The “Old Capitol”

Following Page 204

Pages 19-20

To provide a meeting-place for Congress till the Capitol could be occupied once more, a building which stood at the corner of F and Seventh Streets was made over for the purpose. It proved so uncomfortable, however, as to revive with increased zest the discussion whether, in view of the spread of population through the newly opened West, it would not be wiser to remove the seat of government to some fairly accessible point in that part of the country. The agitation alarmed the more important property-owners in Washington, who, in order to head it off before it had gone too far, hastily organized a company to put up a temporary but better equipped substitute for the Capitol. They chose a site a few hundred yards to the eastward of the burned edifice, and there built a long house which is still standing, though now divided into dwellings. The stratagem accomplished its aim, and Congress stayed in its improvised domicile till 1819. This occupancy gave the building the title, “the Old Capitol,” that clings to it to-day in spite of the changes it has undergone in the interval.

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Pages 278-279

Opposite the east park of the Capitol, as we have already seen, stands the Old Capitol, a building with a variegated history. It was erected for the accommodation of Congress after the burning of the Capitol by the British. In it Henry Clay passed some years of his Speakership, and till very lately there was a scar on the wall of one of the rooms which was said to have been made by his desk. Under its roof the first Senators from Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi took their seats. In front of it, President Monroe was inaugurated. After Congress left it to return to the restored Capitol, it was rented for a boardinghouse, patronized chiefly by Senators and Representatives. Here John C. Calhoun lived for some time, and here he died. In one of the rooms, Persico, the Italian sculptor, worked out the model of his “Discoverer.” In another, Ann Royall edited her Huntress.

After the Civil War broke out, the Old Capitol was turned into a jail for the confinement of military offenders who were awaiting trial by court-martial, and for Confederate spies and other persons accused of unlawfully giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Belle Boyd, who was locked up there for a while, has left us her impressions of the place as “a vast brick building, like all prisons, somber, chilling, and repulsive.” She describes William P. Wood, who was superintendent of the prison, as “having a humane heart beneath a rough exterior.” Every Sunday he used to provide facilities for religious worship to his compulsory guests, announcing the hours and forms in characteristic fashion: “All you who want to hear the word of God preached according to Jeff Davis, go down into the yard; and all of you who want to hear it preached according to Abe Lincoln, go into No. 16.” In the jail yard Henry Wirz, who had been the keeper of the Confederate military prison at Andersonville, Georgia, where so many Union soldiers died of starvation and disease, was hanged for murder. At the close of the war the building was divided into a block of dwellings, of which the southernmost was long the home of the late Justice Field of the Supreme Court. The Justice used to enjoy telling his visitors about the distinguished men from the South who, after dining at his table, had roamed over the premises and located their one-time places of confinement.