Virginia State Capitol: Part Four

The first stop inside the original State Capitol is the Old Senate Chamber. The Old Senate Chamber was originally designed by Thomas Jeffeson as a larger space to serve as the General Court Room for the Commonwealth of Virginia. In the early 1840s, the Senate of Virginia began meeting in the room. In 1861, the Chamber became the home of the Confederate Congress. After the Civil War, the Virginia Senate resumed meeting in the room until 1904. Former U.S. President John Tyler and Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson each lay in state here after their deaths. The room currently hosts occasional committee meetings and pres conferences.

Following a brief history of the Old Senate Chamber, visitors to the Virginia State Capitol admire a number of paintings hanging in the room. The first is entitled "Three Ships" and was painted by Griffith Baily Coale in 1949. Depicted are the Godspeed, the Susan Constant, and the Discovery, which brought 104 settlers to what would become Jamestown and the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The painting was commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly and was used by the United States Postal Service on a stamp commemorating the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown.

The second painting is entitled "The Storming of a British Redoubt by American Troops at Yorktown" and was painted by the French artist Eugène-Louis Lami in 1840. The painting depicts an American attack led by Colonel Alexander Hamilton on a British redoubt at Yorktown in October 1781. The painting was given to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1878 by Virginia native and art collector William Corcoran.

The third painting is of Captain John Smith. Smith was born in January 1850, according to the best estimates of historians. At the age of sixteen, Smith began fighting as a mercenary against the likes of the Spanish and the Ottoman Turks. In 1607, he became involved with the Virginia Company of London's plans to colonise Virginia for profit. Per orders of the Virginia Company, Smith was to be one of the leaders of the new colony. He is best known as declaring that "that he that will not work shall not eat". Following that edict, the situation in Jamestown improved. In late 1609, an injury from a gunpowder explosion forced Smith to return to England for medical care. Following other explorations into the New World, John Smith died on 21 June 1631.

The fourth painting is of Pocahontas. Pocahontas's birth year is unknown, but some historians estimate it to have been around 1595. She was the daughter of Powhatan, who was the chief of roughly thirty allied Algonquin speaking groups in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Pocahontas is best known for her connection to Captain John Smith, who arrived in Virginia in April 1607. In 1614, she married John Rolfe, with whom she had one child, Thomas Rolfe. Their marriage led to a peaceful relationship between the English and the Powhatan. Two years later, Pocahontas traveled with Rolfe to London. Pocahontas died in March 1617.

The final painting is of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Rockefeller was born on 8 July 1839. After college, he began working at his father's Standard Oil headquarters, and later at J.P. Morgan's United Steel. Rockefeller was a philanthropist who gave much of his fortune to worthy causes. He financed the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. For that, Rockefeller was made an honorary citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. died on 23 May 1937.