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Virginia State Capitol
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Virginia State Capitol Building at Richmond, Virginia
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| Location: | Richmond, Virginia |
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| Built: | 1785 |
| Architect: | Thomas Jefferson; Charles-Louis Clérisseau |
| Architectural style: | Early Republic, Palladian |
| Governing body: | State |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000911[1] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL: | December 19, 1960[2] |
The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government in the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital of Virginia. It houses the oldest legislative body in the United States, the Virginia General Assembly. Although it was completed in 1788 and is over 215 years old, the current Capitol is the eighth built to serve as Virginia's state house, primarily due to fires during the Colonial period. It is one of only eleven capitols in the United States without an external dome. (The others are the capitols of Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon and Tennessee.)
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During the American Colonial period, Virginia's first capital was Jamestown, where the first legislative body, the Virginia House of Burgesses, met in 1619. The new government used four state houses at different times at Jamestown due to fires.
A grand new Capitol building was constructed by Henry Cary, a contractor finishing work on the College of William and Mary's Wren Building (the legislature's temporary home). The Colonial Capitol was a one-story H-shaped structure, actually two buildings connected by an arcade. The first floor of the west building was for the General Court and the colony's secretary, the first floor of the east for the House of Burgesses and its clerk. It was completed in November 1705. Nearby was the grand Governor's Palace.
The building that stands now in Colonial Williamsburg is the third Capitol on that site. Cary built the first without fireplaces. In 1723, chimneys were added for fireplaces to help keep the Capitol dry. On January 30, 1747, the building burned and only some walls and the foundation remained.
Governor William Gooch urged that the Capitol be rebuilt, but many legislators preferred relocating the government to a city more accessible to trade and navigation. In the meantime, the burgesses met again at the nearby Wren Building. Finally, in November 1748, reconstruction of the Capitol was approved (by only two votes: 40 to 38). The burgesses met inside for the first time on November 1, 1753.
In this building, Patrick Henry delivered his Caesar-Brutus speech against the Stamp Act on May 29, 1765. Henry, George Washington, George Mason, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and others played parts in the legislative maneuvering that ended in revolution. As fighting began in the North, the building featured discussion concerning Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, his Virginia constitution, and Jefferson's first attempt at a bill for religious freedom.
On June 29, 1776, Virginians declared their independence from Great Britain and wrote the state's first constitution, thereby creating an independent government four days before Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4.
The Capitol at Williamsburg served until the American Revolutionary War began, when Governor Thomas Jefferson urged it that the capital be relocated to Richmond. The building was last used as a capitol on December 24, 1779, when the Virginia General Assembly adjourned to reconvene in 1780 at the new capital, Richmond.
About 150 years later, through the efforts of Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin and John D. Rockefeller Jr., both the Capitol and the massive Governor's Palace at Williamsburg were thoroughly reconstructed and became major attractions at Colonial Williamsburg.
When it convened in Richmond on May 1, 1780, the legislature met in a makeshift building near Shockoe Bottom. Plans were begun for a new building to serve a new state, the commonwealth of Virginia.
The site selected for a new, permanent building was on Shockoe Hill, a major hill overlooking the falls of the James River. Jefferson is credited with the design of the new Capitol, which was modeled after the Maison Carrée at Nîmes in southern France, an ancient Roman temple.[3] The only other state to accurately copy an ancient model is the Vermont State House, which based its portico on the Temple of Theseus in Athens. Jefferson had the architect, Charles-Louis Clérisseau, substitute the Roman Ionic order over the more ornate Corinthian column designs of the prototype in France. The cornerstone was laid on August 18, 1785, with Governor Patrick Henry in attendance. It was sufficiently completed for the General Assembly to meet there in October 1792.
The building also served as the Capitol of the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861–65). The Capitol, the adjacent Virginia Governor's Mansion, and the White House of the Confederacy (about three blocks to the north on East Clay Street) were spared when departing Confederate troops were ordered to burn the city's warehouses and factories, and fires spread out of control in April 1865. The first flag to fly over the capitol since secession was hoisted by Lieutenant Johnston L. de Peyster. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln toured the Capitol during his visit to Richmond about a week before his assassination in Washington, DC.
From April 6 until April 10, 1865 Lynchburg served as the Capital of Virginia. Under Gov. William Smith, the executive and legislative branches of the commonwealth moved to Lynchburg for the few days between the fall of Richmond and the fall of the Confederacy.
After the end of the American Civil War, during the Reconstruction period, Virginia was under military rule for almost five years, ending in January 1870. In the ensuing months, a dispute over leadership of the Richmond government resulted in the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals holding a hearing on April 27, 1870, in the large courtroom on the second floor of the Capitol. Several hundred people crowded in. Before the proceedings could begin, the gallery (balcony) gave way and fell to the courtroom floor. This added weight, in addition to the crowd already there, caused the entire courtroom floor to give way, falling 40 feet (12 m) into the House of Delegates chamber.
The injured stumbled, crawled or were carried out onto the Capitol lawn during the mayhem that followed. Sixty-two people were killed and 251 injured. There were no women believed to have been present when the collapse occurred. The dead included a grandson of Patrick Henry, and three members of the General Assembly. Injured included both men contesting the Richmond mayoral position, the speaker of the House of Delegates, a judge and ex-governor Henry H. Wells. Former Confederate general Montgomery D. Corse was partially blinded by the collapse.
Despite demands for the building's demolition, the damage from the tragedy of 1870 was repaired. In 1904, two wings (not in the original plans) were added to the east and west ends of the building to provide much-needed additional space for the growing legislature.
In 2003, the assembly approved $83.1 million for the renovation, restoration and expansion of the Capitol. Work began in 2004 and was completed on May 1, 2007 (In time for Queen Elizabeth's visit to Richmond and Jamestown). Among major changes are a completely new HVAC system, updated mechanical, storm water and plumbing systems, and construction of a 27,000-square-foot (2,500 m2) expansion beneath the hill on the south lawn. The expansion provides a visitor's entrance that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, plus office space and meeting rooms, and better security management. Total final cost of the restoration was approximately $104 million.
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Bell Tower
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| Location: | Capitol Sq., Richmond, Virginia |
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| Area: | 14.1 acres (5.7 ha) |
| Built: | 1824 |
| Architect: | Swain,Levi |
| Architectural style: | Federal |
| Governing body: | State |
| NRHP Reference#: | 69000347[1] |
| Added to NRHP: | June 11, 1969 |
The area around the Capitol is known as Capitol Square. It contains several monuments to prominent Virginians and events in Virginia:
The Bell Tower was built in 1824–1825. Still used for ceremonial ringing, it now houses a visitors center.
Given its Classical Revival style of architecture along with the fact that its color is white, the Capitol was the double for the exterior shots of The White House featured in the movie The Contender.[5]
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