The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1909-07-02

ence hall should have been made ready for the oc-
cupany of the Provincial assembly and the gov
ernors council virtually at the exact time when
the colonies of Great Britain in America began
to feel their growing strength sufficiently to in
duce them to insist more than ever before upon
the right to be specially mindful of their own in
terests, II was only a quarter of a century after
the old Liberty Bell was cast by patriotic ar
tisans in this city that it used to gather the
people to hear the proclamation, by order of the
continental congress- of the absolute political sep
aration OF the l3 colonies from the mother coun.
try. The state house sheltered not only the
continental congress during many critical ses-
sions, but also the supreme council of the feder
alton of the United States, the constitutional con-
Ventlon OF 1887, the supreme court of the United
States and the provincial and state legislature
OF pennsylvania in that long period of the con.
ception birth and infancy of the western repub
sllc Every man OF any distinction whatever in
that great epoch, from Andrew Hamilton and
Benjamin Franklin to Lafayette and Pulaski
passed through its portals. 1t is the silent survv-
ing witness OF stupendous past, so stupendous
indeed that hardly anything is more wonderful
imam the absolute simplicity of the austere stage
setting OF those dramatic actions which indirectly
transformed the whole political world
William Penns council of state first met in
George Guests unfinished house near the mouth
@of Dock creek, afterward called the Blue Anchor
= taVerA Settlers at that time were living in
caves along the west bank of the Delaware riv-
err 1t Is also supposed to have met in the
Swedes church at Wcaco down the river and
IN William PENIS house in Laetitia court, the
same which now stands in Fairmount park uptj,
1T removed to the new state house IN 17a7 Tho
provincial assembly probably sat In the first
iTough meeting house erected for the worshin Of
FRIENDS shortly after PENIS arrival, and then In
the later one on Front street known as the Rank
Meeung Rouse But 1t also sat elsewhere some
tiihes IN houses that were erected for private use
It was in January, 1929, that the assembly.
awake finally to the need Of suitable provincial
capitol, voted $4,000 ($10,060), toward its cost
ana appropriated the same out of an issue of ma.
per money which 1t had just authorized William
Allen who was afterward one of Phiadelphia's
most FAMOUS mayors and became Justice of the
supreme court, acted as the agent of the province
in the purchase of the lots of ground on Chest.
nut street, from Fifth to Sixth and extending
halfway back toward Walnut street, which
formed the chosen site. 1t was not until 1863 that
the remainder of the square was acquired DR.
Kearsley, the architect of Christ church aspired
also to design the state house and is said to have
peen, disgrunted because he was not permitted to
wv ~ 'poies Ld"leuCe, aHufeW hamilton and
DR.. John kearsley composed the building com.
mittee.
The main structure. minus the great tower.
which had not yet been built, was in rough
state when, in September, 1886, William Allen
the mayor, gave a banquet and frolic in the Long
room in the second story, which was to be the
scene of so many later revelries and solemnities
Is we'll
Public contractors were dilatory in those DAYS
as in these, and 1t was not until 1745 that the
'oom of the assembly In the state house was com.
oleted 1t is curious to note that it was heated
1t that time by means of two open stoves al