Capitol Colonial Williamsburg Jamestown Virginia July 2021

In this building Patrick Henry delivered his "Caesar-Brutus" speech against the Stamp Act on May 29, 1765. Henry, George Washington, George Mason, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson, and others played their parts in the legislative wars that ended in revolution.
There were lighter moments. Both Capitols were the scenes of dances, suppers, and other social events. But as fighting erupted in the North, the building rang to the debates over Mason's Declaration of Rights, his Virginia constitution, and Jefferson's first attempt at a bill for religious freedom.
The building was last used as a capitol on December 24, 1779, when the General Assembly adjourned to reconvene May 1 at the new capital, Richmond. By turns the building served as an admiralty court, a law school, a military hospital, a grammar school, and a female academy. The west wing was sold for its bricks and demolished in 1793; the east burned in 1832. In 1881 the last aboveground traces of the Capitol were removed from the lot.
The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities deeded the grounds to Colonial Williamsburg in 1928, and Colonial Williamsburg reconstructed the Capitol of 1705 - 1747. The architecture was more interesting than that of the second Capitol, and it was better documented.