Constitution Hall the Kansas Free State Capitol Topeka, Kansas

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CONSTITUTION HALL THE KANSAS FREE STATE CAPITOL TOPEKA, KANSAS

HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION AND HISTORIC SITE PROPOSAL

WILLIAM SEALE, HISTORIAN

COMMISSIONED BY FRIENDS OF THE FREE STATE CAPITOL

GRANTED BY THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD NETWORK TO FREEDOM PROGRAM AND THE CITY OF TOPEKA, KANSAS

COMMEMORATING THESE 150TH ANNIVERSARIES KANSAS TERRITORY TOPEKA, KANSAS 1854 –1861 1854 – 2004

C o n t e n t s

Introduction 1

CONSULTANT REPORT

Present View 2

Rendered Historic View 3

1. Historical Significance 4

2. Authentication of the Site 11

3. Present Condition of the Building 19

4. Recommended Use 21

5. How the Building Might Look 25

6. Collections 29

7. Interpretation 31

D.A.R. Commemorative Tablet Inscription 34

END OF REPORT

William Seale, PhD 35

Partners in this Report 36

Committee to Restore Constitution Hall 37

Friends of the Free State Capitol 37

Major Supporters 38

Membership 40

Constitution Hall-Topeka 1856

INTRODUCTION To restore Constitution Hall in Topeka, the Kansas Free State Capitol at present-day 427-429 S. Kansas Avenue, we have benefited from an initial grant by the Kansas Legislature in 1998. The City of Topeka, the National Park Service, and private donors have contributed stabilization funds.

To fulfill our responsibility as property stewards, we sought the professional services of a nationally known historian for an unbiased investigation that could authenticate the building, describe its present condition, relate its historical significance, and recommend its use.

No one more completely fills that role as William Seale PhD, retained by the Kansas Legislature as architectural historian for the current restoration of the Kansas Statehouse.

The results of his archival and on-site documentation are a mandate to restore Constitution Hall. He identifies the most appropriate use of this building so important in the history of Kansas and the United States.

William Seale’s resume may be found at the back of this document.

Robert S. Johnson Chris Meinhardt Friends of the Free State Capitol

FRIENDS OF THE FREE STATE CAPITOL P.O. BOX 2551 TOPEKA, KANSAS 66601 KANSASCONSTITUTIONHALL.ORG

CONSTITUTION HALL-TOPEKA:

No. 429 and No. 427 S. Kansas Avenue (Present-day street address)

The front of Constitution Hall-Topeka shows two 20th century storefronts, thereby masking this single building dating from 1855. Examination of the structure discloses that the present roof is the original built of ad-hoc timber and farm implements, attesting to the building's authenticity. The original limestone walls and native timber floors are intact. This first permanent structure built in Topeka predates several lot and street address numbering systems. Examination of physical evidence and thorough analysis of lot numbering affirms this is the historic Free State Constitution Hall identified by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1903, the same as identified by early Kansas Historical Society executives. A permanent commemorative tablet was placed in front of present 429 S. Kansas in 1903, under supervision by Zu Adams, the first head of Kansas Historical Society archives and daughter of Franklin G. Adams, its first executive director. The inscription and format of that tablet appear on page thirty-four of this report. That inscription and the placement of the tablet corroborate evidence of historic significance and location. Constitution Hall is a recognized historical landmark for nearly 150 years. Among restoration options in accord with the Secretary of the Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, is replication of the original 1855 storefront under the guidance of a master preservation plan.

CONSULTANT REPORT

No. 429 and No. 427 S. Kansas Avenue (Present-day street address)

This contemporary architectural rendering is the result of analysis of historic renderings compared with documentation of current physical evidence. This shows the original storefront of Constitution Hall before construction of adjoining buildings. This view, looking southwesterly, compares with the masthead engraving of the Kansas Herald Tribune, Topeka, 1856. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Journal (New York, London) published in 1855 an interior view showing the Topeka constitutional convention in session. The original design is compatible with the historical period. Two single doors are side-by- side a post at the center, each door leading into one of the two storefront rooms. These two rooms remain. New masonry buildings along S. Kansas Avenue abutted those already in place. In 1863, new buildings abutted Constitution Hall on the north and south sides. From 1863-1869, this was the first Kansas State Capitol. The stairway to the second floor was at first outside the south wall. Kansas Avenue was first graded in 1858 and the first sidewalk was an oak boardwalk in 1863.

Author’s Note: This seven-chapter report presents physical evidence, historical justification and a concept for restoration of Constitution Hall–Topeka. Presently not included in organized educational programs on Kansas history or featured in Kansas tourism, the building is owned by a local not-for-profit group and stands across from the old Federal courthouse on Topeka’s historic “main street,” Kansas Avenue. The “Topeka” or Free State Constitution—written in Constitution Hall just after the United States established the Kansas Territory—is the first of the four Kansas constitutions. It is in long shadow a paradox: Although rejected by the Southern dominated Congress and thereby not accepted by proslavery officials of Kansas Territory, it lighted an emotional wildfire that hastened the coming of the Civil War. The antislavery Topeka Constitution had set the course for the Wyandotte Constitution under which Kansas entered the Union of states in 1861. The six years preceding Kansas statehood are among the most trying America has known, when Kansas became a national battleground.

1. Historical Significance

Vivid in American chronicles of the 1850s are the fiery episodes that followed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which organized the Territory of Kansas. They are the stuff of legends and color the history of the High Plains. Passed by the Congress on May 30, 1854, the ill-starred Kansas-Nebraska Act was the result of five months of debating and maneuvering by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of the Democratic Party in the Congress, as well as the presidential administration of Franklin Pierce. Pierce was one of two Democratic presidents whose political stands would deepen the wounds of "Bleeding Kansas.‖ The Kansas-Nebraska Act tabled the slavery or ―free state‖ issue in the Kansas Territory until the citizenry was sufficient in number to decide for themselves. A similar arrangement had been made for New Mexico in the Compromise of 1850.1 By its provision for possibly extending slave territory, the Kansas-Nebraska Act annulled the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and its prohibition of slavery north of latitude 36/30, which became the southern border of the Kansas Territory. An issue long believed settled was thus opened up again. Opposition to the bill was heated and over the months of debate over passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in Congress, emotions stirred to fury on both sides. The dominant Democratic Party, fairly unified since the days of Andrew Jackson, was torn asunder. On Kansas soil a frontier war erupted that made a lurid glare on the settlers' efforts to establish a system of laws and statehood. The leading step in this latter direction was the drafting of the Topeka constitution, which took place within the stone walls of ―Constitution Hall,‖ Topeka, the subject of this report.

1The difference in the instance of New Mexico was that of territory as opposed to statehood. New Mexico's voters were to decide whether the territory would be free or slave. 4

Placed in the climate of increasing political power built up by the abolitionists and intensifying hostility over the part of a threatened South, the Kansas-Nebraska Act polarized public opinion, pro and con, on the slavery issue to an extent not known before. Already in the month the bill was presented, opponents cast the seeds of what would become the Republican Party, which Abraham Lincoln would carry to presidential victory in a mere six years. From Missouri in the spring of 1855 thousands of so-called "border ruffians" swarmed to the territorial capital at Shawnee Indian Mission, not far from Kansas City, and by intimidation and stuffing ballot boxes at the election on March 30,1855, pushed the Kansas settlers aside and transformed the legislature into a pro-slavery body. It was to be called by historians the "overthrow of popular sovereignty in the Territory.‖2 The resulting outrage on the part of the settlers matched the chagrin of territorial governor Andrew H. Reeder, an appointee of President Pierce. He had to recognize the Shawnee legislature which, like himself, had authority based upon presidential backing. Reeder learned quickly not to trust that ―bogus‖ legislature and made every effort to block their activities. His vetoes were overturned. But the free state citizens of Kansas, with whom Reeder had some sympathy, were resolute. Wrote one observer to his wife in Pennsylvania; "It is the unanimous disposition of the settlers to resist any, every, and all laws that the present Assembly may pass.‖3 A de facto constitutional convention was held by the free state people of Kansas in the fall of 1855, at the town of Topeka, located well into the territory, some sixty-five miles west of Shawnee Indian Mission. This was a bold end-run to establish a free-state government, and then appeal to Congress to support it, bypassing the presidential authority claimed by the pro-slavery legislature.4 The Topeka convention was composed of Kansas settlers, some of whom would have been legislators at Shawnee Indian Mission had the March election not permitted the fraudulent voting by the border ruffians. Charles Robinson, an emigrant leader, was the acknowledged head of the of the free state movement.5 He had been present at the Monterey convention in September 1849 that framed California's free state constitution. There the initiative had been taken to create a state government before Congress authorized it and to seek congressional approval; victory came within a year. California's convention provided both a model and hope for this one in Kansas. Not Robinson but James H. Lane, a recent immigrant to the territory from Indiana, was elected

2T. Dwight Thatcher, Kansas Constitutional Convention (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, 1920), p 701. 3Cited in William E. Treadway, Cyrus K. Holliday: A Documentary Biography (Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1979), p.43. 4"Bogus legislature" was the term universally applied to the Shawnee legislature by the Free state party.

5Robinson would become the first governor of Kansas.

5 president of the convention. An ardent free state advocate, Lane was a dramatic orator, with black eyes and a wiry, energetic presence. He was a very visible figure in the proceedings. The free state convention at Topeka was developed according to the age-old pattern of citizen compact. Preliminary meetings at towns including Lawrence, then Big Springs, produced an executive committee. This committee became the power behind the movement and resolved to meet in Topeka on September 19, 1855. Its voice grew stronger as summer ended and settlers endured bloody guerilla attacks on their farms and towns. They watched the pro-slavery assembly at Shawnee Indian Mission closely. Free state men feared Congress might look favorably on the sudden harmony the new governor, Daniel Woodson, a pro-slavery man, was achieving with that legislature, which, unhappily, was the one the federal government recognized.6 In August 1855 the Shawnee legislature ordered the government moved to Lecompton, about twelve miles from Topeka. In the fall, proposals were invited for building a capitol.7 The Topeka free state convention was called to order on October 23 and met until November 11, 1855, occupying what was at once called Constitution Hall, the raw, unfinished structure of native limestone that still stands on Kansas Avenue. While the entire building was put to use, a downstairs room served as the house of representatives chamber and the senate met in a large room upstairs.8 The town was only eleven months old; the building's rough walls and wooden elements attest to its time and place. Intended for commercial use, it was leased during construction and adapted to provide a forum for the convention. Within this building the Topeka free state constitution was drawn up. Based upon the Ohio constitution, which was in turn based upon that of New York, the Topeka constitution was a forward-looking document that adopted modern ideas of community property and homestead protection. In the bill of rights it prohibited slavery and invalidated "negro and mulatto" indentures within the state.9

60n January 24, 1856 President Franklin Pierce sent a message to Congress declaring the Topeka constitutional convention an act of rebellion against the "constituted authority of the Territory of Kansas." Congressional Record. 7Various papers related to this capitol at Lecompton are found in Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, National Archives [Archives II] Washington, D.C. Architectural parts, including detailing rendered in cast-iron, were purchased for it in St. Louis. 8In 1903, the Topeka Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a commemorative tablet where U.S. dragoons dispersed representatives in the Topeka Legislature, July 4, 1856. This was a project guided by Abzuga ―Zu‖ Adams, daughter of the first executive secretary (official director) of the Kansas State Historical Society and the long-time chief archivist of its collections. Miss Adams was a director on the historical society governing board and conducted interviews over the decades of her career at the society, who studied Kansas and Washington documents including Colonel Sumner’s official account of halting the convention, first the house, then the senate. 9See Sections 6 and 21 of the Topeka Constitution, under Article I, Bill of Rights, "There shall be no slavery in this state, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of a crime." 6

The vote was given to white males and civilized Indians. Some opposition to the use of "white" was overwhelmingly defeated.10 The Topeka constitution marked the first effort to create governmental structure for Kansas as a free state and defined a basis of law for the state-to-be. A popular election was held on December 15, 1855, and it passed unanimously. An issue of excluding free Negroes from the territory was considered during the convention, but this was not made a part of the Topeka constitution.11 This constitution was forwarded to Washington with a plea to the United States Congress for its acceptance. Meanwhile, Constitution Hall in Topeka was established as the capitol. "State" business began. Scrip was issued.12 Quite symbolically, the Fourth of July 1856 was set for the opening of the first Topeka legislature. Charles Robinson was elected governor under the Topeka constitution. While the Topeka government was not official, and with its constitution was throwing itself on the mercy of the Congress—over the immovability of a hostile president—the free state citizens would hold to it tenaciously as a life-rope in the increasing chaos that surrounded them. In Congress, the Topeka constitution, which President Pierce vociferously condemned, was presented to the Senate by Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan and in the House by Daniel Mace of Indiana. On July 2, before the legislature was to assemble, the House gave approval by two votes. Meanwhile, the territorial governor forbade the meeting of the Topeka legislature and asked Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner, stationed at Fort Leavenworth, to make certain that the body did not assemble, and if it did, to break it up. Sumner, who had also received similar orders from the secretary of war, Jefferson Davis, marched four hundred dragoons to Topeka on Independence Day 1856 in a solemn show of military power. It was quite a performance in the raw, new town, before Constitution Hall, the only building of consequence then standing in Topeka. He ―planted two pieces of artillery at the head of Kansas avenue, the gunners holding lighted matches. The dragoons were arranged in the streets in military order. Col. Sumner dismounted and according to eyewitness accounts, went into the "Hall of the House," then upstairs to that of the senate…‖13 He

10See Thatcher, Kansas Constitutional Convention, pp. 697-698. 11Samuel C. Smith, October 31, 1855, Journal #570, Kansas State Historical Society Archives. On instructions by the people of the 2nd representative district, having met in Lawrence on October 7 1855, "the question of excluding Free Negroes from the Territory" was to be submitted to a vote of the people on the day they voted on the Topeka constitution. Separate from the Topeka Constitution, an exclusion measure was put on the ballot, which passed on December 15, 1855. This was to help ensure that Kansas not become a battleground between bounty-hunters, which was a fearsome situation and common to most western states at that time. Blacks, both free and slave, were already living in Kansas, if not in great numbers, and fugitive slaves would travel on the Underground Railroad for months at a time. 12While the legislature made provision for honoring the paper money, its authority did not hold for funding, and the scrip was never backed up. 13The Kansas Tribune, July 5, 1856.

7 appeared before the legislature and with admirable diplomacy told them they must disperse. This they did as peaceful citizens, before a great gathering of some five-hundred free-soil spectators in the street, who had doubtless expected a fight, not the least being John Brown and his trouble- making band, who looked on from a thicket of wild sunflowers.14 This event on July 4, 1856, gives brilliant color to Constitution Hall's distinguished history. On July 8, 1856, Stephen A. Douglas took up the issue of the Topeka constitution and presented a counter bill to that of Senator Cass. This threw the issue back upon the people of Kansas; they were to have a vote on the constitution they wanted in accordance with the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. A majority in Congress was pleased; the bill quickly passed, and by this maneuver Douglas saw to it that the Topeka constitution was rejected by the Congress. The mandate for a Kansas constitution, however, was now front and center. Back in Kansas, the Topeka constitution was neither dropped, nor really tabled. It was the first effort at having a Kansas constitution. As a free state constitution, it had strong support. Even while it was being written and sent to Washington, ever-greater floods of immigrants, mainly from the western and nearby states, poured into Kansas, increasing the population many times over. The vast majority of these people were free state and they looked to the Topeka Constitution as a positive and good effort at organizing the territory. With renewed determination, the free state legislature that had been disbanded now convened in Constitution Hall on January 5, 1858, under the Topeka constitution. Governor Robinson urged the maintenance of a state organization, no matter current circumstances. Laws were passed. The Topeka constitution was once more sent to the Congress, but no action was taken. On January 7 the free state legislature adjourned from Topeka to meet in Lawrence where the Territorial legislature had adjourned the day before from Lecompton. The free state legislature based in Topeka had advanced its causes since January 1856, when President Pierce denounced it as revolutionary and one month after that, ordering, ―all persons engaged in unlawful combinations against the constituted authority of the Territory of Kansas, or of the United States, to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes.‖15 The Territorial legislature based in Lecompton held presidential recognition firmly in its clutch and still tried to enforce a pro-slavery government. Responding to the Senate mandate for

14My numbers are from the Kansas Weekly Herald, a hotly pro-slavery paper, published in Leavenworth, July 12, 1856. The reporter had interviewed Sumner and received the figures from him. Of the convention, the paper went on to say, "… the Topeka bogus Legislature has proved a miserable humbug, a failure, and was only gotten up to keep up the strife and discord in the Territory and make political capital for the Black Republicans in the Presidential contest." As for Brown as a trouble maker, it should be noted that his sons Jason and John Brown, Jr., had been arrested the previous June and jailed in Lecompton for their guerilla activities. Their arrest led to some bloody attacks on settlements, the most notorious being that at Osawatomie. That summer of 1856 marked the peak of Kansas violence, but it was by no means the end of it. 15Franklin Pierce, Proclamation, February 11, 1856.

8 a Kansas constitution, in January 1857 this legislature called for an election of delegates to assemble a formal convention for that purpose. Free state men denounced this election and refused to participate, so it was dominated by pro-slavery factions. The Lecompton convention was called to order in September 1857 in a wooden building that still stands.16 To avoid opposition from the numerous new immigrants to the territory, the convention disenfranchised any settlers who had arrived after March 15. The resulting Lecompton constitution was created entirely by pro-slavery men. It is often written that the document came from Washington, and was the work of the powerful Jefferson Davis, who had returned to the Senate after the Pierce administration; however, Davis's most recent biographer says no.17 Framers of the pro-slavery constitution added to their package to Congress a request for a grant to the proposed state government of 23,000,000 acres of territorial land. From Lecompton the document was hurried off to Washington, where it was endorsed by President Buchanan. It passed the Senate, but was rejected in the House due to a bill similar to the one thrust upon the Topeka constitution by Senator Douglas.18 The Lecompton constitution was returned to face a vote of the citizens. Even as this was taking place, the free state legislature elected under the Topeka constitution in October 1857 sponsored a constitutional convention of its own at Leavenworth, March 15, 1858. Because rejection by the Congress made the existing Topeka constitution seem to be mislabeled to the free state men, a new constitution patterned after it was drawn up and when this convention reconvened in Constitution Hall in Topeka, the Leavenworth constitution was adopted by the free state Topeka Legislature on May 18, 1858. Three months later, voters rejected the Lecompton constitution. This rang the death knell of the pro-slavery forces, which began to drift away, as a continuing arrival of immigrants from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, and Kentucky, with free-state sympathies, made their efforts seem hopeless. Free state settler representatives were now in control of the Territorial legislature and lost no time in complying with the Senate's mandate to produce a state constitution. The Leavenworth constitution, footed as it was in the Topeka constitution, became a model in the free state Territorial legislature’s Wyandotte constitution of July 29, 1859, which led to the admission of Kansas into the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861.

16The Lecompton capital building is a state-owned historic site, interpreted and open to the public on a regular basis. 17The biographer goes further in saying that when the Lecompton constitution was brought to the Senate, Davis "had not seen the document." William J. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis, American (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), p.305. 18The English Bill, as it was called, was actually a very complicated compromise between both chambers as a means of saving political face for the Congress. It specified that the people of Kansas approve the Lecompton constitution or wait until they had a population of 90,000 before they could apply for statehood. Kansas made its own decision and defeated the pro-slavery constitution roundly.

Constitution Hall—as it was known then and has always been called since—is the principal site historically associated with the free state settler’s struggle for the future of the territory. In this building Kansas really began the long journey to statehood. Subsequent episodes of its history are interesting and sometimes melodramatic. It was a storage place for firearms, the boxes of Beecher's "Bibles," which were in reality rifles to aid in the free state cause. It was used in the support of a chief fugitive escape route to the North, and as one of the State Row buildings, it was in use for six years as part of the first Kansas state capitol, before the present Capitol was occupied. Yet while the building that gave birth to the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution is commemorated as a state historic site, Constitution Hall–Topeka, where the Topeka constitution was born, foreshadowing the free state yet to come, has not yet been similarly honored as the free state territorial capitol. Even the original tablet placed in front of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution a hundred years ago is yet to be returned to its historic location.19 The future looks up. Interested citizens identified the plight of Constitution Hall and through the generosity of the state legislature, which occupied this building long ago, and private persons, the property was purchased in 1998. In May 2001, the National Park Service recognized

Constitution Hall, 427– 429 S. Kansas Avenue, in its National Network to Freedom, a national register of places relating to the Underground Railroad. ―Friends of Constitution Hall‖ has guided preservation efforts while extensive research has been underway in both archives and the "bones" of the structure. A restoration is envisioned. The objective is to bring Constitution Hall to its proper place as a landmark in state and national history.

19The DAR took a pioneering interest in the identification and authentication of Constitution Hall for future generations. This organization commemorated the building in 1903, placing a tablet in the sidewalk at the storefront room where Col. E. V. Sumner dispersed the Topeka Legislature, which is presently addressed 429 S. Kansas Avenue. Miss Adams’ leadership role in the commemoration has helped with this project immeasurably, so many years later. Adams was distinguished among her peers for rigorous attention to details of the historical record of Kansas. Her additional collection of what we today label "oral history," as an enrichment of the historical record, was far ahead of her time. 10

2. Authentication of the Site There can be no serious doubt of Constitution Hall’s historic location. In 1997, a permit for its demolition led to a Kansas Historical Society report that, for the first time in its history, seemed to identify 425 S. Kansas Ave as Constitution Hall. Suddenly, a doubt had been cast. However, it has become clear, the basis for this was an error of comparing parcel numbers of original town lots that were 1, later subdivided, which the KHS study did not consider, and 2, the same numbers were sometimes used for commercial storefront addresses. The Sanborn fire insurance maps of this location show that storefronts exceeded the availability of lot numbers available for addresses.20 Cross-checking these numbers is thus futile. The suggestion of a new historic location might have prevailed had early address numbers been formally adopted in the period, not used out-of-sequence, patched-in, and thus variably read and recorded.21 A caution against revising recorded primary witness knowledge of the current location is that introductions to early city directories warn about local address number confusion. However, the location "Constitution Hall" is constant in local historical records as one certain building.22 This usage, traced from its beginning, has prevailed for nearly 150 years.23 Where there really is a question is, with the original façade since replaced, how much of the original building is left? Being a pioneer building of familiar vernacular character, it was adapted even as it took form to make a Constitution Hall, and just eight years made into a state Capitol, and thereafter for other uses. Yet it stands today, in most ways remarkably well

20The previous owner, which held the demolition permit, at the time restricted access to the critical second floor and attic levels of Constitution Hall. This hampered the quickly arranged, under- funded study by the state historical society. 21Land deed professionals f today are aware of these conditions in the Old Town plat. 22Constitution Hall was built on what was town lot 5 in block 44, when town lots were thrice larger than city lots of today. Franklin Crane soon divided the town lots into three parcels, each 25’ wide. A record map (Shawnee County, KS, County Surveyor’s Office) still shows lots of the original size, identified by the first number in each set of the new parcels proceeding southerly from the south bank of the Kansas River. These lots were the shares of the town company stock. No systematic storefront address method existed until 1887. Storefront numbers were duplicates as needed. In this case, two 425 S. Kansas Ave. storefronts appear on early Sanborn maps. 425 is reflective of the lot number 133. The numbers 133, 135, and 137 are the current lot divisions of the original town company share known as lot 5, which is marked ―133‖ on the above named map. 23For example, one of Topeka's two newspapers, the Kansas State Record, published on February 11, 1860 (three and one-half years after the convention met), a joke advertisement saying that the "Topeka Constitution" is "All Right after All." It speaks of "Constitution Hall, Topeka," and the "North door of Constitution Hall" (meaning the right-hand door of a double entrance portal) as the entrance to Miller's grocery store, where J.C. Miller "is determined to divide up among all parties" "Groceries and Provisions" at "a very small consideration." The joke seems to be over the goods that Joseph Miller, a tenant of the building, had accumulated in the cellars of Constitution Hall after the convention was broken up in 1856. Some of this was probably contraband: Territorial papers in the National Archives from the governor, Record Group 59 (Department of State) for the years 1856-1859, speak of raids on and by the free-soilers and the gathering up of goods and storing them in Topeka for distribution to their fellow free-soilers. The pro-slavery forces were of course doing the same thing. 11 preserved of its original materials.24 The present storefront dates from ca. 1911 and later, as part of a row of buildings that stretch for nearly half the block. This building is still known as Constitution Hall. After all this time and through changing uses, specifically what is left? "In April, 1855, we broke ground and commenced building the Constitution Hall," wrote Loring Farnsworth twenty-five years later. He was not in fact building a meeting place but a commercial building that fate was to turn quickly into a Constitution Hall. "We laid the foundation 34 x 44 feet…We did not get the roof on till fall."25 The Topeka Association, which started the town in the year before, acquired meeting space there for the constitutional convention and took on the plastering.26 Farnsworth did not believe in retrospect that the plastering was complete when the convention opened. "It was a two story building with a basement," he recalled. The building filled up fast, first with a butcher shop in the ground-level basement, opening on the rear, a tinsmith on the same level, and quarters for Joseph C. Miller and his family, and a boarder on the main and perhaps the second floor. In the cellar today, bones and tin-shavings unearthed survive to note the presence of the butcher and tinsmith. Miller is thus tracked by remnants of his activities that compare with the written record. Included also was a printing press that "was on the first floor or second." Farnsworth continued: ―The convention met there; then the legislature [.]‖ He was emphatic about which building he is talking about, and by inference says it still exists. By that time, 1880, the entire west side of Kansas Avenue had matured, appearing with the addition of buildings built by private endeavor, but authorized for state use in an 1863 legislative enactment, and rented to the state along with Constitution Hall as a temporary capitol. Called State Row, this group of buildings had handsome brick facades, including one applied to Constitution Hall, programmed in the "German" round-arch architectural style. Constitution Hall thus carried a new front, but the rest of the building survived.27

24Sanborn's Fire Maps, beginning for Topeka in 1883, long after the legislature left State Row, show the same footprint for Constitution Hall that we see today, consistently through the decades. 25"Statement of Loring Farnsworth of Fort Scott," Topeka, Kansas, December 4, 1880, Kansas State Historical Society Archives. The building is 44 feet on Kansas Avenue; the East/West dimensions are considerably larger, plausibly carried out when the Town Association and area settlers finished the building for the constitutional convention, which period reports strongly suggest. It is possible, of course, that Farnsworth remembered the East/West dimension incorrectly. 26In his diary, Dr. Franklin Crane, a member of the Town Association, wrote on April 16, 1856, a year after the building started, "Loring Farnsworth agreed to let the Association finish his building on Kansas Avenue for a hall in which to hold a Constitutional Convention." (Kansas State Historical Society Archives.) 27Room partitions in the assembly space upstairs were added in the early 20th century. 12

The temporary capitol that was in State Row, housed the state government while the present Capitol was built.28 In the past, it has been thought that Constitution Hall was destroyed in the course of creating State Row. For example, in Volume I, Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History: Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, etc.29 it is reported that in 1863, during the Civil War, the temporary capitol was built where Constitution Hall had stood. Some writers came to believe that the earlier building was pulled down to make way for one of the row of buildings that served for the capitol,30 but closer examination of both written and physical evidence disproves this entirely. Transactions starting in 1861 show that the land owner, Farnsworth, sold the southern half of the Constitution Hall building separately; and second, when the buyer, Theodore Mills, sold to his son in 1864 the part he had purchased.31 These deeds specifically refer to Constitution Hall not only by name but also as a physical presence and they give the rights of egress through it. A subsequent deed for the same land, in December 1873, further confirms Constitution Hall. These points of contact in the legal record, together with the logical doubt that in so very difficult a time for area pioneers, a standing, usable building would have been pulled down and replaced with such

28The present Capitol of Kansas was begun in 1866 with the construction of the East Wing. This was occupied in 1869, and the rest of the Capitol was constructed over the next nearly thirty years, following an original design from the 1860s. 29C. Frank Blackmar, ed., Kansas… (Chicago: Standard Publishing Company, 1912). 30While the authenticity of the subject building has very rarely been challenged, this, in general, was suggested by the Kansas State Historical Society in its "Report on Temporary State Capitol," prepared for the Legislative Coordinating Council, February 12, 1998. Too much credibility was allowed in this study to changing lot numbers and addresses, which even in early Topeka were elusive; and a longer, more detailed look at the "bones" of the surviving building provides quite a different architectural analysis. 31These deeds refer to the South portion (twenty-one feet wide) of the building that is on "lot 137," where primary witnesses identify Constitution Hall. Farnsworth, in partitioning his property in 1861, granted Mills, purchaser, right-of-way from Kansas Avenue through Constitution Hall to "the second story of the building to be erected by said Mills upon said lot." This ingress was doubtless the still present external stairway along the outside of the South wall of Constitution Hall. This stairway, to be enclosed inside the newly erected set of buildings, would serve the Senate chamber as well as the Representative hall of the temporary capitol. See Warranty Deeds, Number 9, Book 3, Page 338, C. K. Holliday (Topeka' Town Association) to Loring Farnsworth, made of record on December 8, 1859; Number 10, Book 6, Page 566, Loring and Martha Farnsworth to Theodore B. Mills, July 15, 1861; Number 12, Book 9 Page 632, Theodore E. Mills to Theodore Mills, made of record on September 1, 1864; and Number 13, Book 35, Page 405, Theodore and Eustatia Mills to Elijah Bennett, December 19, 1872, all of record, Shawnee County, Kansas.

crude materials that exist there today—rather than simply being adapted—negates the idea that the structure was demolished when State Row was built. Continuing the authentication with evidence in actual construction details, it is helpful that later period interior materials are peeled back until the wooden framing and stone walls are largely exposed for study. The street dimension is the same 44 feet mentioned a quarter century later by Farnsworth, for whom the structure was built. The surviving building is of Kansas limestone with a stone interior bearing wall making two equal parts of the building at the cellar level and first floor. The second floor was open as one room, possibly an improvement made when the constitution committee secured the building for the November 1855 convention and needed a large assembly hall. Well-crafted, chamfered, wood trim is on the original four wood columns that continue the work of the bearing wall below in supporting the entire central portion of the roof. This can be easily seen today, with the remains of a later partition added between the columns probably in the early 20th century. Whether the central stone partition was meant to go up to the attic in the original scheme is not known, but one might observe that it makes little sense to build a firewall and stop it one floor short of the upper parts of the structure.32 Instead of stone, crudely fabricated wooden beams carry the joists that hold the load of the central portion of the roof. With the columns on the second floor, this suggests a change during original construction.33 This would have been accomplished when the Topeka Town Association entered the project, after some construction on the lower stone walls and when the need was seen for the large assembly room, as well as a building of greater length than the foundation Farnsworth said he started. All this work, though of a unique character that reflects the nature and even incidents of free state vs. proslavery strife, thus rare even for its time, is still compatible to vernacular construction approaches in a western frontier town of the 1850s. Footings for the stone walls are neither extensive nor deep, nor is the stone work of a dressed character; it is not exactly quarry faced, neither is it smooth.34 The batter colored limestone is really better described as raw rock, cut in some cases, but mostly split and broken off. Today it is mellow and much patched and pointed up on the outside. Inside the building it lies in part beneath a coat of

32In this connection it should also be observed that Farnsworth was building a commercial building, and when he received it back from the convention, he sold half of it, the central stone wall being the demarcation. Obviously it was his plan that the wall could continue up, to give him the opportunity of a full partitioning of the property. The form of the roof structure further supports this. 33Though it is not yet determined whether the second floor was torn up during construction to create the large assembly room, without a stone partition the columns would be necessary to hold up the center of the roof. 34A buttressed stone retaining wall was installed against the lowest portion of the north wall of Constitution Hall, probably in 1863 for State Row. It is required to hold back the earthen footing of this pre-existing north wall. The retaining wall is clearly inside the perimeter of the present 425 S. Kansas building and would not be required unless to protect a preexisting footing. 14

old lime plaster now much broken up, laying bare large ranges of the stone. A former doorway and a window has been bricked-in in a long history of small changes typical for a building so much used, These are one original opening each in the North and South walls, each of exterior condition detailing, indicating that no other building stood in either direction when these walls were built. Timber framing in floors and ceilings is haphazard, some of the wood milled, some axe hewn, with braces added to connect rafters and ceiling joists to compensate for shortcomings in construction and the varying quality of the wood material.35 The street level floor appears to have been lowered about seven inches, but the majority of its components share in the character and methods of assembly of the rest of the building. This could have occurred during original construction.36 Part of the original second floor of the building has a newer raised floor above the undisturbed original floor. This is all very clear. The wooden materials throughout show the deep swirls of an unreliable circular saw, in all likelihood the one proudly featured in Topeka's first sawmill.37 The roof is a double roof. That is, the building is covered in two parts by two shallow Hip style roofs running front to back with a flat bottom valley in between, shedding to the back of the building. Nothing apparent explains this complicated double roof, understanding that the Hip style roof style prevailed in this time, except that the builder probably wanted the option of selling the building as two parts. In future development of the vacant land he owned on each side of this building, his valley roof would have minimized the fall-off of water on each side, had the roof instead been of one hip. He had thus bettered conditions for what would eventually be built adjacent. The double roof, and its unusually crude fabrication, makes the single upstairs room seem all the more unusual.38 Research on Kansas buildings of a similar type suggests that the original roof was probably made of wood shingles. Given the very gradual pitch of the roof of Constitution Hall, I cannot dismiss the possibility of painted canvas as the original roofing material. It is

35As for wood, this part of Kansas was at no loss for wood, if one reads the newspapers of the time it existed in some quantity. But this building was not erected slowly with consideration. Its start was interrupted and its completion hurried when local conditions permitted, using bargain labor and much scrap wood, including hundreds of small pieces cut from farming implements. 36Some language in related land deeds seems to imply that if Constitution Hall is ever torn down, the South wall of Constitution Hall must remain standing for continued structural use. 37See Frank W. Blackmar, Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History Embracing Events. Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, etc., vol. II, (Chicago: Standard Publishing Company, 1912) for this sort of detail. Also see Treadway, Cyrus K. Holliday, p. 34, quoting a letter from Holliday, written at Topeka, February 18, 1855, two months before Constitution Hall was begun: "We have our mill almost erected. It will be done in about two or three weeks; then we will go to cutting boards and building houses; and I trust make something of a show for a town." 38Another possible reason for the central valley was that Farnsworth wanted to control the fall of water into a leader head or conductor to carry most of the water to a basin or cistern. The date or dates of possible cisterns on the property must yet be determined. 15

interesting that the rafters are topped with decking composed of broad, thick boards that are very close together. Perhaps their slight separation is from natural expansion, for they were probably butted originally. This is not a good basis for a shingle roof, in which the lath should be separated significantly to allow for air-drying the shingles after rain and snow.39 Such an underlayment could have been meant to receive heavy canvas, which was overlapped, tarred at the seams, and painted, with sand in the paint. This is suggested in the recollection of a settler who described tar dripping down on her dress, while she sat there during a church service in 1856.40 Canvas, thus based and applied, made a good roof, especially useful when there was a low pitch. Such roofs were found everywhere, recommended by being cheap and quick to build and repair. Like most easy treatments in building, they needed constant attention. Tarpaper and modern membrane roofing are similar as improvements upon this early and popular concept of roofing. Pursuing how much of the original Constitution Hall survives or not invites more analysis of the upper structure. The more obvious roof solution for Constitution Hall than what was built would have been to unite the two parts with a single roof that sloped from front to rear. You see these kinds of roofs throughout the old sections of downtown Topeka developed as the town grew into a city, after 1860. Had this building been demolished and replaced on the spot when the State Row capitol was built here in 1863, it would almost certainly have had this less complex treatment, realizing that buildings were or would be built on each side of Constitution Hall. This style of roof too would have been with canvas, perhaps by 1863 with tin plates.41 But Constitution Hall was built as a single building, without having to accommodate adjoining structures. We know this because in the roof construction, the original rafters survive. They are supported at the outer edges by the stone walls and in places, fascia boards were used to protect them from the weather. At least some of these survive. This condition corroborates that no other building of any size abutted this one when it was built; a fact

39Solid decking is familiar today as underlayment on wood shingle roofs, with lath applied to allow a bit of air space beneath the shingles. The reason for the decking is its value as insulation, but still not a good idea with wood shingles, any more than it was in 1856. 40From at least the seventeenth century this was very common on roofs and ships' decks and on interiors was seen in the "oilcloth" or "floor cloth" that spread wall to wall, the forerunner of Linoleum, a patent product that came along about the time Constitution Hall was built. On roofs it was tarred down, as opposed to being sewn and tacked on interior floors. The woman who suffered the drop of tar inside Constitution Hall in 1856 was a Mrs. Martin. Her account can be found in the Old Settlers' Files, Shawnee County, Kansas State Historical Society. 41Kansas newspapers of the middle to late 1850s suggest in their advertisements that building materials were relatively rare. A wood shingle machine was set up in Leavenworth in 1858, furniture was advertised in 1859; but building materials that would usually appear in the press in this period are absent until the 1860s. Tin plates were not difficult to ship, but I suspect that assigning them to early Constitution Hall is a stretch. This building was "put together," not constructed. Even window sashes may have been made on site, for I find no advertisements for sash, shutters, doors, etc. A good builder would know how to make these, but in better-settled areas, by the 1850s, practicality led to the use of pre-fab house parts. 16

further verified in finding that the original wrought-iron tie-rods are still in place.42 These are structural binders that needled the building together and would have been unnecessary had the building been built as part of a row, with another building against each side for its stability. Combining this architectural evidence of the existing structure with written sources that Constitution Hall was a stand- alone building until 1863, strengthens that the 1855 Constitution Hall is a ―surviving‖ building. On Kansas Avenue, the structure originally appeared as one building, while actually the building could have been, or was clearly intended to be used, as two. It was in a commercial Greek-Revival style often seen in American towns from the 1830s on, with a wooden centerpiece set into the stone wall at the street level, framing windows flanking broad front doors, which appeared to be double doors but were separate, providing entrances to the two different halves of the building.43 It has been assumed that none of the original storefront survives, but was cut away when State Row was built in 1863. There is good indication that it was dressed stone.44 Deeper investigation of the present storefront will likely turn up interesting clues about the building's first front, possibly some traces of it. The original stairway still present on the south was on the outside until the south building of the State Row office block enclosed it. Similar stair arrangements can yet be seen in Kansas towns. The original doorway to the second floor meeting room is located at a landing and although filled, it is clearly visible. On the West or alley side of the building, the stone is exposed and the rear wall seems to present the appearance it made from about 1858, when a

42Primary witnesses describe Constitution Hall as a stand-alone building until 1863. 43I associate this style of storefront design with the east coast, ca. 1820s-1860s, notably New England. Excellent examples are found in Nantucket, for example, in Portland, and in Boston. Always masonry in construction, brick or stone, sometimes stucco over that, they show configurations similar to the Kansas Avenue front of Constitution Hall as it was. 44The masthead engraving of the Kansas Herald Tribune, published in Topeka in the 1850s features Constitution Hall and the frontispiece drawing in this report is based upon that. Almost certainly drawn on the scene, which is indicated in its terrain and other characteristics, it is not a reverse image, so probably was not drawn second-hand from a daguerreotype, which was the reverse photographic technique likely used, if photography was used. It should be noted at this point that Farnsworth, the original builder, owned and operated a quarry and stone-yard in Topeka. The engraving presents a southwesterly view of Constitution Hall, and its stone details are of particular interest. It distinctly shows the random stonework on the north side of the building, but suggests a street front wholly different, lightly penciled to suggest that it was a smoother stone texture and not the rubble character of the other three sides of the building. Some parts of an old water table of dressed stone remain at the site today. One of the most provocative questions to be answered in further physical research on Constitution Hall will be the character of the stone on the street front. Given the "reform" tastes of the 1860s, it would not have been odd at all for the builders to re-face the existing structure with red brick to match the round-arch German style they had selected for State Row. They clearly wanted their Row to look "modern" and "competitive," an ambition they certainly carried out in the permanent Capitol. Any trace of the Greek Revival, with its smooth surfaces, would have been out-of-style, to their eye. 17

west or rear addition may already have been in place. (A portion of the west exterior main wall is now undergoing major repair, its original limestone reserved for this purpose.) Wood lintels crown the windows at the back of meeting room upstairs, while the lintels of adjacent 1863 buildings are limestone. Even now, this west elevation has strong aesthetic appeal and is powerfully representative of the original building. The concrete foundation, installed for stabilization, and all such work must be carefully detailed. This should be a high priority, for the West side of the building preserves the only one of two external walls ever intended for permanent viewing and will obviously be featured prominently in the restoration plan. When the state occupied most of the State Row office block as a temporary Capitol in 1863, Constitution Hall was among the buildings rented. The original assembly hall upstairs seated the state senate, while the house met next to it in the newer building on the South. The governor's office was at the north end of the second floor configuration of rental space. That old Constitution Hall was re-used in the temporary Capitol was noted during the years state government occupied State Row. When the government moved away in 1869, this oldest building in the row was returned to office and local meeting uses, but its survival, we have seen, can be tracked in the historical record, written and physical, to our own day. Constitution Hall was born of hard life and has lived long. The original building survives so that it can authentically represent a particular rich slice of American and Kansas history as no other period building can. It is one of the principal historic landmarks standing in the State of Kansas. The course of preservation for Constitution Hall, already underway, presents many interesting options.

3. Present Condition of the Building

Constitution Hall today is more than a bare shell. Considerably more is left of the original than what President Harry Truman left of the White House in his restoration of 1948-1952. Outstanding successful restorations since then have had much less to begin with than Constitution Hall. In total, the empty building worn and trodden by time has great appeal in two ways: first, it has the credibility of its age; and second, it tells of an extraordinary period in state and national history through its distinctive materials and detail. As with the White House, Constitution Hall will over time, afford deeper research of its significant history, but only if it too is allowed recognition of its true significance and made alive. There is no time to throw away with this building. The substantial knowledge of it we have today will undeniably increase; on-site research conducted so far, which should always be conducted by experienced hands and informed eyes, has thus far avoided "destructive investigation." Much early and some later flooring rides a wealth of historical joists and beams that seem nearly all intact from the first stage of the building, and the same applies to the structure of the roof. The joists are pieced in places and were finished, with a thrifty eye, only as much as necessary to do their work. This is not fine, high level joinery but the work of people in a hurry. Mean and low attics—wide-open between the two parts of the building—are given support in their haphazard construction by braces apparently made from wooden parts of farm implements. Rafters beneath the roof protrude to the edge of the limestone walls in places and those observed to date are weathered, speaking of the years the building stood alone. All these elements, combined with the rich, rugged quality of the limestone of the walls, make a romantic historical object that–with clarification–will speak clearly of its significant role in the free-state movement in territorial Kansas. The stone is in dire need of pointing, as the mortar in some places has the consistency of powder. It is in most instances a lime mortar. The lime, doubtless burned nearby along Shungununga Creek, has decomposed with the many years. Part of the rear wall toward the alley needs restoration, for which the original stone is already reserved, and perhaps removal of a concrete foundation used in recent stabilization. The front wall to Kansas Avenue is entirely gone, or so it seems. However, further study will likely reveal more than is presently known about the original front. The presence on the rear of some large ashlar type blocks that could almost count as dressed stone make one wonder if the storefront was treated in this way entirely. Archaeological investigation is a crying need around the front of the building and throughout the cellars. In the area where the butcher shop once was, brick- lined pits of some sort are exposed in part, possibly for soaking or salting meat. Where a tinsmith did business, quantities of tin shavings are found. This cannot simply be cleaned up. It must be analyzed and interpreted. Such evidence of history is very easy to lose. The remains of room partitions of unusually light construction on the second floor appear to be early twentieth-century, put in to make two apartments inside the big assembly room space. These should be torn out, restoring the room to its original size, so that a methodical inventory of all that

19 survives can be made. The original second floor may have had a few smaller rooms in addition to the convention chamber. A printing press was in the building, perhaps on this floor; the source is not clear as to exactly where it was, who ran it –although Joseph C. Miller is implied– and what it printed. Some sort of workroom can be imagined, connected with the big chamber for the use of the convention. A judicious probing and pulling away of the present Kansas Avenue storefront will be necessary for research, to see what might possibly survive from the first storefront. Structural support and other careful work may be needed to be certain that the early 20th century front could be restored, if it is included in the project. Repair in the lower part of the rear stone walls will be extensive, where it appears that earth is added against them. If the rear wing dates from circa 1858, it should be kept, even though it would postdate the convention. It would be there when Joseph Miller was hiding contraband in the cellars, and indeed the ghost of his "north door," to his "grocery" mentioned in the press, remains in the presence of wooden blocking. No question but removal of the wing would add space to the rear of the building for a courtyard or secondary entrance. Still, it is part of the early history of the building and should be kept. Indeed, the limestone walls of the neighboring building impact this area very strongly in the visual sense, and should somehow be preserved as part of the complex. Parts of the old flooring will have to be patched or replaced in part, but a very gratifying majority of it remains. Except for the four original columns in Constitution Hall upstairs, original millwork is an uncertainty. Opportunity to find door and base trim still exists. An 1856 sketch of the constitutional meeting shows Greek Revival style woodwork with corner blocks. Such a design was relatively cheap to create, and whether plain or embellished by the draw-knife, not out of the question even for a hastily built building on the frontier. The simple though finished character of the supporting columns down the center of the room suggests the presence of a competent early carpenter and that some attention was probably given to the trim, sash, and doors. Too often restorers assume plainness and even crudeness in frontier settings, when the original builders often made every effort to seem permanent through design embellishments. For this the Greek Revival style brought quick rewards. Depending upon the restoration plan ultimately determined, the later storefront will need replicated new parts, but the original materials that survive commend the building’s historic integrity of the territorial period. Often, far less remains in buildings that have been restored, sometimes by tearing out original fabric and covering it up with new construction. Various options within standard preservation approaches can be imagined for museum conversion of Constitution Hall. I will make a recommendation in this report. The building is surprisingly intact and where features do not remain, particular evidence of them is easily found, even at this early stage. It is most certain: what one sees in Constitution Hall today has tremendous interest and symbolic power, and the almost mystical sense of great age. For an important part of its work in the future, this building needs only interpretation to take advantage of these attributes.

4. Recommended Use

The historical significance and physical authenticity of the building have been well- established in documentation. Constitution Hall is in protective hands, ensuring its preservation in some form, but the character and detail of the preservation approach has not been developed. Thought must be given to this, for the building as it stands has attributes that promise to be strong features of the interpretation. Various options for the building might include: Connecting the historic structure to an otherwise modern building that would be used for the practical functions necessary to a museum, or partial restoration with modern annexes to serve as offices or a tourist center, or full and conjectural "total recall" restoration for use as a museum, in the sense of a historic house museum, or finally, a restoration approach that would preserve what is there in an otherwise modern setting for museum interpretation. The answer, I think, can be reached by combining aspects of all these approaches. If the historical meaning of the building were any less, any of the above options might be appropriate by itself; one would save the majority of fabric that is there, although some original material would undoubtedly be lost. But reasons for making the building a museum overwhelm any other approach. As strange as it may seem, no original, territorial period capitol demonstrates the free-soil side of the story of Bleeding Kansas. The Constitution Hall in Lecompton, Kansas, already a museum building open to the public, represents the pro-slavery element in early Kansas and is or should become a companion piece to Constitution Hall in Topeka. (At the very end, its legislature did become free state, but this building was never a free state capitol, nor was Lecompton free state.) These two historic buildings are essential, for they connect the tempestuous and transformative events leading to statehood. These complement the state Capitol and are the foundation for the remarkable story of Kansas pioneers forging their new state. The old Federal courtroom on Kansas Avenue, across the street from Constitution Hall, extends the story into the 20th century with the famous Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka case. These and other local heritage tourism sites, in relating to one another with help from existing programs in education and tourism, will all achieve even greater meaning.45 Museum houses and other historic buildings are usually restored for their aesthetic beauty or historical fame but as institutions, properly interpreted, they are without match as mediums for informal public education. Museums provide a forum for learning. They spark the historical imagination, which is essential to appreciating history. In this age of visual experience available to many, more are likely to go to see than to sit and read. Historic sites in both public and private hands are how a state or nation tells about itself and its people. How

45Opportunities of partnership in the Bleeding Kansas National Heritage Area, now in planning by eastern Kansas communities, are foreseen in regional support of heritage tourism.

well would we know George Washington without Mount Vernon? These places are part of our lives—historic houses, courthouses, state capitols, lighthouses, ruins, natural wonders. Tourists like historic sites and they enthusiastically seek them out. It is the work of a governing body responsible for a site to make certain that the visitors have an informational and meaningful experience, giving ideas and concepts they may take away, as well as enjoyable stories, which give the vastness of history a human scale. The visitor needs to be drawn in and doing this successfully is no easy task. Historic sites are a medium all their own—like a book or film— with their own particular requirements and attributes. It is necessary to study a historic site within that context when approaching its interpretation. The interpretation of Constitution Hall must be planned with the greatest care. The building’s history is full of local drama, but also reflects the broader picture of American and Kansas history. It has a past footed deeply in the anti-slavery movement–concepts brought into Kansas from elsewhere–and the workings of grassroots democracy, and also in the budding nationalism of the era, which would come to full and permanent expression during the Civil War. Where better in the United States is this patriotism expressed than in Topeka not a decade later, when the new State of Kansas determined to build its permanent capitol in the tall-domed image of the United States Capitol, completed during that war? The Kansas Capitol, the master plan for which was carried out over a forty-year period, is a monument to the almost spiritual sense of Union that rose during the war, most particularly after The Emancipation Proclamation. Kansas was only the second state to adopt the Union icon for the state Capitol, with many to follow.46 This decision took place so soon after the events in the Free state Constitution Hall that the narratives knit together in Topeka, with this building the eldest of the four essential sites. In addition to continued support for its Network to Freedom (NTF) designation, the building should be placed without delay on the National Register of Historic Places —as Constitution Hall. I cannot imagine its having the slightest difficulty achieving this. The National Register (NR) program is in service for so many decades that grantors closely affiliate their financial resources to it. This Constitution Hall should also become a National Historic Landmark (NHL). However, it may be better to apply for national landmark status after the work of conservation and restoration is well underway. The text of that application will be richer after restoration, when even more will be known. The present context of this site will change in the course of an adaptation to museum interpretation. Even though a national landmark application may wait until later, it is wise to keep NHL officials apprised of plans as they develop. They will be very helpful. Landmarks status is very significant in fund-raising.

46California was the first and Wisconsin followed Kansas in throwing out a plan for an exotic dome, made before the war, and re-designing it in the Union model in the later 1860s.

The Getty Foundation, for example, will not consider granting funds unless the building is a National Historic Landmark. At some point it must be decided how or whether Constitution Hall could remain in private hands. I would imagine that the State of Kansas would fund some of the restoration. Some state legislatures and the Congress itself will fund projects of this sort for nonprofit groups, but have no certain plan to bring the site into a state system. Often called ―one time appropriations,‖ these are meant to help with good works that will be assisted or maintained privately in years to come. This does not necessarily preclude subsequent requests from either of these bodies, but one should stay away for awhile. Such grants, being generous, really get the project well along so that it can best attract other funding. As soon as your concept is agreed upon, the inquiry with legislature and Congress should begin. Indeed, this particular project should have an intimate and friendly involvement with Capitol-based officials in Topeka, for Constitution Hall is especially significant in the understanding of how the state developed and Topeka became the capital. I have mentioned elsewhere the primary association with the Kansas State Capitol. One of the challenges ahead for this project is enriching people's minds on the significance of the site. Another concerns site decisions. The organization that commissioned this report is closer to the subject than anyone. Should their objectives come to incorporate the content of this study, I think a series of initial efforts should take place: First, the building should be available for visitors in a rudimentary way, using volunteer guides, some of whom could be students in high school or college.47 Actual movement through the building can be controlled with boardwalks and attached hand rails. Do not try to show the whole building, but create a pithy tour on which to take legislators and state officials, as well as their guests and possible donors. As volunteer support permits, the public could go by appointment or on special days. Good lighting and a prescribed path, with as much that is "fascinating" to tell but not too detailed will help make a fine preliminary tour. Second, I would begin a newsletter, printed, I would think, in the historic format of the Daily Kansas Freeman, which first published in Topeka in November 1855. This newspaper, with its masthead, should be filled with short or relatively short history articles and stories. That it looks good and people find it attractive is essential. This paper, like the political newspapers it resembles from the days of Constitution Hall, provides a useful and inexpensive forum for your ideas and findings. The subject matter can be very widespread, given the reflective and prismatic character of the history of the place. Essays can be invited from various experts. This

47Very popular guide programs at historic sites have included high school and college students, paid modest hourly wages, sponsored by private business. Sometimes this is managed through the school system and credits are available to those who participate.

publication, as with any you do, should avoid current politics and personalities. Its purpose is really to proclaim Constitution Hall and tell about its preservation. An early issue, for example, might be illustrations in authentication of the building, such as those already prepared by members of the Kansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Historic Resources Committee. This would include simply stated captions. Every legislator should receive one, as well as their key staff members; the congressional delegation and their major staff should receive it. Wide distribution should be made elsewhere. Third, a video show should be prepared. Film is probably the broadest rathole for nonprofit funds on the face of the earth, so beware; a film maker could wipe out an enormous sum in just six months on a film you wouldn't want to see twice. Often times public television corporations in the state will do, say, a twenty-minute educational segment. They often provide film copy for not-for-profit uses. Using slides and old graphics with live moving film can give you a good, concise narrative. This will be very useful in your promotion and fund-raising. I find that people will take a video tape home and look at it, where they might not read a report, especially if it is long. Make it a short film and in no way ponderous. In visualizing the product, remember that it is difficult to make a building come across on film. TV is a close-up art. Involving people and the excitement of the history will result in your best tape.

5. How the Building Might Look

In the museum context, Constitution Hall can go to either a complete restoration, which would involve conjecture, or it can be considered a preservation and conservation project, with judicious restoration only to help with clarity in interpretation. The first option calls for a re-creation of the original Kansas Avenue storefront, which is now an edifice with parts dating from the early twentieth century. Rebuilding original interior partitions seems not to be a problem, for so much of the wooden skeleton is complete that clues to their locations will be found. This was the case with Constitution Hall in Lecompton, where historic partition locations were not rebuilt, but are marked for the visitor to see today. The conjecture of plastering or not plastering would require decision, for the source on the plastering, building owner Loring Farnsworth, is not clear as to whether he meant no plastering was done at all or that the whole job was not finished when the convention assembled.48 The principal interior space is Constitution Hall, the large room upstairs. Paint analysis and other finish investigation will reveal, I think, much more about this room than we now know; the space is not opened up sufficiently to see, but what we do see is promising. Other important interiors in the interpretive sense are in the cellar. This leaves for future consideration the two storefront rooms, the south one used as a representative's hall in 1856. Exhibits in a full restoration would be the sort used in historic house museums, that is, re- creations of interior spaces as they were probably used in 1855-1863. The assembly room upstairs could be quite dramatic, the large space lighted all around, with a motley assortment of benches, chairs, and tables. Painted tin candle holders would be mounted on the wall, as in the historic newspaper woodcut of the room that also shows some woodwork. Except for floors and columns, the precise detail of some items would be conjectural, at least as far as we know now. Other spaces would vary and might include a room with a printing press, although present sources do not inform us which room. It would include a residential area on the first floor where Joseph Miller lived with his family. A butcher shop would be in one cellar, with workspace and tin shop materials. Extra space probably in the eastern part of the cellars would be loaded with the contraband and captured goods Joseph Miller supervised, together with firearms purchased for the free-soil fighters. Apart from visual interpretation, which would be carried out in great detail with furniture, barrels, press, etc., this sort of approach would have to be supported by spoken or recorded narrative. It is a much more stringent solution than a "conservation" approach.

48It is not in fact clear with Farnsworth whether the plastering was internal or external. It is possible that on a Greek-Revival building such as this, the storefront on Kansas Avenue could have been plastered smooth and scored to look like ashlar blocks of dressed stone. This treatment was very common at the time Constitution Hall was built.

What I am calling a conservation approach would hold the surviving parts of the building fairly sacrosanct and make them the components of a stage for interpretation. A design would be created that made the interpretation not only a history lesson but also an adventure in discovering the old building. Any actual restoration spaces would be completed only in part— with the possible exception of the hall upstairs and a cellar space. The visitor would move through the building and in a sense see through it, with artifacts placed to spark the interpretation and assist the imagination. Such a treatment of a historic building is found in Sidney, Australia in the Hyde Park Barracks, which was once occupied for various uses, from transported convicts, 1817 to 1848, to single female immigrants 1848- 1886. The building is a public building, really a prison-like dormitory that in the 20th century fell to gentler public uses. As a total recall restoration of, say, 1817, it would have had limited interest, and limited interpretive possibilities. So it was determined to leave the original fabric wherever possible and make the visitor experience a sort of interactive probing into the first decades of the building. One area, for example, where bare brick walls are left pocked with broken plaster, is set up with a few hammocks like those the convicts occupied when they slept there at night. Elsewhere, in a space in which you can see up through two floors, a woman’s voice, activated by a push button, reads a letter written home from there to England by a female convict. Nearby a glass case contains the starched cotton dress, apron, and cap she would have worn as a prisoner. Artifacts are everywhere—chains, whips, shoes, books, combs, bottles, and all the sort of artifacts associated with the building's history, but the spaces are not littered. Every object is there for a reason, an essay in odds and ends that the visitor readily lights with the imagination. In such an approach, one makes full and engaging use of the principal artifact—the distinctive building that has come down through time. Unlike the museum in Sidney, which addresses nearly three centuries, I believe that with this approach the years 1855, when Constitution Hall was begun, until 1869, when it was vacated by the government would be appropriate. I recommend making the main emphasis, however, 1854 to statehood in 1861, covering the years of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas, when activities in the Kansas Territory hastened the pace of American history. The physical basis is that the historic integrity of the building dates from this period. Restoration of the building would involve a series of value judgments. First, what would be kept? What should be added and removed for tourist use? In this last, one hopes as little as possible. Building stability and accessibility would be major requirements, and I would hope that related new elements or devices would be very open and obvious, becoming part of the design. Some parts would be gallery and some areas would hold period settings. I can imagine floorboards removed on the first floor to view–down through joists to a cellar area–Joseph Miller’s contraband storage, set as

it might have been with lines of barrels and crates of rifles. This way of viewing through the building could continue upward through the second floor in places, with simply styled barricades for safety. A place for restoration, occurring within the conservation approach, might be the second floor meeting room, the ―Constitution‖ hall for which the building is named. An apparent richness of surviving information in the structure creates the possibility of bringing this room back. In this approach, I would think that no other spaces, outside one room of the cellar, would be used that way. An advantage in restoring the main meeting room is for its versatility as interpretive space, used for special presentations and displays. A large quantity of the original construction material is still present from this room, obscured by later partitions. The early materials should not lose their sense of age. The remainder of the building, pulled back to what is left from the 1855-61 years, would be considered gallery space. Safe walkways or floors would be necessary, with areas for glass cases and vitrines, and wall panels for text and illustration. Certainly as much of the original building as could be incorporated in this would be used, but new applications would be very simple, not generically modern, but not "period." Simple would be the word; as simple as the simplest vernacular, only in this case the workmanship might be of higher quality to set it apart from the original methods of the building. Plenty of inspiration for new construction can be found in the surviving original. For such a plan to work, an auxiliary building is necessary. That on the South is an obvious selection. Within it, keeping its stonework, the South wall of Constitution Hall could be exposed dramatically, with the existing double stairway up to the convention hall brought up-to- code, and old openings that are now closed with brick and stone, probably from 1863, reopened as they were in the original building. The interior configuration of the adjacent building should give full view of the old south facing limestone wall. From the upper level of this auxiliary space, bridges could connect at junctures to Constitution Hall. Exhibits would be in both buildings, but as to what might be saved in the annex, itself part of the temporary statehouse, we do not know until it can be analyzed. Being once part of the first statehouse, it can also be related to that part of the exhibit. In addition to exhibits in the annex, there would be rest rooms, an elevator, and a small kitchen to serve the restored Constitution Hall unobtrusively. Externally the buildings present different challenges. Obviously on the West or alley side the limestone faces will remain as much like they are as can be, with repair, new window sash, etc., and as much conserved as can be. On Kansas Avenue, the storefront segments reflect generally the first quarter of the twentieth century. Several options might be considered: one would be to try to get title to the other buildings or at least easements on their fronts for the whole block. With this in hand, the present storefront would be restored and in its lower parts

recreated, where parts are missing. Constitution Hall would be behind this and one would enter the museum through this later storefront. Another more obvious and traditional approach would be to install limestone as in the original storefront of Constitution Hall, going on graphics of the time and what is learned in investigation of the present storefront. It was wood, glazing, and stone, and there are indications that the front stone was smoother finished than the sides and back. The early engraving of the building would be followed, with the wooden frontispiece or storefront, including its double doors, and Greek Revival entablature. If this were decided, I would tend not to restore the storefront at present 431 S. Kansas, but modify it for museum entry; if much of it would still be glass, as it is today, then designed with care that the South face of Constitution Hall would be clearly visible from the sidewalk. This scheme, of course, is an option if the present front is not replaced. Clarity is the great advantage of this traditional approach, which is particularly appropriate for sites of high significance that will be toured by a wider visiting public. Visitors tend to understand a site more readily than when drawn into an abstract treatment. For either treatment of the storefront, the interior restoration essay would be very similar. Visitors would enter the annex and rather than follow a prescribed course, could go in any direction they selected. Exhibits would be thematic, and so designed as not to be necessarily chronological. Great emphasis would be given to the building. Visitors could look into a partially filled-in window or pass through a low door that has been reopened but not finished. Clear text with as few words as possible would identify these elements as one passes by. The presence of stone would be nearly everywhere, as would exposed joists and missing flooring. Use would be made of white plaster, sometimes not entirely covering a stone wall, just as it was found when conservation work began. Much would be made of what materials are original and what are not, but priority would be given to those of the territorial period. The exhibit could be very expensive if made entirely interactive. I think there is a way it can be handled differently, with a little interaction but mostly by the gallery approach. I believe that it is necessary to restore, as closely as possible to what it was in the territorial period, the great hall upstairs. This will serve as a reality check for the visitor, who might very well become confused without this room.

6. Collections

Constitution Hall presently has no exhibit collections except the building itself. I do not envision a heavily crowded museum, but one that has enough historical material in it to underline and mark the historical points. I would be very selective in taking in artifacts. While an individual may fill a curatorial role, I recommend a curatorial support committee that would pass on every object brought into Constitution Hall. Objects should fall in two categories: 1) Constitution Hall collection, meaning those actual artifacts of history, as Joseph Miller's rifle or a daguerreotype of one of the important figures; 2) "Stage props," those many things that will serve to support of the story line, nearly all reproductions, such as barrels for the cellar. The latter would not include glass cases or screened storyboards, but materials that represent original objects and contribute to the story. A search for artifacts should include the museum collections of Forts Leavenworth and Riley. The National Archives in Washington may yield documents relative to Constitution Hall. Period costumes, personal artifacts of occupants and their descendants, photographs, and the like sometimes come from private collections. This search must be for the best, most relevant, most symbolic objects that can be found specific to this site. Before the search is formalized and the sweep begins, an exhibit script should be prepared that is a detailed and documented coverage of the story Constitution Hall is to tell. The final script, after drafts, etc., should be agreed upon by the governing body as the direction in which the museum will go. Museums of the kind I am recommending–designed to expose the museum space itself as an artifact–are intriguing and successful in early years, but like any exhibition can eventually become tired. This is avoidable if considered from the outset. Designing Constitution Hall will be an unusual challenge, perhaps even with the temptation to use mechanicals (to get out of whack) and mood experiences. Going Hollywood or Disney is not the course for this site. That approach is the most expensive and the least desirable. The Topeka Constitution Hall will work best for visitors if its design context is straightforward and relatively simple. The elemental, vernacular architectural character of the place will provide all the thunder needed and a stimulating stage for interpretation. Don't let Constitution Hall become overwhelmed by design that is design-for-its- own-sake. It would be unfortunate too, for Constitution Hall to become a somnolent reliquary, for its greatest purpose is to tell the vigorous story of the Kansas free-soil movement, ultimately triumphant. To do this its exhibits and interpretive techniques will need to be somewhat flexible, within the historical story. A static museum exhibit is not what would work best with this building, if it were to be left partially un-restored as a provocative artifact itself. Indeed, the old limestone walls and structural timbers glowing with well-placed lighting will show some of the qualities of a cathedral, challenging the imagination. While not to be too theatrical, this should ―play out," as they say in theater.

Because of apparent rarity of period artifacts, other than the building itself of course, reproduction furnishings for sets will be a museum element. Obviously you will want to copy some of the items you already know about, but either they survive only graphically or the originals are not available. Finding the design of the uniforms of Col. Sumner's dragoons, for example, should not be a problem. In the National Archives, there should be extensive files on supplies provided to him, and at the military museums at Forts Riley and Leavenworth. Reproductions of some of the boxes that contained Beecher's Bibles and barrels for gunpowder are obvious items for the cellars. To tell the story of Constitution Hall some means of conveying narrative will be necessary. An introductory film may eventually be shown in the upper assembly hall. But the intro can also be conveyed in text that is silk screened on panels at the beginning. A large map will be necessary. This could be programmed with lights to show the Kansas Territory and various things about its early days—towns, trails, the locations of the events and battles of Bleeding Kansas. Such a map is an absolute necessity to provide the stranger with an idea of where he is. If most of the buildings on the block are acquired, along with Constitution Hall and the building on the South, there will be plenty of room for storage, cataloguing, and creating exhibits. I hope for a design that can be changed in component parts—on panels or within glass vitrines as well as upright cases. This would allow for refreshing changes in whatever frequency is desired, while not calling for a costly rebuilding of the entire exhibit. While I do not think the public will have problems understanding a well thought out design for the museum that incorporates old stone and timber architectural elements, I do think the collections will be important. These are the nouns and adjectives of your narrative. If at the outset most must be reproductions, then the exhibit should accommodate this intellectually. As collections in the Number One category are built up, adjustments in the approach to collections will accommodate them.

7. Interpretation

Interpretation has been implied in all the previous parts of the report. I have mentioned the museum "script," and enough cannot be said on that subject. Before the museum is even designed, Constitution Hall should have a "script" or interpretation of what the museum is to say. That is, a history or interpretation of the place should be set down on paper and agreed upon by all parties. This narrative interpretation is the essential story you want to tell, with documentation. It will have to be made with objects in mind, used rather as illustration for points made in the interpretation. This script will become the basis of the museum's design. Essentially this story or history will form the core of Constitution Hall's intellectual mission permanently, with the shifting and elaboration of various points from time to time, to refresh the exhibit (and to accommodate new acquisitions). In Part One I have attempted to sketch the basic story of Constitution Hall in the period that will draw the most interest from the visiting public. This is by no means a museum script, but it authenticates the significant history of the site. It seems to me that this general story of the efforts to create a free state should be the focus of the museum interpretation—not only the Topeka Constitution, but its child in the Leavenworth Constitution, its rival from Lecompton, and ultimately the Wyandotte Constitution, which brought the free state Topeka Movement to victory at the beginning of the Civil War. The United States Congress rejected all three documents prior to the Wyandotte. Surround this central cord of the struggle for free statehood with the exit of nine different governors through the troubled Kansas landscape, the sacking of towns, burning of settler’s houses, and yet the settlers dogged determination to prevail in a land they apparently loved at first sight. In simplest terms, the story that Constitution Hall represents is the struggle of people of good will to create a government under which they can live in peace. The context for this, powerful in tension, tragedy, and adventure, elaborates the central truth and is so rich that the interpretation of this site will have to involve heavy editing to keep the central focus dominant. The political controversy in Washington over transcontinental railroads dragged the slavery issue, unwanted, into the Halls of Congress. An intercontinental railroad through Kansas and the upper West would abandon the South entirely. To be certain, the prospect of the intercontinental railroad glittered gaudily in entrepreneurial eyes, a sort of overland Mississippi River. Already the southerners had pushed through the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, which would have provided a southern route through the Deep South, across Texas and southern Arizona, and on to California. In the urgency to pave the way for the northern route, it was necessary to organize Kansas. This naturally implied eventual political representation in Washington. Slavery became the flaming sword of the opposition, led largely by Jefferson Davis, former senator and during the Kansas-Nebraska debates, Secretary of War for President Franklin Pierce. The result

was the overthrow of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which no one in his right mind would have wanted, had the other considerations not been there. The issue became a simple one: Kansas, slave or free? Contextual also is the general rise through the 1850s of abolitionism in America. This movement must be addressed in Constitution Hall. Hinton Helper's prophetic economic denunciation of slavery, The Impending Crisis of the South, published in New York in 1857 gives considerable detail about the large amounts of money being raised by abolitionists in the East to support the free state movement in Kansas, a movement governed from Topeka in Constitution Hall. ―The sum of $500 was contributed at a meeting in New Bedford on Monday evening, to make Kansas free.‖49 The external influence and support of Kansas from the anti-slavery movement in the states was a powerful influence on the deliberations at Constitution Hall, but their convention was not ―abolitionist.‖ This building recalls settlers, some of whom favored abolition for sure. More significantly at the time, as a body they were residents of the territory desperate to bring peace to their territory through statehood, and wanted that state to be established on a free-soil foundation. The nationwide meaning of the free-soil movement enriches our appreciation of the free state constitution and Constitution Hall. Familiar national figures fell into the net of Bleeding Kansas: for Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, it would scar their presidencies; for Abraham Lincoln, the whole embroil was fortuitous; for Jefferson Davis at first a victory, then ultimately disastrous. For a nation looking on, Bleeding Kansas helped polarize the opposing Americans that would all too soon to face each other in civil war. The candle lighted at Constitution Hall shed a bright and enduring light over American history then and to come. It seems to me that other issues are thus peripheral and that a strong museum exhibit could be based on an interpretation of the events and personalities of free-state constitution days and their wide influence. The climax of the exhibit would be the upstairs hall of assembly. This room is the space most historically associated with the governmental events that made this building famous. The state capitol, here from 1863 until 1869, should be noted but not used as a major theme. This site must not be a general museum of early Kansas, but of the free state struggle in the period of Bleeding Kansas. Obviously the story will be seen from the free state point of view. Links in content are very important—to national figures Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Stephen A. Douglas, John Brown, and the territorial figures Cyrus K. Holliday, Charles Robinson, Governor Daniel Woodson, and Col. E. V. Sumner. Links should extend to Washington and the Congress, the Kansas State Capitol, which in my view is the symbolic crown of the whole effort begun at Constitution Hall, and very important, the pro-slavery years of Constitution Hall in Lecompton. The links should be brief and as visual as possible,

49Helper, p. 318.

remembering that we apply these points to communicate and explain the universal importance of the events that took place in the building and their outreach. The escape to freedom by fugitive slaves has importance here in explaining the part of the free state constitution that relates to African Americans. Topeka convention delegates were uncomfortable to prohibit blacks in Kansas and wanted no such language in the constitution. For reasons clear enough, the free-state people themselves voted for it, doubtless believing that Kansas would become a haven for freed and fugitive slaves from the Deep South and the upper Mississippi Valley, through Arkansas and Missouri, anticipating grave troubles bounty hunters would inflict. The pursuit of fugitive slaves is an appropriate contextual subject for this museum, for the issue surrounded the settlers, who later told their fears that bounty hunters would pillage their towns. Constitution Hall served the local organization that protected the Lane Trail to Freedom. However, the building’s Underground Railroad context should not overshadow the free state constitution that banned slavery and invalidated slave indentures, nor its people and events.

In conclusion, Constitution Hall is a landmark long associated with its vital local, state and national history. Reviewing its journey through up through the 20th century, its survival would seem almost accidental if not for the substantial record of its historical appreciation. That it has held on tenaciously is a part of its continuing fascination to us. The public, through education and heritage tourism, will be captivated with its material presence; yet to make the site work successfully, Constitution Hall will have to be cleaned-up and made accessible. The restorers, by their specialized arts, can help it speak truly of itself. Constitution Hall has been called prismatic, the jewel at the center with many facets. I hope that as the museum develops intellectually and finally into bricks and mortar, it will continue to be thought of as a prism, with many possibilities for ongoing teaching and learning about Kansas, and the nation’s freedom history.

The D.A.R. Commemorative Tablet Inscription

Given by the Topeka Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and placed at present-day 429 S. Kansas Avenue in 1903, dedicated in 1903 by Miss Zu Adams, a chapter founder, and the long-time archivist and director on the board of the Kansas State Historical Society.

CCONSTITUTION HHALL

WHERE THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION MET IN 1855 AND THE TOPEKA LEGISLATURE WAS DISPERSED BY COL. E. V. SUMNER JULY 4, 1856

USED AS STATE CAPITOL 1864 – 1869

PLACED HERE BY THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION JULY 4, 1903

William Seale, Ph.D.

William Seale, PhD is the nation’s leading authority on preservation and restoration of historic and active capitols. An independent consultant for three decades, his projects include governor’s mansions, courthouses, and museums. Among major state capitol restorations are those in Michigan, Ohio, Alabama, and presently, the Kansas Statehouse. After doctorate studies at Duke University, he served in academia and authored Temples of Democracy, The State Capitols of the U. S. A. (1976) with renowned historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock. He is a guest scholar in Latrobe’s America, the foundation for the legacy of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect of the U.S. Capitol and ―father‖ of American architecture and engineering. Domestic projects include Stratford Hall, 1730, Virginia home of Thomas E. Lee; and the 1845 house of poet and journalist Eugene Field in St. Louis, Missouri. Recently completed are Ten Chimneys, Wisconsin home of theatre team Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, and Rosedown Plantation, 1834, in Louisiana. A current project is the house of Nobel Prize winner General George C. Marshall His three-volume work The President’s House: A History (1986, 1993, 2005), is a detailed account of how the presidents have transformed the White House. The White House, The History of an American Idea (1992) is authoritative on its historic architecture. He authored Of Houses and Time: Personal Histories of America’s National Trust Properties (1992). Domestic Views (1993), illustrates American domestic architecture in view of properties owned by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Other books include works on historic gardens, historical biographies, cultural heritage, historic preservation, and historical interpretation William Seale is long-time editor of White House History, the journal of the White House Historical Association. He lives in Washington, D.C. and Texas.

R e p o r t p a r t n e r s

National Partner The National Park Service “National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom” An Act of Congress created this program in 1998. The program is to ―…tell the story of resistance against the institution of slavery in the United States and related territories through escape and flight. This story is illustrative of a fundamental tenet of this nation that all human beings embrace the right to self-determination and freedom from oppression. Through the NTF, the National Park Service acknowledges the significance of the Underground Railroad not only in its contribution to the eradication of slavery in the United States, but also as the cornerstone for a more comprehensive national civil rights movement that followed. The Program is for coordinating preservation and education efforts nationwide, and works to integrate local historic sites, museums, and interpretive programs that have a verifiable association with the Underground Railroad into a mosaic of community, regional, national, and international stories.‖ Constitution Hall–Topeka, the single building with two storefronts at present address 427– 429 S. Kansas Avenue, constructed in 1855, is evaluated ―… as making a significant contribution to the understanding of the Underground Railroad in American history and it meets the requirements for inclusion in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.‖ The Network to Freedom May 17, 2001

Civic Partner The City of Topeka Topeka is the Kansas capital.

Private Partner The Committee to Restore Constitution Hall This committee of Friends of the Free State Capitol directs efforts to restore Constitution Hall–Topeka.

Committee to Restore Constitution Hal l

This is the restoration committee of Friends of the Free State Capitol. The committee commissioned William Seale for this Report on Constitution Hall–Topeka and develops plans for the use of two adjacent buildings for the anticipated historic site. Ultimately, Constitution Hall and the two buildings that were a part of the Kansas Capitol from 1863-1869, will be used as a historic site open to the public. In 1997, local citizens helped rescue Constitution Hall from demolition. In 2001, its restoration was initiated to help celebrate the 150th anniversaries of the Kansas Territory and Topeka, the capital city. It is the first effort undertaken to restore the Free State Capitol of Kansas Territory and the first restoration of a Kansas site of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program. The restoration project contributes to Kansas Territorial Sesquicentennial Commission goals as set forth in Kansas House Bill No. 2583, Section (3)(c) and (3)(e), to ―… encourage, develop, and coordinate observances and activities commemorating the creation of the Kansas territory in 1854 and its implications … for the future.‖ A goal of restoration is to tell the complete story of the birth of Kansas. This site directly complements the already restored Territorial period capitols at Pawnee; Shawnee Mission; and Lecompton. The roles played by elected and appointed governments in each of these locations in this period, and the first decade of statehood from 1861-1870, are central in the birth and early development of Kansas. Through Constitution Hall-Topeka, accompanied as it is by State Row period buildings at 423 and 431 S. Kansas Avenue, the state’s presentation of Territorial period Kansas will portray both sides of the slavery question in the nationally significant frontier war that was ―Bleeding Kansas.‖

Friends of the Free State Capitol

Greg Allen, President Chris Meinhardt, Vice president Joseph Breitenstein, Secretary-Treasurer Robert S. Johnson, Chairman, Restoration Committee

Friends of the Free State Capitol coordinates education and restoration activities. Correspondence may be addressed to the President or Managing Officer, P.O. Box 2551, Topeka, Kansas 66601. Friends of the Free State Capitol is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation registered in the state of Kansas. This organization owns Constitution Hall at 427-429 S. Kansas Avenue and the adjacent building at 431 S. Kansas Avenue and 423 S. Kansas Avenue, included in the historic site and history education project. Friends of the Free State Capitol has adopted the recommendations presented in this report, as approved by the National Park Service, Network to Freedom Program.

 MAJOR SUPPORTERS

The State of Kansas The Kansas Legislature The Free-state territorial legislature duly elected by the people in 1855 (in contrast with the appointed Proslavery territorial government) used Constitution Hall as its Capitol from 1855-1861. Its successor government, the Kansas legislature, met in capital city meeting rooms from 1861 -1863, and from 1864- 1869 at the temporary State Capitol in the State Row office buildings. The state legislature moved into the east wing of the present state Capitol in 1870. Today, the Senate meets in the east wing while the House of Representatives meets in the later period west wing. In late 1997, following requests by citizens, the state legislature ordered a preliminary study of the S. Kansas Avenue property. In response, in May 1998 the legislature granted Friends of the Free State Capitol, Inc. $100, 000, of which $70, 000 was to be applied to the $95, 000 property purchase price. An additional sum of $25, 000 was to be raised as a matching fund from private sources to begin the work of building stabilization and protection. Friends of the Free State Capitol raised this amount from its membership and private citizens. With assurance of the application of those funds to the work of site stabilization and protection, the remaining $30, 000 of the legislative grant was released to Friends of the Free State Capitol, Inc., which was applied to work required to preserve and restore Constitution Hall. In April 2003, Senate Resolution No. 1846, sponsored by Senators Jackson, Bunten, and Hensley, and House Resolution 6022, sponsored by Representatives Hutchinson and Flora, was adopted, i.e. A RESOLUTION recognizing the centennial anniversary of the commemoration of Constitution Hall-Topeka, presented July 4, 1903, by the Topeka Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and dedicated by Miss Zu Adams, who was the daughter of Franklin G Adams, the first executive secretary of Kansas State Historical society, and it’s long-time key employee. The members of the Shawnee County legislative delegation continue to review restoration progress, and have led in the passage of the recent Senate and House of Representatives resolutions.

The Kansas State Historical Society Founders of this renowned institution presented the history of the Constitution Hall in Topeka in its earliest publications. Subsequent administrations have recognized the contributions of the Daughters of the American Revolution in their recognition of historic sites, including the dedication of the Constitution Hall plaque. Placed at present-day 429 S. Kansas Avenue in 1903, by Miss Zu Adams, the KSHS chief archivist and its acting executive director during the tenure of her father, Franklin G. Adams, when he was in failing health, this plaque identified 429 S. Kansas Avenue as the location of Constitution Hall. Ms. Jennie Chinn, Executive Director, appointed by Governor Kathleen Sebelius and who assumed her position in December, 2004, has read the preceding report, supplementing as it does the work of the society’s founders and leaders, and has offered to assist in listing the property on the state and national registers of historic places. Mr. Terry Marmet, acting Executive Director at the time of public release of the report, expressed his intention that Constitution Hall should be listed on these registers. Ramon Powers, executive director during initial study conducted in late 1997, has read this National Park Service report and expressed his concurrence therewith to Robert S. Johnson, director emeritus of the board of directors of the Kansas State Historical Society, Inc., and his appreciation for its accomplishments.

Kansas State Historical Society, Inc. Executive committee and board of directors The board of directors, a 100-plus member statewide leadership board, after considering a resolution offered by board member Robert S. Johnson, of Topeka, directed its Executive committee to offer the following resolution: RESOLVED that the Executive committee on behalf of the board of directors of the Kansas State Historical Society, Inc., takes note of the importance to early Kansas history of the site at 427 and 429 Kansas Avenue, Topeka, Kansas, and the Executive committee hopes that the owner of the site might delay the impending demolition and clearing of the site for seven months from October 25, 1997 to prepare a more extensive study of those structures and other structures in the same city block that are known to have played a significant role in the free-state government of Kansas. PASSED by the Executive committee, Kansas State Historical Society, Inc., October 25, 1997.

The City of Topeka The Administration, City Council, and Dept. of Housing and Neighborhood Development Grants of the City have assisted to continue property stabilization and protection.

The Daughters of the American Revolution Topeka Chapter Chapter members of this nation-wide historical commemoration society have long encouraged the preservation of Constitution Hall. In 1903, the Topeka chapter installed the Constitution Hall commemorative plaque at 429 S. Kansas Avenue. A previous owner removed this plaque to safe storage and has committed to return it to the historic building. The Chapter continues to support its restoration.

The Territorial Kansas Heritage Alliance Sponsors of the Bleeding Kansas National Heritage Area This organization promotes Territorial Kansas heritage. It has written to the Kansas State Historical Society to encourage all efforts to restore Constitution Hall as a chief attraction of the ―Bleeding Kansas‖ National Heritage Area, including listing the building in the State and National registers of historic places.

The Kansas Preservation Alliance The Board of Directors Directors of this statewide organization have provided advisory assistance since 1997, and in 2003 presented its ―Award for Excellence in Preservation Advocacy‖ to Friends of the Free State Capitol.

The American Institute of Architects, Kansas Chapter Historic Resources Committee This committee has studied Constitution Hall and to encourages its restoration.

The Shawnee County Historical Society Executive Committee and board of directors The Executive Committee, on behalf of the board of directors, adopted its Resolution in support of the findings by William Seale, particularly that Constitution Hall, at present-day 427-429 S. Kansas, should be listed in the State and National registers of historic places.

Membership Support

To help present the inspiring history of Constitution Hall–Topeka For our education and that of the generations to come

To be a local supporter in restoring this nationally significant building

Please join

FRIENDS OF THE FREE STATE CAPITOL P. O. Box 2551 Topeka, Kansas 66601

KansasConstitutionHall.org

Membership is $25

Free Stater: $100 Delgates: $250 New England Emigrant Aid Agents: $500

Governor Charles and Sara T. D. Robinson benefactor: $1000.00

Friends of the Free state Capitol is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation in the state of Kansas. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Friends of the Free State Capitol is not affiliated with the Shawnee County Historical Society or Kansas Historical Society