The Gazette continues:—
“The whole company retired to an extensive booth, where an ox of 500 lbs. weight was barbecued, of which the company generally partook with every abundance of other recreation. The festival concluded with fifteen successive volleys from the artillery, whose military discipline and manœuvres merit every commendation.”
“Before dark the whole company departed with joyful hopes of the production of their labors.”
Fifty-eight years later, near this spot another corner-stone was deposited bearing the following inscription in the writing of Daniel Webster:—
“On the morning of the first day of the seventy-sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America, in the city of Washington, being the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, this stone designed as the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol, according to a plan approved by the President in pursuance of an act of Congress was laid by
MILLARD FILMORE,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
Assisted by the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges, in the presence of many Members of Congress, of officers of the Executive and Judiciary departments, National, State and Districts, of officers of the Army and Navy, the Corporate authorities of this and neighboring cities, many associations, civil and military and Masonic, officers of the Smithsonian Institution, and National Institute, professors of colleges and teachers of schools of the Districts, with their students and pupils, and a vast concourse of people from places near and remote including a few surviving gentlemen who witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the Capitol by President Washington, on the 18th day of September, 1793. If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men; be it then known that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm, that their constitution still exists unimpaired, and with all its original usefulness and glory growing every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the admiration of the world. And all here assembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayer, that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected over it may endure forever.
“God Save the United States of America.
DANIEL WEBSTER,