Mapping Jefferson in Annapolis

George Washington wasn’t the only founding father who famously visited the Maryland State House. In previous blog posts, we have talked about Thomas Jefferson, his visit to the dome with James Madison, and his involvement in planning the resignation ceremony. Just in time Jefferson’s 272nd birthday on April 13, Maryland’s retired state archivist, Dr. Ed Papenfuse, has now given some insight into Jefferson’s entire time in Annapolis, in his blog, Reflections by a Maryland Archivist.

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson shortly after being appointed as a minister to France, by Mather Brown, 1786. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

If you’re like us and need your fix on colonial Annapolis history while we wait for the Old Senate Chamber to open, or even are just hoping for a little bit of history on your downtown walking tour this spring, we highly recommend this read on Jefferson’s appearance in Maryland history, and the buildings that remain today. You can check it out here!

231 Years Ago: A Rush to Ratify the Treaty of Paris

Most students of American history know the story of the signing of the Treaty of Paris at the end of the American Revolution. However, few are aware of the tensions felt by Congress to ratify the treaty in time and the final dramatic race to return the ratified copy to the peace commissioners by the agreed-upon deadline.

In Paris on September 3, 1783, peace commissioners John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Laurens had at last concluded negotiations with the British delegation. However, the treaty could not be considered a legal, active document until it was ratified by both Congress and King George III within the next six months. Copies of the treaty were immediately sent to both England and America, and Congress, at the time meeting in Princeton, sent messages to all thirteen states to reconvene in Annapolis for the purpose of the document’s immediate ratification.

American painter, and mentor to Charles Willson Peale, Benjamin West captured one of the most well-known images of the Treaty of Paris negotiations. The image depicts American peace commissioners, John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and Franklin's secretary, William Temple Franklin. Unable to secure sittings with the British delegation, this painting was famously not completed. American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain by Benjamin West, 1783. Image courtesy of Winterthur Museum and Gardens, 1957.856.

Joseph Clark's Dome

Many tourists enter the Maryland State House, admire the copy of George Washington’s resignation speech in the rotunda, and look above them at the interior of the dome. Unfortunately, there is a common misconception that the dome visitors see today was the very dome that stood when Washington entered the building on December 23, 1783. In fact, the famous dome that crowns the State House is not the first on the building.

Conjectural drawing of the original appearance of the State House dome when the building first opened in 1772. Sketch by Elizabeth Ridout, Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1444.

Though construction on the State House began in 1772, when Continental Congress arrived in 1783, they found a building still riddled with complications. The building's undertaker, Charles Wallace, left the project in 1779 due to frustration with finances and continual delays to the project from weather and war. Though the rooms were fully completed and furnished in 1783, the roof continually leaked and damaged much of the upstairs rooms. Aesthetically, the original dome that Congress would have seen was considered too small and unimpressive for a building considered the most beautiful in America.

Congress Assembled: Why We Care About Ceremonial Protocol

On December 21, 1783, Thomas Jefferson sent a carefully drafted speech intended for the President of Congress to the rest of the Committee of Procedures for Washington’s resignation ceremony. To Elbridge Gerry and James McHenry, who were furiously drafting a set of ceremonial instructions known as protocol, he wrote “I send you the sketch, which I have been obliged to obliterate and blot after making what I intended for a fair copy…. Perhaps this answer is too short; perhaps it is too warm. A want of time must apologize for the one, and an exalted esteem for the other faults.”[1] Together, the three men came up with the adopted protocol for the resignation ceremony that today remains one of the most important written records to describe what happened on that day.

While protocol may seem like a boring list of who was bowing when, we have discovered that eighteenth-century ceremonial protocol is actually much more complex and revealing than originally thought. Protocol actually provides a contemporary account of how eighteenth-century people saw each other. What’s more, by learning exactly who was sitting and where, we can get one of the most accurate and contemporary descriptions of the Old Senate Chamber on the very day Washington resigned! Our staff has conducted months of intensive research to study every ceremony conducted by Congress between 1778 and 1783 in the hopes of putting together the puzzle pieces to recreate what exactly happened on December 23, 1783.

This print of Benjamin Franklin's reception at the French court is a perfect example of the American colonies, and later the United States, trying to communicate with other countries based around monarchies. Franklin's Reception at the Court of France, 1778, by Anton Hohenstein in the 1860s. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Thomas Jefferson's Appointment

While Continental Congress was holding session in Annapolis in the Old Senate Chamber, the room inevitably bore witness to several significant events in our nation’s history. Visitors to the State House will undoubtedly hear about Washington's resignation and even the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, but sometimes overlook another event that occurred toward the end of the Congress’ time in the State House. A little over 230 years ago today, on May 7, 1784, Thomas Jefferson was appointed a trade commissioner in the Old Senate Chamber, making him the first official representative of the independent United States to a foreign government.

Thomas Jefferson painted by Mather Brown in London, 1786. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

The Treaty of Paris is Ratified

Washington’s resignation was far from the only significant event to occur while Congress was in session in the Old Senate Chamber. On January 14, 1784, the Treaty of Paris was ratified, officially ending the American Revolution and making the Maryland State House the first official peacetime capitol of the United States.

An excerpt from the Treaty of Paris, 1783. Image courtesy of International Treaties and Related Records, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives.

Negotiations for peace began as early as April 1782, but it wasn't until September 3, 1783 that British and American delegates signed the final draft in France. In order for the treaty to officially take effect, it had to be ratified by Congress within six months. Congress immediately called its delegates to meet in Annapolis that November to approve the treaty.

The Resignation: Committee for Procedures

By all standards, George Washington’s resignation as commander-in-chief was a dignified yet modest affair for Congress. All the same, a certain amount of ceremony for an event as momentous as the resignation was required. Delegates Thomas Jefferson, Elbridge Gerry, and James McHenry were selected by Congress on December 20, 1783 to form the Committee for Procedures for the event.[1]

James McHenry, by Charles Balthazar Julien Feveret de Saint-Mémin, 1803. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Their report was likely prepared during the weekend before the resignation. Apart from establishing the protocol of the actual ceremony, the committee’s responsibilities may have also included writing the President of Congress’ response to Washington’s resignation speech, though James McHenry admitted to not having been involved in this task. In December 1783, McHenry was love-sick over his fiance, Margaret Caldwell, and wrote to her, “I was to assist in writing our answer to General Washington’s resignation - but I am unfit for the purpose.”[2] 

Annapolis: A “School of Idleness"

Though Congress had opened session on November 26, 1783, very little was getting accomplished. Not enough delegates had arrived to reach even the minimum amount required to vote and pass legislature. In fact, on the day of Washington’s resignation, the Journals of Congress noted that only seven states were represented, and “most only by two delegates.”[1] Without nine states, legislation could not be passed, and with delegates arriving and leaving, the issue of representation was a reoccuring problem. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s frustration was evident as even Maryland delegates at times failed to show up in their own state capitol: “We have eight states only and seven of these represented by two members... the other absent states are N. York, Maryland and Georgia. We have done nothing and can do nothing in this condition but waste our time, temper, and spirits in debating things for days or weeks and then losing them by the negative of one or two individuals.”[2]

With little business in Congress taking place, delegates occupied their time in other ways in their new city. Annapolis, in its heyday, elicited a diversity of opinions from the delegates.

Captaine Michel du Chesnoy's 1781 map of Annapolis, known as "The Frenchman's Map." Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1427-1-7.