“Sixty years have not elapsed since the sound of the first axe was heard in the woods of Harrisburg. The wild beasts and wilder men occupied the banks of the Susquehanna. Since that time, with the mildness which has characterized the descendants of William Penn, and that industry which has marked all the generations of Pennsylvania, the forests have been subdued, the wild beasts driven away to parts more congenial to their nature, and the wilder men have withdrawn to regions where they hunt the deer and entrap the fish according to the mode practiced by their ancestors.
“In the room of all these there has started up, in the course of a few years, a town respectable for the number of its inhabitants, for its progressive industry, for the seat of legislation in this powerful State.
“What remains to be accomplished of all our temporal wishes? What more have we to say? What more can be said, but go on and prosper, carry the spirit of your improvements through till the sound of the hammer, the whip of the wagoner, the busy hum of man, the voices of innumerable children issuing from the places of instruction, the lofty spires of worship, till richly endowed colleges of education, till all those arts which embellish man shall gladden the banks of the Susquehanna and the Delaware, and exact from admiring strangers that cheerful and grateful tribute, this is the work of a Pennsylvania Legislature!”
The act to erect the State Capitol was passed March 18, 1816, and carried an appropriation of $50,000. A supplement to this act was approved February 27, 1819, when there was appropriated $70,000, with the provision that the said Capitol should not cost more than $120,000.
But a further supplement was approved March 28, 1820, for “the purpose of constructing columns and capitols there of hewn stone, and to cover the roof of the dome, etc.,” there was appropriated $15,000.
At this time the total cost of all the public buildings was $275,000, and consisted of the new Capitol, $135,000; executive offices on both sides of the Capitol building, $93,000; Arsenal, $12,000, and public grounds, its enclosure and embellishment, $35,000.
The cornerstone of this new Capitol was laid at 12 o’clock on Monday, May 31, 1819, by Governor William Findlay, assisted by Stephen Hills, the architect and contractor for the execution of the work; William Smith, stone cutter, and Valentine Kergan and Samuel White, masons, in the presence of the Commissioners and a large concourse of citizens. The ceremony was followed by the firing of three volleys from the public cannon.
The newspaper account of the event states that the above-mentioned citizens then partook of a cold collation, provided on the public ground by Mr. Rahn.
The Building Commissioners deposited in the cornerstone the following documents:
Charter of Charles II to William Penn.