General Assembly Occupies New State Capitol, January 2, 1822

The General Assembly of Pennsylvania met in the Dauphin County courthouse for the last time December 21, 1821, and then a joint resolution was adopted:

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That when the Legislature meets at the new State Capitol, on Wednesday, the 2d of January next, that it is highly proper, before either house proceeds to business, they unite in prayer to the Almighty God, imploring His blessing on their future deliberations, and that the joint committee already appointed be authorized to make the necessary arrangements for that purpose.”

4On Wednesday, January 2, 1822, on motion of Mr. Lehman and Mr. Todd, the House proceeded to the building lately occupied by the Legislature. There they joined the procession to the Capitol and attended to the solemnities directed by the resolution of December 21, relative to the ceremonies to be observed by the Legislature upon taking possession of the State Capitol.

The Harrisburg Chronicle of January 3, 1822, printed an account of the proceedings from which the following is taken:

“The members of both branches of the Legislature met in the morning at 10 o’clock, at the old State House (court house) whence they moved to the Capitol in the following

Order of Procession

The Architect and his Workmen, two and two.

Clergy.

Governor and Heads of Departments.

Officers of the Senate.

Speaker of the Senate.

Members of the Senate, two and two.

Officers of the House of Representatives.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Members, two and two.

Judges.

Civil Authorities of Harrisburg.

Citizens.

“In front of the Capitol the architect and his workmen opened into two lines and admitted the procession to pass between them and the Capitol.

“The service was opened by a pertinent and impressive prayer, by Rev. Dr. A. Lochman, of Harrisburg. The prayer was followed by an appropriate discourse, by Rev. D. Mason, principal of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., which concluded as follows:

“Sixty years have not elapsed since the sound of the first axe was heard in the woods of Harrisburg. The wild beasts and wilder men occupied the banks of the Susquehanna. Since that time, with the mildness which has characterized the descendants of William Penn, and that industry which has marked all the generations of Pennsylvania, the forests have been subdued, the wild beasts driven away to parts more congenial to their nature, and the wilder men have withdrawn to regions where they hunt the deer and entrap the fish according to the mode practiced by their ancestors.

“In the room of all these there has started up, in the course of a few years, a town respectable for the number of its inhabitants, for its progressive industry, for the seat of legislation in this powerful State.

“What remains to be accomplished of all our temporal wishes? 5What more have we to say? What more can be said, but go on and prosper, carry the spirit of your improvements through till the sound of the hammer, the whip of the wagoner, the busy hum of man, the voices of innumerable children issuing from the places of instruction, the lofty spires of worship, till richly endowed colleges of education, till all those arts which embellish man shall gladden the banks of the Susquehanna and the Delaware, and exact from admiring strangers that cheerful and grateful tribute, this is the work of a Pennsylvania Legislature!”

The act to erect the State Capitol was passed March 18, 1816, and carried an appropriation of $50,000. A supplement to this act was approved February 27, 1819, when there was appropriated $70,000, with the provision that the said Capitol should not cost more than $120,000.

But a further supplement was approved March 28, 1820, for “the purpose of constructing columns and capitols there of hewn stone, and to cover the roof of the dome, etc.,” there was appropriated $15,000.

At this time the total cost of all the public buildings was $275,000, and consisted of the new Capitol, $135,000; executive offices on both sides of the Capitol building, $93,000; Arsenal, $12,000, and public grounds, its enclosure and embellishment, $35,000.

The cornerstone of this new Capitol was laid at 12 o’clock on Monday, May 31, 1819, by Governor William Findlay, assisted by Stephen Hills, the architect and contractor for the execution of the work; William Smith, stone cutter, and Valentine Kergan and Samuel White, masons, in the presence of the Commissioners and a large concourse of citizens. The ceremony was followed by the firing of three volleys from the public cannon.

The newspaper account of the event states that the above-mentioned citizens then partook of a cold collation, provided on the public ground by Mr. Rahn.

The Building Commissioners deposited in the cornerstone the following documents:

Charter of Charles II to William Penn.

Declaration of Independence.

Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1776.

Articles of Confederation and perpetual union between the several States.

Copy of so much of an act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, by which indemnity was made to the heirs of William Penn for their interest in Pennsylvania.

Treaty of peace and acknowledgment by Great Britain of the independence of the United States.

Constitution of the United States, 1787.

Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1790.

Acts of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, by which the seat of government was removed from Philadelphia to Lancaster and Harrisburg, 6and the building of a State Capitol at the latter place authorized.

A list of the names of the Commissioners, architects, stonecutter and chief masons; likewise, a list of the then officers of the Government of Pennsylvania, embracing the Speakers of the two Houses of the Legislature, the Governor, the heads of departments, the Judges of the Supreme Court and Attorney General, with the names of the President and Vice President of the United States.

It was a singular oversight that this cornerstone was not marked as such, and in after years it was not known at which corner of the building the stone was situated.

An act providing for the furnishing of the State Capitol was approved March 30, 1821: Section 1. The Governor, Auditor General, State Treasurer, William Graydon, Jacob Bucher, Francis R. Shunk and Joseph A. McGinsey were appointed Commissioners to superintend the furnishing of the State Capitol. This able commission expended the $15,000 appropriated, and the new Capitol was a credit to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when the General Assembly formally occupied it January 2, 1822.