extending across the entire building on the Chestnut Street side with
its range of nine windows and having a fireplace at each end. There are
smaller rooms on each side of the broad entrance corridor; its wide,
flat arch has four fluted columns supporting a heavy pedimental head
with elliptical fanlight. Architecturally the restoration of the second
floor is less happy than that of the first. It is not in the spirit of
the work below; nor does it accord with typical Colonial work of
pre-Revolutionary days. It lacks that simple, straight-forward dignity
of design; that fine sense of proportion; that refinement and
appropriateness of detail. The spacing of the paneling of both the
wainscot and the fireplace mantels is not characteristic; the detail of
the latter is poorly chosen and assembled, and the whole aspect,
especially the entrance arch, suggests a studied effort to achieve
picturesque effect.

On the northwest corner of Independence Square, which is the southeast
corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, is old Congress Hall, erected in
1787, in which Congress sat from 1790 to 1800, and in which Washington
was inaugurated in 1793 for a second term with Adams as vice-president,
and in which Adams, in 1797, was inaugurated president with Jefferson as
vice-president.

Here Washington presented his famous message concerning Jay's treaty
with England; here, toward the close of his second administration, he
pronounced his farewell address, which is still regarded as a model of
dignity and farsightedness. Here, too, was officially announced the
death of Washington, when John Marshall offered a resolution that a
joint committee of the House and Senate consider "the most suitable
manner of paying honor to the memory of the man first in war, first in
peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen", thus originating a
phrase never to be forgotten in America. For some years after 1800 the
building was occupied by the criminal courts, now located in the City
Hall.

Were it not so near the more pretentious Independence Hall, this demure
little building would receive much more attention, for it is
architecturally a gem of the Colonial period, and such of its interior
woodwork as has been restored has been more happily treated than is
often the case. It is an oblong structure of brick, with marble and
white wood trim, two stories high, hip-roofed and surmounted in the
center by a well-proportioned, octagonal open cupola. On the