Virginia State Building
Architect: Edgerton Rogers, Richmond, Virginia
Area: 7,300
Cost: $25,000
Picturesque World’s Fair, An Elaborate Collection of Colored Views—Published with the Endorsement and Approval of George R. Davis, 1894
THE VIRGINIA BUILDING.—A first glance at the Virginia Building recalled pleasant associations to a host of people who were not Virginians, for the pilgrimage to the old Washington Mansion at Mt. Vernon has been made by hundreds of thousands. was carried even into the interior, the furnishing being made up of historic heirlooms. The Virginia Building was a very complete reproduction of that famous edifice. The resemblance was carried even into the interior, the furnishing being made up of historic heirlooms. There was a tea-caddy which belonged to Martha Washington, a knife belonging to Washington, and his cup and saucer, sword and cane, and other relics of the great man. A large book-case was filled with books of Virginia, authors. There was a harpsichord presented by Washington to his adopted daughter, Nellie Custis. There was Dolly Madison’s piano and there was a grandfather’s clock which kept accurate time for over a century. In one of the rooms was the secretary used by John Randolph, of Roanoke, and in another an exact facsimile of the old curtained four-post bedstead in which Washington died. There was a Nellie Custis room, a facsimile of the one occupied by her in the Mt. Vernon mansion, and the closed room occupied by Lafayette. The whole atmosphere of the house was that of the historic mansion on the west side of the Potomac. It was a pretty and patriotic idea and as educational as it was interesting to the myriads of visitors to the Fair who wandered through the structure. Virginia made, surely an admirable showing.
Virginia State Building
The building of Virginia completes this circuit of State clubhouses. It is the exact representation of Mt. Vernon, the building in which George Washington lived and died. It was a present from his brother, Lawrence Washington, and was built in the early part of the last century by his father. The main building is 94 by 32 feet, with two stories and an attic, and a two-story portico with large columns extending along the whole front. Altogether there are twenty-five rooms in the structure. They include the banquet hall, the library, Washington’s chamber in which he died, and Mrs. Washington’s chamber in the attic. She removed to this room after the death of her illustrious husband, because it was the only one in the house which looked out over his grave. Nothing modern is seen in the building except the people, and the library of books, by Virginia authors. The furniture is all antique. There are many heir-looms of old Virginia families, a rare collection of relics of colonial times and the Revolutionary war, and other antiquities, among which is the original will of George Washington. No visitor fails to thoroughly investigate this structure and all that it contains.
Virginia State Building
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