Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/240

 In 1683, a handsome brick church was erected at Middle Plantation, and fifteen years later the "old fields" in front of the town were selected as the site for the "Royall Colledge" of William and Mary. Then in 1698, the State House at Jamestown falling again a victim to flames, Governor Francis Nicholson proposed to carry out the original suggestion of making the Middle Plantation the seat of government. The Legislature seconded him in this, stating in the preamble to their act that "the Middle Plantation had been found by constant experience to be healthy and agreeable to the constitutions of the inhabitants of this, his Majesty's, colony and dominion"; that "its air was serene and temperate," and that "its land was dry and champaign, and plentifully stored with wholesome springs."

Soon there rose at Middle Plantation a building in the shape of an "H," the first "Capitol" so called in the United States (the term "State House" being used in the other colonies), then a palace for the governor, a theatre, the first also in English America, for the enacting of tragedies and comedies, an armory for the care of the public arms and ammunition, a public prison, the first hospital for the insane in