rising or setting. "But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun," he said.
The long gallery served as a prison and hospital (thanks to the British) and as a dog pound (thanks to Philadelphians) that used the building after the signing but before it was named Independence Hall. Update: My error. It seems that there is a long hall in the basement of Independence Hall. It is the basement hall not the 2nd floor Long Gallery that was the City of Philadelphia�s dog pound.
Marquis De Lafayette was the guy who thought(understatement)that there might be some value to the building. As has been answered by Messer�s NELSON and HORTON Lafayette gave G. Washington a key to the French Bastille. It was delivered by Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine, radical writer �Common Sense� and �Rights of Man� and �The Age of Reason�. Paine is an interesting guy �He got a patent for an iron bridge and smokeless candle-he might also be the first member of what is the original philosophy of the GOP. He survived an execution by chance and also is the person who proposed to call us the United States of America. On July 4th to read a copy of Paine�s �Crisis� paper might be appropriate. It begins, �These are the times that try men�s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country: but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.� That is not intended as my political editorial. You make of that statement what you will.
Actually there are two Bastille keys that are traced to Lafayette. One is at Mount Vernon (the Paine delivered one) and a larger one 10 miles away in Alexandria, Virginia in the Masonic lodge.
Lafayette was granted a sword by Congress, but just like the government, it had no sword makers. Of the fifteen swords authorized, the Congress had to send to France to have them made. Lots of intrigue but that sword is lost. Lafayette (who volunteered and was not paid) was also eventually repaid the $200,000 he willingly gave of his personal fortune (using 1800 as a start date was equivalent to $2,985,074.67 in 2005 dollars). It pretty much broke him when WE needed it most. After the French Revolution when Lafayette who was well connected with the King fell on difficult times, the U.S. Congress also awarded him a township (36 square miles) anywhere he chose. He decided on land near Tallahassee, in the Florida Territory. The land grant was bounded on two sides by the recently surveyed prime meridian and base line and was termed "Township One North, Range One East." General Lafayette arranged to send a small colony of French people to grow grapes and olives on the land grant. He died soon after and never got to visit his land in Florida. The colony fell into disarray when the crops failed and the farmers began to leave the land. By 1855, all the land included in the Lafayette Township (over 23,000 acres) had been sold to individual buyers.