as if at home about the grounds, much to the delight of the children. The square, with its area of about twelve acres, includes the lot on which the Executive mansion stands, and is supposed to be a part of Nathaniel Bacon's plantation, where his overseer was murdered by the Indians, whose punishment by him, without permission of the Governor, Sir William Berkeley, was the beginning of the famous Bacon's rebellion.
Of the Capitol itself, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"I was written to in 1785, being then in Paris, by
Directors appointed to superintend the building of a
Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan.
Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the State an example of the classic style of antiquity, and the Maison Quarrée of Nismes, an ancient Roman Temple, being considered as the most perfect model existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M. Clerissault, who had published drawings of the antiquities at Nismes to have me a model of the building made in stucco, only changing the order from the Corinthian to Ionic on account of the difficulty of Corinthian Capitals."
The model sent by Jefferson is still preserved,
and looks like a miniature of the Capitol with
