"Royall Capitol"

Last week Virginia's General Assembly did something it had not done since a British force under Colonel Tarleton threatened Richmond in 1781. With Governor Peery and the State Supreme Court, the Legislature evacuated Richmond. In a special train the dignitaries traveled 45 miles south to Williamsburg where the Legislature officially reconvened.

Occasion was the dedication of a copy of Virginia's ancient provincial Capitol, destroyed by fire in 1747, part of John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s $12,000,000 scheme to restore Williamsburg to its 18th Century glory. At a joint session in the austere room of the House of Burgesses, the General Assembly of Virginia saw onetime Governors Davis, Trinkle, Byrd and Pollard on the dais, heard Governor Peery and Mr. Rockefeller speak. Said pious Mr. Rockefeller: "What a temptation to sit in silence and let the past speak to us of those great patriots whose voices once resounded in these halls. Well may we say to ourselves in the words which the Captain of the Lord's host spoke unto Joshua: 'Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.'" When the joint session adjourned, the Legislature passed a bill permitting it to sit once a year at Williamsburg. After the ceremonies, the party inspected the H-shaped Capitol building, whose handmade bricks had been specially fashioned in a nearby brickyard, admired the reproduction of the chair in which the Crown Governor once sat, smiled at an inscription above an arch in the south wall of the piazza: "Her Majesty Queen Anne Her Royall Capitol." A reception and luncheon given by Mr. Rockefeller and a Legislative tour of restored private homes and public buildings concluded Williamsburg's biggest day since 1779, when the capital moved to Richmond.

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