On November 1, 1779, two hundred and thirty-four years ago,
the Proceedings of the House of Delegates recorded "Monday, November 1,
1779, being the day appointed for a receiving of the General Assembly, appeared
at the Stadt-house, in the city of Annapolis ."[1]
This entry marks the day that the legislature first moved into the third and
current State House, and making today the start of the building's current streak
of continuous occupancy--the longest such streak in the nation.
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| A conjectural image of the third State House when it first opened. Even though the legislature had begun to occupy the State House in 1779, the roof was not finished until nearly a decade later. By 1788, the dome had been redone and completed by architect, Joseph Clark. Sketch by Elizabeth Ridout, Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1444. |
The current State House that the delegates moved into in
1779 was not the first State House built on top of Annapolis ' State Circle . In fact, there had been two
prior. The first, constructed in 1695, was short-lived and burned down in 1704.
The second was completed in 1709, and had begun to show its age after sixty
years of use. In 1769, William Eddis, the Surveyor of Customs in Annapolis,
wrote, "The public buildings do not impress the mind with any idea of
magnificence...nothing expressive of the great purpose to which it is
appropriated; and by a strange neglect; is suffered to fall continually into
decay."[2]
