Touring Hartford's Capitol Building

Rotunda

Hartford Capitol
The building is one of the largest Eastlake-style buildings. The exterior is of marble from East Canaan, Connecticut, and granite from Westerly, Rhode Island. The building is roughly rectangular, the interior spaces organized around two open interior courts that run vertically to large skylights. In the center is a third circular open rotunda beneath the dome. The larger hall of the House of Representatives forms an extension on the south side.

Stained Glass windows  QUI TRANSTULT SUSTINET

Connecticut the Constitution State 

The figurehead of the US Constitution 

From the Battle Field of Chickamauga 18863

Genius of Connecticut
The Genius of Connecticut by sculptor Randolph Rogers (1877–78), a plaster version of the bronze statue (destroyed) originally mounted on top of the dome, is exhibited on the main floor.

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon
"Hotchkiss gun" also refers to the Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon, a Gatling-type revolving barrel machine gun invented in 1872 by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss (1826–1885)

Houses of Representatives  Republicans and Democrats

Bushnell Park backside of Capitol 

William Buckingham Governor and US Senator
The ship USS Governor Buckingham (1863) is named after him. Buckingham was a benefactor of Yale College and served as president of the Board of Trustees of Norwich Free Academy and as president of the Connecticut State Temperance Union. His house in Norwich is owned by the city and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A street and school are named in his honor in Norwich, and a statue of him is inside the State Capitol Building in Hartford.

Charter Oak
 The name "Charter Oak" stems from the local legend in which a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the Charter of 1662.

Columns in North Hall

Nathen Hale
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed. His last words before being hanged were reported to be, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Charter Oak Chair of the Lieutenant Governor in Senate Chambers

The oak was blown down in a violent storm on August 21, 1856, and timber from it was made into several chairs now displayed in the Hartford Capitol Building. The desk of the Governor of Connecticut and the chairs for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate in the state capitol were made from wood salvaged from the Charter Oak.

A wooden baseball made from the Charter Oak was presented by the Charter Oak Engine Co. No. 1 on September 20, 1860, to the Charter Oak Base Ball Club of Brooklyn.^[2]

The New London Historical Society has a pair of cufflinks made from the wood of the Charter Oak with the initial "G" donated by Samuel Goldsmith.

Scions of the tree still grow in Hartford and many other towns around Connecticut.

Senate Chambers * our tour guide

Hartford Capitol Dome Victorian Period architecture.