On the northwest corner of Independence Square, which is the southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, is old Congress Hall, erected in 1787, in which Congress sat from 1790 to 1800, and in which Washington was inaugurated in 1793 for a second term with Adams as vice-president, and in which Adams, in 1797, was inaugurated president with Jefferson as vice-president.
Here Washington presented his famous message concerning Jay's treaty with England; here, toward the close of his second administration, he pronounced his farewell address, which is still regarded as a model of dignity and farsightedness. Here, too, was officially announced the death of[208] Washington, when John Marshall offered a resolution that a joint committee of the House and Senate consider "the most suitable manner of paying honor to the memory of the man first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen", thus originating a phrase never to be forgotten in America. For some years after 1800 the building was occupied by the criminal courts, now located in the City Hall.
Were it not so near the more pretentious Independence Hall, this demure little building would receive much more attention, for it is architecturally a gem of the Colonial period, and such of its interior woodwork as has been restored has been more happily treated than is often the case. It is an oblong structure of brick, with marble and white wood trim, two stories high, hip-roofed and surmounted in the center by a well-proportioned, octagonal open cupola. On the front a pediment springs from the cornice over a slightly projecting central section of the façade, while a three-sided bay breaks the rear wall and enlarges the building. The stoop and doorway are of simple dignity, the double doors having the appearance of being four separate, very narrow four-panel doors, and the graceful fanlight above being in accord with the round-headed windows of the lower story. These windows are set effectively in brick arches with marble sills, keystones and imposts. On the upper[209] story the windows are twenty-four-paned and square-headed with gauged brick arches and marble keystones. Under the central front window over the entrance there is a handsome wrought-iron fire balcony. The best exterior feature of the building is the beautifully hand-tooled cornice with its coved member having a series of recessed arches and the well-known Grecian band or double denticulated molding beneath. At the second-floor level a white marble belt accords well with the general scheme.
No less interesting than the outward appearance of the entrance is its inward aspect, with its deeply paneled embrasures and soffit, its quaint strap hinges and rim lock. The arrangement of the double staircases with a halfway landing in this lofty, airy stair hall compels admiration for effective simplicity. The stair ends are unadorned, but the spaces under the lower run of both flights are nicely paneled up. The balusters are of good, though familiar pattern, and the lines of the dark ramped rail gracefully drawn.
Interest centers in the Senate chamber with its barrel ceiling and panel-fronted galleries along both sides supported by slender round columns. Here momentous business was transacted during the early years of the American nation, and many relics of those troublous times are here preserved. In the bay at the rear end the President's dais has been[210] restored from remains found beneath an old platform. It is of graceful design with free-flowing curves and an elliptical swell front where the balustrade has a solid three-panel insert. The turned balusters are of slender grace, while the paneled pilasters or newels at the ends and corners are adorned with straight hanging garlands in applied work. There is also a festooned border in applied work above the opening into the bay that is carried about the room above the galleries. The central decoration of the ceiling and the eagle over the President's dais furnish excellent examples of eighteenth-century frescoes.
A short distance east of Independence Square, in a narrow court off Chestnut Street, between South Third and South Fourth streets, hedged about by high modern office buildings that dwarf its size, is Carpenters' Hall, in which the first Continental Congress assembled, September 5, 1774, and in which the National Convention, in 1787, framed the present Constitution of the United States. The building was also the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Committee of Correspondence; the basement was used as a magazine for ammunition during the Revolution, and from 1791 to 1797 the whole of it was occupied by the first United States Bank.