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The West Stairs: How were they damaged?
As you ascend the staircase, notice the numerous worn, chipped, and uneven steps.
This visible damage likely was caused by the iron-rimmed wheels of wheelbarrows used by enslaved African Americans as they carted heavy loads of firewood upstairs to fuel the fireplaces. Records indicate that more than 300 cords of wood were used during regular legislative session, which ran from November to March. The west door of the Capitol (to your left) functioned as the service entrance. The woodshed stood near the northwest corner of the grounds.
Local slaveholders hired out slaves to do general housekeeping and maintenance at the Capitol from 1840 until the end of the Civil War. After emancipation, free blacks were hired and paid to do the work.
A claim that whiskey barrels damaged these stairs is a long-standing legend, though historical research has since discredited this myth.
The story is rooted in accounts of an infamous carpetbagger, former Union Army General Milton S. Littlefield, who was said to have kept a "profusion of bottles and seegars" in the West Committee Room on the second floor. During the era of Civil War Reconstruction (1865-1877), the room was known as the "third house" of the legislature, because of the many political deals that are said to have been made there during this notoriously corrupt period. |