The Old Senate Chamber is Open!

“...Still the deed these old walls witnessed has given to the surroundings a charm that no coat of paint can ever remove, and so long as a fragment of the building is left standing the spot will be hallowed by all true Americans.” [1]

The exposed eighteenth-century niche is one of the few original architectural features left in the room. Maryland State Archives, May 2014.

After over seven years of research, construction, meetings, and conservation, we are delighted to inform you that the Old Senate Chamber has at last been reopened! In accordance with the original objective of the project, the room has been carefully restored to how it would have architecturally appeared in 1783-1784, when Congress held session in Annapolis, ratified the Treaty of Paris, and received George Washington’s resignation as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, thereby affirming civilian control of the American military.

George Washington’s Speech is Unveiled!

On President’s Day this year, visitors to the State House and the Maryland General Assembly had cause to celebrate. George Washington’s handwritten copy of his resignation speech was at last unveiled in the rotunda, where it will remain, in a new case constructed specifically for its permanent display.

The color guard pays its respects prior to the unveiling of the speech. Image courtesy of the Executive Office of the Governor, 16 February 2015.

Since being acquired by the state of Maryland in 2007, and verified as Washington’s original copy through watermark analysis, the speech has been locked away deep in the Maryland State Archives, waiting to be installed in the State House around the time of the opening of the Old Senate Chamber. In preparation for this event, the speech was cleaned and given a bath by Archives conservation staff so that it would be in good shape for the big unveiling!

There At the Resignation: James McHenry

Over the past several months, we have covered many of the key players in the Old Senate Chamber’s history, several of whom will be featured in our exhibit. From Molly Ridout to John Shaw, we have introduced you to famous attendees and artisans alike. Now, with only a short time to go until the opening of the restored room, we bring you one last biography of the man who provided one of the most significant accounts of the resignation - one of Maryland’s delegates in Congress, James McHenry.

Pastel portrait of James McHenry, by De Nyse W. Turner after James Sharples, 1975. Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-1029.

Are You Sitting Down? Finding a Chair Fit for the Resignation

When Congress first arrived in Annapolis to hold session in the Maryland State House, the state’s General Assembly was faced with a rather embarrassing problem. Maryland’s Intendant of the Revenue, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, had ordered five dozen Windsor chairs from Matthew Ridley and Mark Pringle in November 1783, likely as a means to accommodate the rush of delegates who would be occupying the Old Senate Chamber. However, due to an unusually cold winter, the Baltimore harbor froze and the chairs did not arrive until April 1784.[1]

Annapolis had won the right to become the first peacetime capital of America, yet had suddenly found itself offering a room that would not have enough chairs to actually host the delegates. While some furniture could likely have been pulled from other offices in the State House, an event as crowded and historic as Washington’s resignation meant that chairs for Congress would have to be procured from another source as well.

William Paca's armchair, now in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society and on loan to Historic Annapolis, Inc., MHS 20.39.2. Iverson, Marion Day, The American Chair 1630-1890. New York: Hastings House, p.112.

The Last Royal Governor at Washington's Resignation?

It seems unlikely that one of Maryland’s last living reminders of their days as a colony would attend Washington’s resignation, an event that symbolized the new country’s loyalty to the democratic principles that encouraged the dramatic break with England. Yet, in 1783, the last royal governor, Robert Eden, and the last Lord Baltimore’s illegitimate son, Henry Harford, had returned to Annapolis in the hopes of regaining their property that they had lost as loyalists during the war; and, on December 23, the Englishmen entered the Old Senate Chamber not as intruders, but as honored guests.

Portrait of Sir Robert Eden, by Florence Mackubin after Charles Willson Peale, 1914. Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-1108.

Lafayette Becomes “Quite the Thing” in Annapolis

As recent visitors to the State House may have noticed, the Old Senate Chamber restoration impacts much more than just the closing of one room! Many paintings in the state art collection are currently undergoing conservation as part of the restoration, including several portraits of Maryland governors, which have recently been removed from the Archives Room. Walls in the State House rarely remain bare for long though, and we are pleased to use this opportunity to introduce a new exhibit to the Archives Room, featuring an eighteenth-century character with surprisingly strong connections to Annapolis! The Marquis de Lafayette, who first landed in the colonies on June 13, 1777, 237 years ago this month, visited the Maryland State House several times over the course of his long and heroic life.

Marquis de Lafayette by Robert Templeton after Charles Willson Peale, 1975. Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-1034.

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.

Commemorating George

In the early twentieth-century, Annapolis lawyer and amateur historian George Forbes would give lectures using vintage photographs of Annapolis that he had collected over the years. When one picture of Edwin White’s Washington Resigning would appear on the slideshow’s projector, Forbes would read a speech from his lecture notes on the history of the painting, and wouldn’t be able to resist adding, “Something should be done to commemorate this scene either by marking the place with a star, where Washington stood; by erecting a statue of him thereon, or in a way which I think better still, and which I urged in an address before the Municipal Art Society, to reproduce the entire scene in wax, after the works of Eden Musee, and Madam [Tussauds] in London.”[1]

Forbes was far from the first person to believe that the momentous occasion of Washington’s resignation needed to be immortalized in the room where it took place. Though perhaps not as eclectic as Forbes’ wax sculpture scene, people over the years have come up with a multitude of creative ways to immortalize the resignation.

Plastic mannequin of George Washington - one of the most recent incarnations of a tribute to the resignation. Gift of the Maryland Society of Senates Past and the Colonial Dames of America, Chapter One, Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-808.

Washington’s Britannia: Authenticating the Resignation Speech

As the clock continues to tick closer to the opening of the restored Old Senate Chamber in December 2014, we have already begun planning for the unveiling of Washington’s copy of the resignation speech. New followers of the project may be asking themselves why this speech is so important in the first place. In an age where documents can readily be viewed online and the frequent danger of forgeries, how, exactly, do we know that this is actually Washington’s copy of the speech?

Britannia watermark on Washington's resignation speech.
Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 5664-1.

The Resignation...Again?

The words of Washington’s resignation speech, “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life,” have been uttered more than once on the floor of the Old Senate Chamber.[1] In fact, multiple reenactments of George Washington’s resignation before Congress have taken place over the years.

From the dedication of a plaque by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1916 to Colonial Day in 1928 and the Bicentennial Celebrations in 1932, the resignation ceremony has been a focal point in the way Maryland remembers George Washington.

Photograph of a costumed ball in the State House lobby for Colonial Day, 1928. Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1754-01-15.

The Resignation: Washington Resigns His Commission Before Congress

Two-hundred and thirty years ago today, at noon on Tuesday, December 23, 1783, Congress assembled in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House. The roll that day recorded only seven states in attendance, “namely: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and most of these only by two delegates.”[1] While this was not enough to pass legislation, Congress determined unanimously three days before that it would be enough to receive the resignation of the commander-in-chief.[2]

Despite the generally poor attendance of delegates, the room was crowded with citizens. Ladies filed into the gallery and men on the floor. David Howell of Rhode Island wrote, “The State House was crowded with people of the first fashion who all partook in the occasion. And many testified their affectionate attachment to our illustrious Hero & their gratitude for his Services to his Country by a most copious shedding of tears.”[3] On this day, the Old Senate Chamber had reached such a capacity that some people were asked to leave! Even so, the crowd was still overwhelming, as James Tilton, a delegate from Delaware, recorded: “At twelve o’clock the General was introduced by the Secretary, and seated opposite to the president, until the throng, that filled all the avenues, were so disposed of as to behold the solemnity. The ladies occupid the gallery, as full as it would hold, the Gentn. crouded below stairs.”[4]

George Washington Surrendering His Commission by Francis Blackwell Mayer, 1883. Image courtesy of the Mint Museum, 1971.14.

The Resignation: The State House Illuminated

On Christmas Day, 1783, James Tilton was a little disgruntled over his own behavior at a ball that had occurred three days prior. In a letter to fellow Delaware delegate, Gunning Bedford Jr., he bemoaned, “Such was my villainous awkwardness, that I could not venture to dance on this occasion, you must therefore annex to it a cleverer Idea, than is to be expected from such a mortified whelp as I am.”[1]

The particular ball that Tilton referred to was a rather important one, held at the State House on December 22, 1783 in honor of General Washington. After all, Washington’s public appearances in Annapolis in December 1783 were not only confined to the resignation ceremony, but also included several public celebrations held in his honor. Tilton’s letter to Bedford has since become a valuable resource in determining contemporary impressions of the resignation and the celebrations held on the eve of it.

James Tilton, a Delaware delegate in Congress, was present for the resignation. Lithography by Thomas Edwards, 1828. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.78.141.

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] 

The Resignation: Washington at the City Gates

In the days leading up to the two hundred and thirtieth anniversary of Washington’s resignation as Commander-in-Chief in the Old Senate Chamber, we will review the events leading up to one of the most significant events in American history.

On the evening of Friday, December 19, 1783, Generals William Smallwood and Horatio Gates, both Revolutionary War heroes, waited alongside several prominent Marylanders on the road a few miles from Annapolis to meet and escort General Washington into the city.[1] Annapolis was to be the final stop in what had become a sort of farewell tour for Washington, who had stopped in several cities along the way. A discharge of a cannon publicly announced his arrival as Smallwood, Gates, and the others led Washington to Mann’s Tavern where he would lodge for the duration of his visit. After meeting with several leading citizens that night, Washington spent some time with the President of Congress, Thomas Mifflin, before retiring for the evening.

A twentieth-century depiction painted by Everette Molinari of Mann's Tavern, where Washington stayed during his resignation and ceremonies. Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-2893.