On Colonial Avenue, across from the imposing seam-faced granite palace
of Rhode Island, stood the reincarnation of the Colonial in American history.
It was the Connecticut State Building, a faithful reproduction of one of
the best colonial mansions that stood in the New England States. The original
was the possession of the Sigourney family whose direct ancestry went back
to Mayflower days. In architecture the building is purely colonial, the
round portico being enclosed by stately Ionic columns. Inside the sacred,
historic walls there was an exhibit of colonial furniture that truly fit
the architecture. The newest piece among the furnishings was seventy years
old at the time, and there was one chair that actually came over on the
Mayflower. A Chippendale writing desk, with date 1765, was one of the handsomest
secretaries on the entire fairgrounds. The visitor also saw the chair that
George Washington occupied in the First Continental Congress; but the most
interesting object in the entire building was a frame that hung on the wall
of the reception hall. It was of oak from the trunk of the original Charter
Oak, with trimmings from the second tree that sprung from that historic
old root.
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to contact me at
Terry's 1904 World's Fair Page.