First Session in the New Capitol

...where meetings "may continue to be held (...) So long as the Sun and Moon endure" - by Harold B. Gill, Jr.

A semicircular apse, in which nestled the speaker’s chair, was a distinctive feature of Hall of the House of Burgesses of Williamsburg’s original Capitol, completed in 1704. The interpreters here portraying colonial Virginia lawmakers are costumed in fashions appropriate to circa 1775—by which time a second, square-ended Capitol had risen on the site. Photograph by David Doody

ON APRIL 21, 1704, the House of Burgesses met for the first time at the still incomplete “her Majesty Queen Anne her Royall Capitol” in Williamsburg. Governor Francis Nicholson thought the “rooms in the Capitol are now fit to accommodate the Council and Burgesses.” Accordingly, “Mr Speaker and thirty three Burgesses (…) met at the Capitoll in a room appointed for the Burgesses to sit in.” In his opening remarks, Governor Nicholson hoped that the General Assembly and General Courts “may continue to be held in this place for promoteing of Gods Glory her Majests and her Successors Interest and Service, with that of the Inhabitants of this her Majesty most antient and great Colony & Dominion of Virginia So long as the Sun and Moon endure.”