Richmond, the capital of Virginia

Jamestown and Williamsburg

Virginia’s colonial government sat at Jamestown from 1607 until 1699, when it moved to Williamsburg. Williamsburg remained the capital through the end of the colonial era and served as the first capital of the independent Commonwealth.

The move to Richmond

In 1779, at Governor Thomas Jefferson’s urging, the General Assembly passed an act to move the seat of government to Richmond. Richmond was more central for the growing western population, it sat on the navigable James River, and it was safer from British raids than the towns on the coast. It was also small, a town of about 600 people.

In April 1780 government records and furniture were shipped up the James, and legislators first met in Richmond that May. The House of Delegates is believed to have met in a tobacco warehouse confiscated from a loyalist, and the Senate in a nearby building. In 1788 lawmakers moved into the new Capitol.

Jefferson’s temple

Jefferson designed the Capitol in 1785, with Charles-Louis Clérisseau, while he was serving as US minister to France. He based it on the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, a Roman temple, and it became the first public building in the New World built in the form of a classical temple. The General Assembly has met there since 1788, and the building was completed in 1792. Inside stands Jean-Antoine Houdon’s statue of George Washington, sculpted from life.

House and Senate wings opened in 1906, and from 2004 to 2007 the building was restored and given an underground visitor extension.

The Civil War

During the Civil War Virginia had two governments. The Confederate state government stayed in Richmond until April 1865, while the Unionist Restored Government sat at Wheeling from 1861 and at Alexandria from 1863. In May 1865 the Restored Government returned to Richmond.

Visiting

The General Assembly offers guided and virtual tours of the Capitol. See its visitor page for details.