Ohio Statehouse

At a glance

Overview

The Ohio Statehouse is Ohio's capitol, a Greek Revival building of Columbus limestone on a 10-acre square in downtown Columbus. The square exists because four Franklinton landowners, John Kerr, Lyne Starling, James Johnston and Alexander McLaughlin, offered the legislature land and buildings in 1812 for a new capital on the east bank of the Scioto; the legislature accepted on February 14, 1812, and named the town Columbus six days later. A plain brick first statehouse stood on the square's southwest corner from 1816 until it burned on February 1, 1852. The present building, begun with a cornerstone on July 4, 1839, and built partly by Ohio Penitentiary convicts, stalled from 1840 to 1848, opened to the legislature in January 1857 and was finished in 1861 at a cost of about $1.35 million. Abraham Lincoln spoke there in 1859 and 1861 and lay in state in its rotunda in 1865; a restoration begun in 1989 returned it to its 19th-century appearance, and it remains the working home of the Ohio General Assembly.

The name

The new capital was named Columbus by a joint resolution of the General Assembly on February 20, 1812, six days after the act fixing the seat of government on the proprietors' land opposite Franklinton. The ground set aside for public buildings was called the Public Square in the early records and became Capitol Square. (source)

Native American history

The square sits on the high east bank of the Scioto just below the Forks, where the Olentangy (then called the Whetstone) joins it. A few blocks south, at the southeast corner of High and Mound streets, stood one of the largest mounds in Franklin County, a truncated cone reported at about 40 feet high, which Alfred Lee's 1892 history of Columbus calls one of the most imposing works of the 'original Scioto race.' It was cut through when High Street was extended, and Lee records that clay for the bricks of the first Statehouse, built mainly in 1814 and 1815, was taken in part from that mound. Human bones and a silver buckle were reported from its upper layers, which Lee attributes to later Native burials rather than to the mound's builders. In 1794 and 1795, the Wyandot family that adopted the captive boy Jeremiah Armstrong camped and raised corn near the Forks, where the Ohio Penitentiary later stood on the town's second 10-acre state lot. The 1812 town plat lay on 'refugee lands,' the federal Refugee Tract, and Lee says the 1795 Treaty of Greenville released all Native lands in Ohio except reserved tracts in the northwest, which places this ground within that cession.

• High Street mound (site of St. Paul's Lutheran Church): mound, Southeast corner of High and Mound streets, Columbus, a few blocks south of Capitol Square, Pre-contact; leveled in the early 19th century
• Wyandot camp near the Forks of the Scioto and Olentangy: camp, Near the later Ohio Penitentiary site, west of Capitol Square, 1794-1795
• Treaty of Greenville cession: treaty, All of Ohio except reserved tracts in the northwest corner, August 3, 1795

Stories

Four landowners buy a capital

In 1810 the legislature decided Ohio's permanent capital should be near the center of the state, and towns competed for it; Worthington was said to have had a majority at one point. On February 10, 1812, Lyne Starling, James Johnston, Alexander McLaughlin and John Kerr, landowners at Franklinton, signed a bond promising to lay out a town on their wild, wooded land across the Scioto, give the state a 10-acre square and a 10-acre lot, and build a statehouse, offices and a penitentiary at their own cost. With Foos, Sullivant and other Franklinton men working for it in the session's closing hours, their offer won, and the act of February 14 fixed the seat of government there from December 1817 until at least 1840. Under their private agreement, signed at Zanesville on February 19, each partner was to pay $2,400 a year for five years toward the public buildings and share in the profits from selling town lots. The legislature named the town Columbus on February 20 and appointed Joel Wright of Warren County to lay it out. (source)

Twenty-two years, five architects, and convict labor

The Statehouse's design came out of a competition, and its stone came from a quarry on the west bank of the Scioto. Prison labor from the Ohio Penitentiary built the foundation and ground floors until skilled tradesmen, who felt they were losing good-paying jobs, forced a change in hiring. Work halted in winters and whenever the money ran out. After the 1839 cornerstone there was an eight-year lapse from 1840 to 1848, when the completed basement and foundations were filled in with soil and Capitol Square was used as a pasture. Five principal architects in turn shaped the building. Nathan Kelley discovered it had been planned with no heating or ventilation and lined it with brick 'air sewers' that pushed air through the building so well that later attempts to seal them failed when the covers blew off; he was fired anyway, because the commissioners thought his interiors too costly and lavish. During the 1989 restoration workers found a prisoner's graffiti, a profile labeled 'Badger,' and traced it to Ephraim Badger, jailed 1846 to 1849 for burglary and pardoned 'for service to the state.' (source)

The Grand Jubilee of 1857

With the legislative halls ready on January 1, 1857, Columbus threw a public housewarming on the evening of January 6 for legislators, state officers and visitors from other states. The Cleveland Greys and Columbus Fencibles paraded, and from 9 p.m. until after midnight there was dancing in the rotunda. The 1920 city history says more than 10,000 people came and the crush was so great that women fainted, until two strong men, David Taylor and Lucian Buttles, forced every door open and ticket-taking stopped. The committee reported $4,703 in receipts. (source)

Lincoln at the Statehouse

Abraham Lincoln first came to the Statehouse on September 16, 1859, speaking to a small crowd from the east terrace in his first Ohio speech after the Lincoln-Douglas debates. He argued that slavery would be a lasting source of discord until it either mastered or was mastered by 'the free principle,' and the speech was published with the debates and circulated widely before the 1860 campaign. He returned as president-elect on February 13, 1861, to address the legislature. On April 29, 1865, his body lay in state in the rotunda from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. as about 50,000 mourners passed. (source)

Statehouse Malaria

Four open light courts were built into the Statehouse to bring daylight to interior rooms, crossed by limestone balconies leading to the men's water closets; no women's restrooms were planned because women had no part in the legislature. In 1876 new restrooms were added near the House chamber, and their sewer ducts were connected by mistake to the ventilation ducts. For eight years the air near the chamber was so foul that newspapers called the resulting illness 'Statehouse Malaria'; one representative from Washington Court House was reported to have gone home and died after a session, and another went to Florida to recover. The problem was diagnosed in November 1884, and 150 barrels of filth were taken out of the ducts. Later, with gas and electric light, the light courts were filled with offices, one with seven floors, and the Statehouse's 54 rooms of 1861 became 317 by 1989. (source)

A building of Columbus limestone

Edward Orton, the state geologist, wrote in the 1892 city history that the rock under Columbus is Devonian: the Upper Helderberg limestone quarried along the Scioto within three miles of the Statehouse, and the Ohio shale to the north. The lower, even-bedded half of the limestone was the 'Columbus limestone' of the city's foundations, curbs and steps, and he called the Statehouse the most conspicuous example of its use. He also noted its flaw: the stone tends to split along its fossil beds, and much of the Statehouse's worst decay came from setting blocks on edge in ashlar courses. The west-front columns, cut from a bed originally 60 inches thick and split before laying, he thought would 'stand forever,' and some main staircases have steps cantilevered six feet or more from the wall. (source)

Timeline

• 1795: The Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, released to the United States all Native lands in Ohio outside reserved tracts in the northwest, including the land that became Columbus. (source)
• 1810: The legislature moved the capital from Chillicothe to Zanesville and called for a permanent capital no more than 40 miles from the center of the state. (source)
• 1812: On February 10 John Kerr, Lyne Starling, James Johnston and Alexander McLaughlin signed a bond to lay out a town on the east bank of the Scioto opposite Franklinton, give the state a 10-acre square and a 10-acre lot, and build a statehouse, offices and a penitentiary. (source)
• 1812: The General Assembly accepted the proposal on February 14, fixing the permanent seat of government there, and on February 20 named the town Columbus. (source)
• 1812: Director Joel Wright of Warren County staked out the Public Square and placed the statehouse on its southwest corner; the square was fenced with a rail fence. (source)
• 1815: The first Columbus statehouse, a plain two-story brick building 75 by 50 feet with a 106-foot spire at State and High streets, was substantially completed during 1814 and 1815, and Jarvis Pike cleared the square's forest in 1815 or 1816 and farmed it. (source)
• 1834: The square was enclosed with a painted picket fence and planted with young elm trees at the urging of state agent Alfred Kelley. (source)
• 1838: The Statehouse Act of 1838 created a three-member commission, which held a national design contest won by Henry Walter of Cincinnati, Martin E. Thompson of New York and painter Thomas Cole. (source)
• 1839: Former governor Jeremiah Morrow laid the cornerstone at noon on July 4 before a large civil and military crowd. (source)
• 1840: Work stopped when the law making Columbus the capital was due to expire; in the eight-year gap to 1848 the completed basement and foundations were filled in with soil and the square was used as a pasture. (source)
• 1846: A second act, passed February 21, provided again for building a new statehouse with a small appropriation. (source)
• 1848: William Russell West and J. O. Sawyer were named architects, a railroad track was laid to the quarries, and the walls rose to 14 feet by 1849. (source)
• 1850: Construction continued through a cholera epidemic that killed commissioner Joseph Ridgway Jr.; the walls reached 30 feet by year's end. (source)
• 1852: The old statehouse burned on February 1, and the city council offered the General Assembly the use of City Hall the next day. (source)
• 1857: The legislative halls were ready on January 1, and a public housewarming on January 6 drew more than 10,000 people. (source)
• 1859: Abraham Lincoln spoke from the east terrace on September 16, in his first Ohio speech, repeating that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand.' (source)
• 1861: Lincoln addressed a joint session of the legislature on February 13 on his way to his inauguration. (source)
• 1865: Lincoln's body lay in state in the rotunda on April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. while about 50,000 mourners filed past. (source)
• 1876: New restrooms near the House chamber were connected by mistake to the building's ventilation ducts, fouling the air for eight years. (source)
• 1884: In November the cause of 'Statehouse Malaria' was found and 150 barrels of filth were removed from the ducts. (source)
• 1901: The Judiciary Annex, designed by Samuel Hannaford and Sons of Cincinnati in Columbus limestone, was finished on the square's east side and housed the Ohio Supreme Court until 1974. (source)
• 1906: More than 50,000 people attended the unveiling of the William McKinley Monument on September 14, the largest Statehouse crowd to that time. (source)
• 1960s: An underground parking garage was built beneath the west lawn, and the McKinley Monument was temporarily moved and later rededicated nearby. (source)
• 1972: The Statehouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 31; it was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 22, 1977. (source)
• 1989: A full restoration began, when the building designed with 54 rooms had been carved into 317 by floors built inside its light courts. (source)
• 1993: The old Judiciary Annex, one of the first parts of the Capitol Square restoration, reopened in March as the Senate Building. (source)
• 1996: More than 20,000 people came to the 'Picnic with the Past' marking the reopening after restoration. (source)

Sources

• ohiostatehouse.org: statehouse
• ohiostatehouse.org: cupola
• ohiostatehouse.org: rotunda
• ohiostatehouse.org: light courts
• ohiostatehouse.org: senate building
• ohiostatehouse.org: atrium
• ohiostatehouse.org: william mckinley monument
• remarkableohio.org: 79 25 the ohio statehouse lincoln at the statehouse
• archive.org: historyofcityofc01leea djvu.txt
• archive.org: historyofcityofc02leea djvu.txt
• archive.org: historyofcityofc00hoop djvu.txt
• en.wikipedia.org: Ohio Statehouse
• en.wikipedia.org: Refugee Tract