Many Valuable Papers Saved at the Capitol.

March 31, 1911, New-York Tribune, Page 3, MANY VALUABLE PAPERS SAVED AT THE CAPITOL,



WRECK OF THE STATE LIBRARY IN THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY.

(Photograph by the American Press Association)

Commissioner Draper Gives Out List of Priceless Historical Documents Recovered.

TALK OF LARGER BUILDING.

Abbott's Body Not Found -- Bayne Accuses Firemen of Inefficiency -- Assembly and Judiciary Records Gone.

(By Telegraph to The Tribune.)

Albany, March 30.--With the firemen still pouring tons of water into the smouldering ruins of the broad western section of the Capitol building to-night, the whole imposing front of the great structure was brilliantly lighted, an effect which dispelled, in a large measure, the gloom which hung over Capitol Hill the night before. Hundreds of workmen were employed in cleaning up the debris in the fireswept rooms where the floors had held and were not dangerous to work on. They threw the blackened and charred remnants of thousands of volumes from the Senate law library in shovelfuls out of the gaping windows. The yard and streets adjoining the western end of the Capitol were covered with the white remnants of documents and book leaves.

A more thorough examination to-day of the sections of the building in the fire zone by State Architect Ware and his corps of assistants found many of the inside walls in danger of falling, and the order went out to the workmen not to venture into the main section of the west wing where the state library was located and the roof had fallen in. There was also danger, it was said, of parts of the outside walls on the northwest corner falling. The police lines were extended and pedestrians not allowed to pass on that side of the building through State street. The massive tower on that corner of the structure crumbled and fell during the fire. The families occupying houses in State street opposite the Capitol were not allowed to reenter their homes.

A score of employes of the State Educational Department were rewarded in their explorations to-day of the outlying galleries of the great state library, where some of the many state archives and priceless historical documents were found to be intact.

Dr. Draper Greatly Pleased.

Dr, Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Education, was highly pleased over the rescue of even a small portion of these irreplaceable records. He was hopeful that other books and records would be found in a fair state of preservation as the search was continued. Twenty-three volumes of the documentary records of the War of 1812, which had an inestimable historical value, were recovered practically unharmed. Fifty volumes of the Stevens set of facsimiles of English papers, bearing on the history of relations of the colonies and England, were also recovered.

But the great bulk of books and documents stored in the library were destroyed.

Dr. Draper gave out a complete list of the articles and manuscripts which were saved in this way. They include many valuable New York State documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The various constitutions of the State of New York, beginning with that of 1777, were among them. There were also the autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in a bound volume; the famous Major Andre papers., Washington's opinion of the surviving generals of the Revolution, written in the winter of 1791-92, various other Washington documents, and the invaluable Van Rensselaer papers.

The perilous condition of the Capitol ruins makes systematic search for the body of Samuel J. Abbott, the veteran night watchman of the State Library, who was lost in the fire, impossible. Mr. Abbott's son, who, with his sister, came here from West Newton, Mass., led the search to-day with several workmen who have been assigned to him for that purpose by Governor Dix. They dug all day on the edge of the pile of stone and twisted iron which fell to the third floor with the roof over the State Library. It is thought that Abbott was first suffocated by the smoke near his desk in the library and then buried there under the falling stone and iron. The searchers had to proceed cautiously on account of the danger of weakened floors and walls where they worked. No trace of the body had been found to-night.

Plans for Restoration.

With the various state departments, whose offices in the Capitol were rendered useless by the fire, fairly well settled to-day in new and temporary quarters, the wheels began to move in the direction of plans for the restoration of the damaged part of the building. An emergency appropriation bill for $100,000 for immediate repairs for the building and the tearing down of such walls as are in a dangerous condition, was introduced in both houses of the Legislature. The bills will be reported favorably by the Finance committees of the two houses, and will pass without delay. The State Trustees of Public Buildings, who are empowered to expend the appropriation, met this afternoon to consider the most pressing needs for which the money can be used.

Many suggestions by legislators and others as to what the state may do relative to rebuilding the burned portions of the Capitol are being made. Some believe that the state should acquire all the property as far west as Swan street, a block beyond the present Capitol grounds, and extend the Capitol to the present western limits of the park. They point out that the state departments are constantly spreading out and taking more room in adjacent buildings, and that even after the new Education Building is completed and occupied it will be found that the Capitol will be too small to accommodate all the requirements of the state departments.

State Architect Ware isn't concerned with these various suggestions, but is going ahead with immediate plans to remedy the present condition of the building. It was said that probably the building itself could be restored to its original condition at a cost of about $4,000,000. This is somewhat under the estimate made by the State Architect yesterday, before he and his men had an opportunity to make a more careful examination of conditions.

It is said that an appropriation of this size would practically wipe out the estimated surplus remaining in the State Treasury at the end of the present fiscal year. The state cannot bond itself for this rebuilding, and the money must be taken directly from the treasury.

State Architect's Statement.

The following statement was given out to-night on behalf of Mr. Ware as a result of to-day's examination of the burned portions of the Capitol.

The exterior walls of the pavilions on the northwest and southwest corners and the westerly gables appear to be plumb. Some of the interior walls of the library are in a very dangerous condition and should be shored up immediately. The dormers on the southwesterly pavilion are also in a dangerous condition and will require immediate shoring or tearing down. The State Architect gave instructions to the Superintendent of Buildings to keep all cellar drains and manholes open so as to afford easy outlet for the tons of water which are being poured into the building. All of this water is being taken off by the sewers, and, , so far as it can be ascertained, none of it can affect the foundations.

Examination of the Assembly ceiling made by the State Architect this morning shows that the westerly portion of it has been badly damaged by fire and water. The damage affects primarily the panels between the beams, which can be taken out and replaced, although in a few instances the beams themselves will have to be renewed.

The State Architect conferred with William Church Osborn, the Governor's counsel, regarding suitable steps to be taken by the trustees of public buildings to shore up the unsafe portions of the building, remove valuable furniture, manuscripts, etc., of the various state departments that have not been damaged, remove the rubbish and close off the damaged portion of the building pending the preparation of plans for reconstruction.

Governor Dix was at the Capitol early to-day and spent several hours at his office. He conferred with State Architect Ware and other state officials. The Governor, it was said, expressed the wish for an early investigation or inquiry into the causes which led up to the great destruction done by the fire. Senator Howard R. Bayne, of Richmond County, suggested on the floor of the Senate, when it met in the City Hall to-day, that the majority leader of the upper house should take steps to institute an investigation of the fire by the Legislature.

Senator Bayne, who was on the scene of the fire early and joined with the firemen in fighting the flames inside the Capitol, said to-day that the local fire department showed a serious inefficiency in handling the fire. They appeared to be utterly unable, with the equipment they had and from a lack of experience, to cope with a sizable fire like that at the Capitol.

Senator Bayne asserted that it was some time before other firemen appeared on the scene. They found that the hose was too short to reach the vital points of the fire after they got it in the building, he said.

Several of the state officials declared to-day that a rigid investigation should be made forthwith in order to provide better means for fire protection at the Capitol in the future. The Secretary of State, Mr. Lazansky, advocated the erection of a fire-proof vault in which to keep valuable documents. He suggested also the creation of a separate fire department to guard the Capitol against fire.

The destruction of the records of the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly will delay legislation more seriously than was at first realized. This committee had many of the most important bills introduced at the present session, including the direct nominations and women suffrage measures and all constitutional amendments. The committee will now have to consult each member of the Senate and Assembly to get a record of their bills before it, and it has no way of learning the objections to bills or of requests for hearings from outside organizations unless these organizations again communicate their requests and objections to the chairman of the committee. It may take two or three months to do all this, it was said.

The loss of the Assembly library will not handicap the lower legislative house to any great extent, since the files of bills can be replaced from the duplicates kept in the Senate library, which escaped unscathed. This applies only to the bills of the current session. The files covering the legislation of the last twenty years were kept on the Assembly side and were destroyed.

Elmer Blair, who was Deputy State Superintendent of Public Buildings until last February, gave out a statement declaring that his department had called attention to the inadequate wiring of the building in several of its annual reports, but that an appropriation for rewiring had been steadily denied.

"The electric wiring in the Capitol was installed years ago," said Mr. Blair, "and is out of date. I do not believe there is an insurance company in the country that would have taken insurance on a building wired as the Capitol was."

The colonial journals were turned over to the State Library 10 days before the fire.

April 3, 1911, Albany Evening Journal, Page 1, GUARD DOUBLED AT THE CAPITOL

James I. Wyer Jr., director of the state library, said, relative to the building up of a new library:

"I believe the state of New York will went to perpetuate the state library as one of the greatest libraries of the world. It was third in size and importance in the United States. To do that a large appropriation must be forthcoming at the outset to put this library on a working basis when it goes into the new state education building, If the staff of the library is to be kept intact, and the state library school eventually retained in Albany, this appropriation must come speedily, and the work of the rebuilding of the collection must be pushed with all dispatch."

The colonial journals which have been in the custody of the secretary of state since their publication, were turned over to the state library 10 days before the fire. They are believed to be entirely lost.

Transcript:

From Capitol Stories, by C. R. Roseberry (1982)

From Capitol Stories, by C. R. Roseberry (1982)

page 119
Meanwhile the Assembly library had become a furnace. Flames exploded through its glass transom and also through rear windows to leap catercorner across an air-shaft into the State Library corridor. A wooden mezzanine which had been erected above the north portion of that corridor for extra book shelving took fire on the instant. The two newsmen beat a retreat to where the Senate corridor turns off at right angles, and watched from there.

page 120
Until now, Fire Chief William W. Bridgeford was confident of keeping the fire out of the State Library. The stone partition was thick between the corridor and the library, the only breach being the central door to the main reading room and a high row of window panes above it. Firemen played three streams into the wall of fire, expecting to confine it to the north half of the corridor. Chief Bridgeford had Mullins go back downstairs and fetch an emergency key to the library. Mullins was fumbling with the key at the heavy oaken door when a sheet of flame swept along the arched ceiling of the corridor. The high window panes burst and a strong draft seemed to suck the flames into the library, where they leaped from shelf to shelf. The Chief ordered his men to get inside the main reading room and work their way south, heading off the blaze, “if it were possible to live there.” They tried to rush in, but heat scorched their hands so they couldn’t hold on to their nozzles.

Once the fire had invaded the reading room, it was clear that the State Library would have to be written off. Its own carefully prepared firefighting apparatus was worthless. “A tidal wave of water was needed then,” wrote one observer.

According to Roseberry, the fire began in the Assembly library, (which is the room marked 346 on the plan below) then the "[f]lames exploded through its glass transom and also through rear windows to leap catercorner across an air-shaft into the State Library corridor." However, this would not have been simultaneous. The fire would have first had to break through the glass transom over the doorway to Room 346, and then enter into the east/west hallway that leads from the rear of the Assembly chamber to the Assemblymen's lavatory, indicated on the plan by a row of stalls. The flames would then have had to break through the small window fenestrating the lavatory into the air shaft, just north of the Great Western Stairway, in order to jump "catercorner" to break through the larger windows between the air shaft and the corridor marked on the plan as Room 344. However, at this point fire wouldn't have entered the State Library proper, those rooms to the west of the corridor marked 339 and 340 on the plan, and separated by thick masonry wall, and, one assumes, heavy oak doors. According to Roseberry's scenario, the fire extended out from Corridor 344 to enter into the stone hallway of the Great Western Stairway to the east of the entrance to the Main Reading Room of the State Library, marked as Room 338 on the plan (but most often referred to as Room 35 in the various literature about the Capitol and Library,) where "a sheet of flame swept along the arched ceiling of the corridor [and the] high window panes burst." This would be the fourth set of windows that the flames were able to penetrate. However, there is no indication that such "a high row of window panes" existed above the main door of the State Library.

In fact, within the highly limited body of historic imagery extant in the public record of the State Capitol and State Library, where very little else can be proven with any assurance, the absence of such a row of window openings between the Main Reading room of the library and the stair hall to the east can be ascertained with a great deal of certainty.

Even after fire had burned away the bookcases and mezzanine, we see nothing but the solid masonry wall which stood between the library and the stair hall.

March 30, 1911, The [Syracuse NY] Post-Standard, CAPITOL FIRE-SWEPT; PRIDE OF THE STATE IS QUICKLY A WRECK. COULD HAVE PUT OUT FIRE WITH A PAIL OF WATER

ALBANY, March 29.—L. M. Howe, one of the legislative correspondents, who was in the Capitol when the fire started, gave this description of it:

"At about 2:15 this morning another newspaper man and I were working on the third floor of the Capitol, when the clerk of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, accompanied by one of the night watchmen, ran through the corridor, shouting:

"There is a fire in the Assembly library!"

"Rushing over to the room," said, Mr. Howe, "which is in the rear of the Assembly, we looked in the room and saw the desk in the southwest corner a mass of flames. 

"The fire at this time could have been easily put out with a pail or two of water. We searched in vain for anything to serve the purpose, and finally decided to close the door and keep out the draft. The night watchman ran downstairs to sound the alarm, there being no alarms in the building.

Flames Spread Rapidly. 

"While we waited for the department we could see the flames through the glass transom rapidly filling the entire apartment, but we were helpless to do anything. By the time the department reached the building the room where the desk was located was a roaring furnace, but at that time it had not spread into the hall or adjoining room.

"Before a hose could be brought into use the fire, with a loud explosion, burst simultaneously through the transom into the hall leading to the main entrance to the State library; the transom of the door leading to the room immediately east of where the fire started; and through the large plate glass window into the street.

"The tongue of flame which swept out over the transom opening into the hall appeared to instantly set fire to the underside of the wooden floor, forming the mezzanine floor that occupies the northern half of the library corridor. So fast did the fire spread over this floor that we were obliged to escape to the Senate entrance to escape being caught by the flames. In less than twenty minutes the State library had caught and the flames were shooting through the roof at the northwest angle."

March 30, 1911 Trenton Evening Times,

March 30, 1911 Trenton Evening Times, Page 1, Column 2, GUARDING CAPITOL WELL FROM FIRE,

New Jersey Carries Insurance on All of the State Institutions

The New Jersey State Capitol is kept constantly insured $450,000 and if it should be attacked by flames, as was the New York State House, the State would not have to stand a total loss. All buildings of the state institutions are similarly kept insured.

The Jersey State House is also completely equipped with an auxiliary fire alarm system, with fire boxes in all sections of the big building so that if a fire should break out, no matter in what part, it would only take a few steps to a box, and the pulling of a lever would instantly summon the city fire department.

There Is also a full equipment of fire extinguishers, and under the direction of State House Custodian J. W. Weseman, fire drills are held to instruct the laborers in the building in the use of the extinguishers and fighting fire in other ways.

Recently, upon the recommendation of Mr. Weseman, the Suite House Commission had fire doors placed in the huge basement, dividing it into three compartments. Now, if a fire broke out in the basement the doors could be quickly closed, confining the smoke and flames, at least for long time, to the one compartment.

During the past four or five years the old electric wiring has been overhauled and modernized, most of the wires having been placed in iron conduits, so that fire from defective wiring, it is believed, has been made practically impossible. Mr. Weseman has held several conferences during the past two or three years with Fire Chief Allen asking him for suggestions as to the better safeguarding of the State House.

The Associated Press, March 30, 1911

March 30, 1911, Middletown [N.Y.] Times. CLEANING UP THE REFUSE AT THE STATE CAPITOL WHILE BUSINESS IS HALTED.
Pumps, Brooms and Vacuum Cleaners Are at Work.
RUGS ARE SOAKED.

(By Associated Press.)

Albany, March 30.—The work of rehabilitating the fire-swept state capitol was continued to-day with increasing vigor. The first efforts were directed to drying out portions of the great building untouched by fire, but thoroughly soaked by the tons of water poured upon the conflagration.

The Legislative leaders to-day' expected to confer with Gov. Dix and State Architect Ware regarding the appropriation necessary to repair the building.

Repair—$4,000,000.

Unofficial estimates place the cost of reconstruction at close to $4,000,000. The appropriation of this sum, it is said, would practically wipe out the estimated surplus remaining in the state treasury at the end of the present fiscal year. The state cannot bond itself for this rebuilding, and the money must be taken directly from the treasury.

The whole building except the offices and east front, are as damp as an underground cell.

The costly velvet carpets, specially woven with the state's coat of arms, are like saturated sponges. It may be necessary to purchase entire new furnishings for the Assembly chamber.

Several hundred men worked with brooms, cloths and vacuum cleaners in drying out the building. In some places the water was so deep it bad to be pumped out of the windows.

It is doubtful if any investigation will be made to learn the cause of the disaster. Whether the fire started from a glowing match end, cigarette or cigar butt tossed in the Assembly library, or from defective wiring, may never be ascertained.

Flames Still Alive.

Several fire engines pumped water into the ruins of the state library,all day, to-day. Twice the flames burst out afresh in the smoldering stacks of books, but were quickly subdued.

State Architect Ware told Governor Dix that until the ruins cooled he could not make an exact report on the situation.

A systematic search is being made for the body of Night Watchman Samuel Abbott, believed to be buried in the debris.

Workmen found large quantities of books in a good state of preservation. Some only stained on the outside by smoke and water, the pages being intact. These can be rebound. Contents of the library will not be a total loss.

Driven from Quarters.

Driven from their quarters in the capitol, the employes of several of the state departments are temporarily stationed in private office buildings, the city hall and residences in the vicinity of the capitol. The state education department has found quarters at the state normal college; the department of the adjutant general at No. 25 Washington avenue; the state tax commission at 102 State street; the state library staff at 162 State street: the state treasurer's department at the Buick automobile building, corner of Swan street and Washington avenue; the state superintendent, of weights and measures at the city hall; certain employes of the state excise department at 48 Eagle street.

Books from the public service commission department, which were removed Wednesday morning to the offices of the commission on Washington avenue, were later brought back to the capitol. Owing to the fact that the hearing room was flooded, hearings before the commission will be held for the present in the county court chambers in the county building.

Court of Appeals in New Place.

The Court of Appeals convened Wednesday in the court room of the Appellate Division, third department, but half an hour later than the usual hour of assembling, and four appeals were argued. The bench was designed for five judges and two extra chairs were brought in and a full bench of seven judges sat during the afternoon, although they were somewhat crowded.

The Court of Claims found refuge in Sheriff Platt's private office and Secretary of State Lazansky will share Judge Addington's office to-day

City Hall Crowded.

The city hall was crowded with homeless state officials. Mayor McEwan offered the use of the building to Governor Dix before 8 o'clock, and within a short time every available office was occupied. Lieutenant Governor

CLEANING UP REFUSE

(Continued from Page One.)

Conway used the mayor 's office and Speaker Frisbie took possession of the outer office, but will move into Justice Rudd's chambers on the next floor to-day. The fiscal supervisor's office was established In City Marshal Moran's apartments.

The senate met in the Common Council chamber and the assembly in the Supreme Court room, and both rooms were used for committee hearings during the afternoon. In the witness waiting room, off of the court room, the public service commission is holding its sessions. State Treasurer Kennedy has taken the recorder's court room and Attorney General Carmody the supervisors' room above. The court library is used as the senate post office and boxes are arranged by numbers on pieces of paper pasted on the long tables.

Luke McHenry, assembly clerk, is in the city comptroller's office, while the financial clerk of the assembly uses the office of the president of the Common Council

Senate Pages Dance.

The annual ball of the pages of the senate was held Wednesday evening in Odd Fellows' Hall, and neither the weather nor the conflagration failed to prevent a good attendance.

Women in Gloom.

There was a general feeling of gloom among the women of Albany yesterday for the appalling calamity that had befallen, not only the state but the city, in the burning of the capitol had left a deep impression and the affairs scheduled for yesterday were in many instances postponed and those taking place were inactive affairs, for it was the fire that was the topic for discussion and in spite of the bright sides and the apparent spring weather the “day was cold and dark and dreary," for the big building on the hill, which had been the pride of every woman in town, was seen crumbling away. There were groups and groups of women, either employed in one or other of the departments, standing about the building watching the great tongues of flame as they shot out of the windows where, perhaps only the day before, their offices, had been located. Then there were gatherings of other women huddled together and weeping as they saw the bricks and mortar fall with a crash to the street below and the great streams of water dash like a waterfall off of the once gabled towers and the red tiled roofs.

There they stayed from early morning until the darkness compelled them to go home, fascinated by the spectacular scene, and reminiscing over the capitol. the older ones telling to eager listeners the pride and the glory they felt in this wonderful building, with its impregnable buttresses which stood sentinel-like over the entire city and which was the first indication of the capital city as one came up the river either by the boat or the train. One old woman, scantily clad and with a shawl pulled over her head, made the statement that the hand of the Lord was in it, for now the state of New York could begin all over again and build its walls on a sure and firm foundation."

John H. Harrington's Editorial in The Lowell Sun in the Aftermath of the New York State Capitol Fire

March 31, 1911, The Lowell [Mass.] Sun, Editorial, [John H. Harrington, Proprietor] Page 12,

THE GREAT FIRE PERIL

In the fire horror of New York city and the subsequent destruction of the capitol at Albany not only the state of New York but the entire country has an object lesson in the need of greater vigilance in the matter of providing protection against fire. Where the laws are lax and officials still worse, there is ever present the danger of such disasters as have visited New York state during the past week. How can such calamities be averted in the future? By strict laws to minimize the danger, to promote preventive measures and to maintain well disciplined fire departments. Unless heroic measures are adopted we may find some great conflagration such as that of Chelsea, Chicago or San Francisco to wipe out an entire city. The fire peril is becoming more dangerous as the years go by, and it would seem that legislative bodies are mainly to blame for the unguarded state of affairs in many cities and states.

That any state capitol should be left in such a dangerous condition as was that of New York, is beyond comprehension. That the priceless records of the city and state should have been exposed to loss by fire at any moment shows criminal negligence. There is a bad odor about the state capitol, not because of the fire, for this odor has attached to it for many years, in fact since the capitol was built. The structure has been the scene of many grafting schemes. The very construction of the building was the pretext for all kinds of swindling operations, mismanagement and incompetency. The building itself is located on a quicksand and parts of it have been sagging and sinking for years. The building was left without a tower on the assumption that this would be added later, but subsequently it was found that the foundation and supports were not strong enough to carry a tower. Is it any wonder that the building was an accumulation of botchery when the first architect after starting the work was dropped, the second abandoned it as a bad job and the third endeavored to make the best of the tangle. The New York capitol, it may he said, represents the work of many administrations, each of which sought to make money out of the job. Much that was badly done by one administration seemed to inspire other administrations to do something still worse until by the time the capitol was finished it had cost the state $25,000,000 and was not worth half the amount. But bad as it was known to be, nobody supposed it was a fire trap that would burn up in a few hours in spite of all the efforts of fire companies.

There is here a sorry spectacle in the work of public construction and fire protection. How could sane men construct and furnish a state capitol without a safety vault for the preservation of valuable records? There may have been some apology of this kind, but it did not save the records from destruction. The whole affair is a disgrace to the state and especially to the political bosses and leaders, from Lucius Robinson to John A. Dix and including Theodore Roosevelt, Tom Platt and David B. Hill. It would be difficult to say now just where the weight of the blame lay for making the state capitol a tinder box, but it is quite probable that one party is as much to blame for this result as the other. Both apparently shared in the extravagance, mismanagement and incompetence that produced the monstrosity.

It is stated that $4,000,000 will repair the damage. In all probability the expense will be more nearly $10,000,000, and then the capitol will be still a mass of defects, a building scarcely sufficient to support its own weight. Many New York citizens have cause to regret that the building was not destroyed outright so that a capitol might be built to meet all requirements in a decent way and so that the state might eventually have a state capitol that in architecture and convenience might compare with some of the best in the country.

Advocacy Journalism.

February 27, 1888, New York Times, page 2, column 4, To Preserve Our Library, The Noble Collections Belonging To The State In Danger In Its Present Quarters. -- WHY THE NEW LIBRARY ROOMS SHOULD BE FINISHED AT ONCE.

ALBANY, Feb. 26.-- The State of New York has the finest library of any State in the Union. At a modest estimate the contents are worth $500,000. On Sept. 30 last there were in the library 134,394 bound volumes, besides thousands of pamphlets and tens of thousands of manuscripts, constituting a vast storehouse of legal and historical learning. The manner in which this treasure is sheltered is a curiosity in the treatment of great libraries, a disgrace to the State, and a triumph in the art of cheese-paring practised spasmodically by the Legislature.

In a memorial to the present Legislature calling attention to the pressing need of suitable quarters for this great and noble collection, "the fruit of the enlightened liberality of three generations, sustained by the wise beneficence of successive Legislatures, enriched by rare contributions from all quarters of the globe," the Regents of the University, who are the Trustees of the State Library, have this to say of the circumstances which led to the library occupying its present quarters, and of the quarters themselves.

The library was already beginning to suffer from lack of room, when in 1883 the growth of the new Capitol rendered it necessary to clear the ground of the old State Library Building. In the summer of that year the trustees of the library were notified that the demolition of the old building had been decided upon, and the permanent rooms had been set apart in the new Capitol which should at once be fitted up in a suitable manner for the reception of the library. In the meantime and until these new quarters could be prepared for the reception of the library, rooms in different parts of the building were hastily made ready for the temporary storage of the several collections. The books of the general library were arranged with some attempt at order on shelving put up in the abandoned Court of Appeals chamber; the books of the law library in a similar manner in the golden corridor, which was then and is still used as a passage-way from the east to the west sides of the Capitol. The large and invaluable collection of duplicates of the library (numbering not less than 75,000 volumes) were stored in rooms in the vaults of the Capitol, where they still lie, wholly inaccessible and suffering irreparable damage from intense heat, dampness, and other causes. The great collection of manuscripts was distributed among several custodians, some portions of it in the southwest pavilion of the Capitol, others in dark store-rooms connected with the temporary quarters of the general and law libraries, very many of them for the time being practically useless and some of them of the greatest value being lost, damaged, and destroyed.

The statement of the Regents is a conservative one. In its present quarters the general library is cramped and crowded. The "reading-room" consists of a space or aisle 10 feet wide on one side of the big room. In this there are six small tables. The law library is in a public corridor, attractive enough in its decoration to be one of the show places of the Capitol. There is no room in which to display the important collection of casts, portraits, and similar treasures belonging to the State Library and now stored in the attic. High temperature is believed to have already greatly injured the collections of duplicates stored in the basement, the great value of which is thus referred to by the Regents in their memorial:

"These (duplicates) consist for the most part of session laws, Senate and Assembly documents, and other publications of our own and other States, and when once destroyed can never be replaced. An important, if not the most important, source of the growth of a great library like that of the State is the system of exchanges with individuals, Governments, and other libraries, and the material for these exchanges is the library of duplicates to which reference has been made. When these are stored in inaccessible quarters this system is hampered and the natural growth of the library is checked. When these are destroyed the system ceases to operate and the natural development of the library from this source comes to an end. In the case of our own collection of duplicates the former state of affairs has long existed, and the latter can be avoided only by speedy action on the part of the Legislature."

In the general library are books worth, literally speaking, almost if not quite their weight in gold. Among them are some very rare and curious. The library has a nearly complete set of the early Jesuit Relations. It also contains the famous Usselincx manuscripts, including 404 pages of papers and reports of Willem Usselincx for the period from 1614 to 1646; Ptolemy's Geography of 1611; a collection of Japanese books presented by Dr. David Murray, and one of the best and most complete collections extant of books relating to the civil war.

In the four years that have elapsed since the library was thrust into its present quarters over 14,000 volumes have been added to the collection by gifts.

"In the meantime," say the Regents, "the books in both departments of the library are suffering serious damage from the heat and dust to which many of them in their present quarters are necessarily exposed, the public who use the library are subjected to daily and hourly inconvenience, the work of caring for the collections is enormously increased and unsatisfactorily and uneconomically performed, and a much-needed reorganization of the library force which has long been in contemplation is compelled to wait from year to year, to the great detriment of the work which the institution is called upon to perform."

To complete the quarters designed for the State Library would require, according to the plans and estimates prepared by Capitol Commissioner Perry, $125,000 in money, and not more than two months' time. Mr. Perry's plans provided for a noble home for the State Library. The library and Regents will occupy the third and fourth floors and attic of the entire western section of the building, except three rooms on the fourth floor given up to the Board of Claims. The Regents have three rooms on the third floor and a like number on the fourth. The grand western staircase, which when completed will be one of the finest pieces of architecture around the Capitol, leads directly up to the main entrance to the library, and two elevators will also take the visitor or student to the third or fourth floor in that section of the building. The main entrance opens into the general reading-room, a magnificent room 73 by 42 feet and 52 feet high, being carried up through the fourth story. At the two ends of this room are two tiers of galleries supported on clusters of red granite columns and freestone arches of the same color, and a gallery stretches across the east side. In this room there will be shelving for 16,000 volumes. South of the reading-room and adjoining it is a stack-room 27 x 30 feet, divided by perforated iron floors into three stories 7 feet 3 inches high. In these stand the bookshelves, made of galvanized iron and supported on iron stanchions. By the use of mezzanine floors in a corridor on the east, and in another room 15 x 30 feet on the south, shelving is provided for 55,488 volumes.

Directly over the last-named rooms and corridor in the fourth story is a room 45 x 48 feet by 26 feet high, with an open space 15 x 24 feet in the ceiling for the admission of light through the glazed roof for lighting the centre of the room, and for the accommodation of the iron stairs, which start from.the floor in the centre of the book-room and extend up to the attic floor, with landings on each of the intermediate floors. This book-room, as now planned, has a capacity of 136,488 volumes, making the total capacity of the general library 207,976 volumes.

The law library is at the north side of the reading-room, occupying on the third floor all the space between the reading-room and the north wall of the Capitol and also a room en the fourth floor. Mezzanine floors give additional room, space being provided for 95,000 volumes of law books. The law library rooms are nearly complete, and so are the stack-rooms for the general library. In both the shelving is in its place. The bookcases in the law library are made of quartered oak, richly designed in panel-work, with a moderate amount of well-executed carving. The ceilings and walls of two of the rooms are painted and decorated.

In the great reading-room, lighted by six windows, part of the stonework is already in place and much of the stone yet to be set is cut and on the ground. If completed according to Mr. Perry's plans it will be one of the handsomest rooms in the Capitol. The whole attic of the western section is to be used as part of the library. It is 35 feet high and well lighted in its central part by a glazed roof. The north and south sections of the attic are each 53 feet square and lighted by ordinary windows, the view from which will be one of the sights of the Capitol.

For three years work on these rooms has been at a standstill, and the library has been ... confined in quarters never intended and entirely unsuited for it. The need of new rooms, if the library is to be preserved and of use to students, is urgent. With an appropriation of $125,000 it can be speedily given a new home. Delay means further serious deterioration of the library and continued arrest of the natural development of this great and valuable collection.

Among the members of the Board of Regents are such well-known editors as George William Curtis of Harper's Weekly, who is Vice-Chancellor; Whitelaw Reid of the New-York Tribune; Charles E. Fitch of the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle; Sinclair McKelway of the Brooklyn Eagle; Willard Cobb of the Lockport Journal, and Carroll E. Smith of the Syracuse Journal. The bare suggestion that not one of them has the slightest influence with members of the Legislature from his own locality would doubtless cause acute pain in the region where the coronal service begins to decline toward the back head, and a little above the posterior angle of the parietal bones, such is the sensitiveness of the average editor. But should the Legislature adjourn without granting so necessary an appropriation, it would be a fair inference that this aggregation of newspaper talent is lacking in the first principles of practical politics, is without honor even in the legislative body whose members owe their elevation so largely to the newspapers. If the editors, conscious of their own weaknesses, should call into service the experience and persuasive eloquence of such fellow-Regents as Chauncey M. Depew, ex-State Senator Hamilton Harris, (than whom no more skilled logroller lives,) Chancellor Henry R. Pierson, ex-United States Senator Francis Kernan, and ex-Attorney-General Leslie W. Russell---if this combination would give a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, what Legislature would refuse a paltry $125,000? Having satisfied himself that there was no politics in it, how could our Governor, generous patron of arts, music, billiards, and learning that he is, consistently refuse to sanction the expenditure of this sum?

Wow. The Board of New York State Regents does sound kind of top-heavy with newspapermen, doesn't it?

Court of Appeals.

Early Morning, March 29, 1911. Clang, Clang, Clang, Went the Trollies.

The New York State Library's 80th Annual Report, 1897.

The New York State Library's 80th Annual Report 1897

Harry Roy Sweny

April 24, 1896, New York Times, A DAY'S WEDDINGS. Sweny-Parker

ALBANY, April 23.--Miss Louisa Parker, oldest daughter of Gen. Amasa J. Parker, and Harry Roy Sweny, only son of the late Capt. Alfred Sweny, were married in St. Peter's Church this afternoon by the Rev. Dr. Battershall. The bride was given away by her brother Amasa J. Parker, Jr. Dr. C. C. Schuyler of Plattsburg acted as best man. There were no bridesmaids. Lewis R. Parker, Dr. Frederick Cox, R.V. , D.W. Walsh, and Harry Whiting Garfield were the ushers

General George Washington's Sword.

"I cannot tell a lie. I did cut down the cherry tree."

April 3, 1911, The Evening World, Page 3, Column 5, THIEVES IN RUINS OF CAPITOL FIRE; GUARD DOUBLED,

Desks in Senate Clerk's Room Broken Open and Rifled---After Old Coins.

ALBANY. April 2.--Sentries on duty at the State Capitol to-day redoubled their vigilance to prevent thievery, which has been rampant since it became known that many valuable old coins are scattered among the debris in the burned State Library. Some of the desks in the Senate Clerk's room were broken open yesterday and rifled of their contents. The military authorities are investigating.

George Washington's famous sword, said to have been given to him by Frederick the Great, has been recovered. It was found undamaged under a heap of charred books.

But didn't I. N. Phelps Stokes, the man who says he participated in finding this sword, tell us an entirely different story---that amongst three rescuers, none of them at first recognized the twisted piece of metal they encountered while salvaging in the sacrosanct precincts of a rare relic and manuscript room, as being an ornamental anything, let alone an officers sword:

"It will be remembered that the loss of General Washington's sword and the General Worth sword was reported at the time of the fire. The Washington sword was recovered rather curiously. As we worked the first day I saw a workman pick up a twisted bit of metal and show it to another. The other shook his head, thinking the thing useless, and the finder threw it away.

"Mechanically I noticed the incident and saw where it fell. I thought the bit of iron was one of the supporters of the shelves. The whole room was filled with bits of twisted metal.

"The next day I heard of the loss of the Washington sword and recalled the piece of twisted iron I had seen the men handle. It occurred to me that that bit might have been the sword, and as I remembered where it had fallen I got the men to dig there, and it turned out just as we hoped. It was the sword, very much out of shape, but it can easily be straightened and made the same as ever.

OK, about the blade---maybe. But what of the hilt? the pommel? the cross guard? the grip? Are there no scabbards?

April 30, 1911, New York Times, Magazine Section, Part Five, Page 2, I.N. PHELPS STOKES Tells Thrilling Story of Rescue of Albany Archives;

And do note how the New York Times fawns and gushes as they handle Stokes.
Every word out of all these mouths is a total lie, as they participate in a massive organized crime syndicate to defraud an unwitting, passive, or cowardly American people. Sound familiar? It only got--will get, worse.

Revolutionary War Presentation Swords,

Federal Crowd Control, 1918. Machine guns in front, modified phalanx. Soldiers on sides assigned to upstairs windows. Wilson feared antiwar riots, losing mind to small strokes.

I forget where I found this. When I rediscover the source I'll give credit to the original poster.

State Regains Houdon Bust of Washington.

You may want to start reading at the bottom of this blog, with a New York Times article published four days before the Binghamton Press announced the "recovery" of a missing bronze bust of George Washington, stolen during the 1911 arson attack which destroyed the historical and legislative records housed in the State Capitol at Albany. In the Times' article, $10,000,000 PLAN STATE OFFICES, newly-elected Governor Franklin Roosevelt announces a $100 million bond initiative to build a campus of state office buildings in downtown Albany. A sweetening tactic appears to be the inclusion of a $3,500,000 public art museum as part of the multi-block redevelopment. Then Roosevelt accepts a recovered artwork from a reporter from a third newspaper, who acts as an intermediary in order to keep the identity of the thief secret. This reporter, Irwin Thomas, worked in the Capitol at the time of the fire, 18 years earlier, when Roosevelt also was present as a very young State Senator. The Binghamton Press quotes Roosevelt as saying, "I shall place [the bust] in my office at the capitol until we get a state museum, where it will have a proper place. I was here during the capital fire and remember the loss of the bust. The state appreciates its return." The total enmeshment of the news media with the political establishment in a vast arson conspiracy that defrauded the taxpayers of millions of dollars in addition to their authentic reality is readily apparent when the Times writes that "general opinion leaned to the more charitable view that the valuable bust had been melted to a lump by the heat." But the bust had been featured prominently in a news photograph sitting front and center as firefighters man a hose inside the library, and its representation seemed to serve as some coded talismanic signal. 




The Times reported the next day on the return of the bust, and they didn't fail to mention that the Governor would be keeping the prize in his Executive Chamber until a State Museum was erected. None of them could be participating here in the role of a useful idiot given the coordination at an agenda. And with this exposure we've identified one of the biggest names in our national history as being a prime player in a crooked game which led us directly and inextricably to the arson attacks of September 11th, 2001. What comes next, pray tell? More Jewish lightning?

February 4, 1929, Binghamton Press, State Regains Houdon Bust of Washington.
Famed Sculpture, Stolen at Capital Fire, Found Near Binghamton.
HIDDEN ON A FARM
Irwin Thomas of Evening World Restores Rare Work to Gov. Roosevelt.

After being buried in a farmyard near Binghamton for a decade and a half, a valuable Houdon bust of George Washington, stolen during the state capitol fire, March 29, 1911, was brought to Govenor Roosevelt today by Irwin Thomas, Legislative correspondant of the New York Evening World.

Mr. Thomas learned three years ago that the bust, said to be worth more than $10,000 had not been destroyed as supposed but had been carried out of the blazing building during the excitement.

He questioned relatives of the supposed "collector" and learned the bronze had been given into the custody of a farmer about 18 miles from Binghamton. He went there and persuaded the custodian he should return the "white elephant" into the keeping of the state.

The name of the man who held the bust during all those years is kept secret by Mr. Thomas, who said to the Governor when he turned the art treasure over at the mansion today:
"If I am charged with receiving stolen property, I shall expect executive clemency."

The bust was identified today by Dwight Gooway, Legislative Librarian, [the Legislative reference section was headed by William E. Hannan during this period.] as the one which stood in the old library prior to the fire. He was greatly interested in this find, as was Governor Roosevelt.

"I am mighty happy to get this back," said the later, "I shall place it in my office at the capitol until we get we get a state museum, where it will have a proper place. I was here during the capital fire and remember the loss of the bust. The state appreciates its return."

A bust of Lafayette by Houdon was sold in New York City last week for more than $9,000. It is believed the Washington bust is worth more than $10,000 and that its desirability has been enhanced by its queer recent history.

Jean Antoine Houdon came to the United States with Benjamin Franklin in 1775, especially to make the Wahington bust. The one returned by Mr. Thomas is amde from life and is one of a handful extant. t was made at Mount Vernon.

The man who took the bust from the capitol, it is understood, tried unsuccessfully to dispose of it with New York City art collectors, but they refused to take the stolen piece.

Finally, Mercer and Weiss have been of some use to the truth. This development could easily have slipped down the memory hole, coming as it did in a coda eighteen years after the Fire That Dared Not Speak Its Name. Nobody could confuse such abject thievery with souvenir, or relic hunting. That such a prominent and symbolic object went quietly missing is evidence that the state capitol was open to be stripped of anything of value in the aftermath of the high-level arson and its agenda as to who benefited. None of the trespassing little people had to take a fall for this systematic looting of the treasures therein, but someone did have to give back a little something after nearly two decades.

These images are from 'Sparks! From the New York State Capital Fire,' a two-bit pack of misspelled "Sovenir Views" which came out shortly after the fire, and which, say Mercer and Weiss, with their high-level academic positions and utter lack of irony, "remains one of the chief sources for research on the fire." Really? I might have preferred the official findings stemming from a full-scale investigation---but there wasn't any!



The image with the Washington bust in profile and the firemen with their backs turned to the camera has all the staged artifice of a coded 9/11 shot. So far, I have only limited access to the contemporaneous newspaper coverage, but I know the image was carried in some daily papers on the 29th or 30th. But what's up with that rifled and pilfered bookcase and all those unburned books? Wasn't the State Library overcrowded, and bursting at the seams? Even the iron beam above their heads has been eaten away by the fierce flame, which left the lightweight Thonet bentwood side-chairs unscathed.



The absurdity of these scenarios is so complete that it simply stuns skepticism into silence. We just don't want to go where we don't want to go.



These wooden display cases which held the treasure of the Iroquois nations have clearly been looted by the hands of men, and not wreaked by fire.



"Fourth floor, corridor on Southwestern Staircase; the cases contained valuable Indian Curios. The intense heat caused the stones to fall from the sides and ceiling; the electric-light bulbs in the chandeliers were not not broken."

February 5, 1929, New York Times, ROOSEVELT ACCEPTS WASHINGTON BUST,
He Thanks Newspaper Man for Recovering Houdon Life Cast Stolen in 1911 Fire.
IT WAS IN STATE LIBRARY.
Statue, Traced to Binghampton Barn, Will Be Kept in Executive Chamber of the Capitol.
RECEIVES LONG-LOST BUST.

ALBANY, Feb. 4.--Missing for eighteen years and long ago given up as destroyed in the Capitol fire of 1911, the famous life cast Houdon bust of George Washington was returned to the possession of the State today.

It was put into the hands of Governor Roosevelt at the Executive Mansion by Irwin Thomas, legislative correspondent for The New York Evening World at the time of the fire. He traced its possessor and compelled its return.

The bust formerly stood on a pedestal in the State Library, which was located on the third floor of the Capitol. One night in the Winter of 1911 fire broke out inthe library and many articles of value disappeared in the resulting confusion. Governor Roosevelt was a State Senator at that time.

General opinion leaned to the more charitable view that the valuable bust had been melted to a lump by the heat. Even those associated with activities at the Capitol had long since forgotten the incident, however, when Mr. Thomas three years ago was informed that a man had carried away the bust in his arms.

On one vacation the newspaper man retraced the thief's course. He learned that after the unlawful possessor had unsuccessfully sought to sell the bust, he had become afraid and had caused it to be hidden in a barn near Binghamton, N. Y.

Mr. Thomas forced the surrender of the bust to him in Albany last week. When he brought it to the Executive Mansion today and related the story of its recovery, the Governor expressed his thanks and said he would have it placed in the Executive Chamber in the Capitol until a State Museum should be erected.

The Washington bust is stamped with the words, "Houdon life cast." It is supposed to be an exact resemblance of the first President and noticeably differs from the more idealized portraits of him which are commonly seen.

The sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, came to the United States from France in 1788 and was the President's guest at Mount Vernon. A marble statue of Washington, which he also fashioned, is in the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond.

January 31, 1925, New York Times, $10,000,000 PLAN STATE OFFICES- Commission Recommends to Governor Group of Buildings Crowning Capitol Hill. INCLUDE NEW MUSEUM. Five-Story Structure. Cost $6,500,000 Would Be Principal Unit. $100,000,000 IS INVOLVED. Program Calls for $10,000,000 Bond Issue Every Year for Ten Years If Voters Approve.

ALBANY, Jan. 30.—The expenditure by the State of $10,000,000 for a group of buildings on, which with the Capitol as their center, would dominate the city and crown Capitol Hill with a display worthy of the Empire State, in addition to furnishing needed office facilities for expanding activities and checking the encroachments of business, is recommended to Governor Smith in a report, made public today, by a special commission which has been considering such a project for a year.

A five-story office building of classical design to match the Educational Building and to cost, with land, $6,500,000, and a structure to house the State Museum, now located in the State Library section of the Department of Education Building, are included in the project which would involve the purchase by the State of an entire residential block to the south of the Capitol building and the better part of two blocks to the north and west. The proposed museum would cost, with the site included, $3,500,000, according to an estimate furnished by the commission.
$100,000,000 Bond Issue Involved.

Ability of the State to carry out this proposal without delay is contingent on the willingness of the present Republican Legislature to lend its approval to the $100,000,000 bond issue for permanent improvements which had been urgently recommended by Governor Smith. The Republican Assembly of last year fell in with the Governor.

Capitol Fire Restarts.

April 3, 1911, New York Times, CAPITOL FIRE RESTARTS.; Takes an Hour to Extinguish Flames from Debris.

ALBANY, April 2. -- Fire started afresh this afternoon among some debris in the State Capitol, but was extinguished in about an hour.

With 500,000 books and half as many manuscripts, representing the accumulations of ninety-three years of purchases; gifts, and State documents in the State Library damaged or destroyed, it is estimated that it will require from ten to fifteen years and from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 to reproduce a working library of the magnitude of the burned one. James I. Wyer, director of the State Library, said to-day:

"I believe the State of New York will want to perpetuate the State Library as one of the greatest libraries of the world. It was third in size and importance in the United States. To do that a large appropriation must be forthcoming at the outset to put this library on a working basis when it goes into the new State Education Building. If the staff of the library is to be kept intact, and the State Library School eventually retained in Albany, this appropriation must come speedily and the work of the rebuilding of the collection must be pushed with all dispatch."

Rushing Work On the Capitol.

April 4, 1911, New York Times, RUSHING WORK ON CAPITOL. Assembly Chamber to be Ready by April 17 -- Guard Against Thieves.

ALBANY, April 3. -- With nearly a dozen of the administrative departments of the State Government conducting their work under strange roofs, efforts will soon be on foot to restore the burned part of the State Capitol to a condition where it will again be fit to be occupied.

For the next week or ten days the contractors will concentrate their efforts on the Assembly chamber and the adjoining section of the third floor, which is occupied by various Assembly committees and officials. The Assembly chamber itself is more or less of a wreck.

The Senate chamber itself escaped damage from the fire, but the flames ravaged the Senate Finance Committee room and did considerable damage in the office of the President por tem. of the Senate. Repair gangs were at work to-day in this section of the Capitol as well.

State Architect Ware said this afternoon that while some of the State departments might be compelled to remain in their temporary headquarters for some weeks, he fully expected to have the legislative precincts of the Capitol ready for the lawmakers to resume their labors on April 17, the date to which the legislative adjournment was taken.

State Archivist A.J.F. Van Lear issued a statement to-night in which he declared that State Historian Victor Hugo Paltsits was without knowledge of what was actually being done when he charged the State Education Department with carelessness in not saving historical papers from the debris thrown from the windows of the burned portion of the State Capital.

State Historian Paltsits to-day recovered the appeal written by Gov. Thomas Pownall of Massachusetts to New York's Governor, asking for a contribution for the relief of the sufferers of the Boston fire of 1760. The message is partly burned, but portions of many pages are legible.

The sentries on duty at the State Capitol to-day redoubled their vigilance to prevent the theft of old coins which are scattered among the debris in the burned State Library. Some of the desk in the Senate clerks' room were broken open yesterday and rifled of their contents.

George Washington's famous sword, said to have been given to him by Frederick the Great, has been recovered. It was found undamaged under a heap of charred books.

Since the burning of the State Library, Secretary of State Lazansky has received a number of letters from persons in various sections of the country offering books for sale. A Michigan attorney says he has the "documentary history of New York" dating from 1600.

Albany Fire Victim Found.

April 1, 1911, The Oelwein [Iowa] Daily Register, Page 1, ALBANY FIRE VICTIM FOUND, Salvage Corps Is Searching Debris at Capitol for Valuable Manuscripts.

Albany, N.Y., April 1.—The body of Samuel J. Abbott, night watchman and the one victim of the state capitol fire was found on the fourth floor in the southwest corner of the building, where the flames raged most fiercely. The body was charred beyond recognition, but identified by means of a watch.

A volunteer salvage corps, including officers of the state library, and headed by Library Inspector James R. Wyer, Jr., and N. H. Stokes-Phelps of New York, continued to search the debris for valuable manuscripts.

Mr. Phelps, a man of wealth and leisure, who has specialized in the salvage of manuscripts, reclaimed many old manuscripts from the wreak of the burned Turin library in Italy.

I. N. Phelps Stokes Tells Thrilling Story of Rescue of Albany Archives.

April 30, 1911, New York Times, Magazine Section, Part Five, Page 2,

I.N. PHELPS STOKES TELLS THRILLING STORY OF RESCUE OF ALBANY ARCHIVES;

For the First Time Authentic Account Is Given of How Valuable Historical Documents and Relics Were Saved.

IN the rush of news after the fire in the Capitol at Albany, the destroyed archives naturally played a prominent part. First, they were all burned, according to report, and then many of them were said to be saved, but the exact story of the way in which they were saved has not yet been fully told. It makes a pretty thrilling adventure.

A New York man, I.N. Phelps Stokes, shared in the drama. He and State Archivist A. J. F. Van Laer personally carried on the work of rescue with the cooperation of J. L. Wyer, Jr., the Director of the Library; of Gov. Dix, and the Adjutant General.

Mr. Stokes, after some persuasion, told the tale of the rescue in his own way, which means that he eliminated a good deal of what he himself did. He is a very tall, thin person with a black beard and a look in his eye that suggests quickness of decision and a determination to carry out that decision. In short, a good man to have around in a crisis.

"When the fire broke out," said Mr Stokes, "the trustees of the New York Public Library called a hasty meeting and decided that some one should go up to Albany to carry the sympathy of the institution to the authorities of the burned library and express their desire to cooperate in any possible way. They asked me to go, so the morning after the day on which the fire broke out I arrived in Albany. I presented the sympathy of the New York trustees and then went out to see what had happened.

"I was told by those who had watched the fire that flames from the room of the archives window had burst out and spread half across the street. So it was generally believed that there was no chance of finding intact any of the priceless, unduplicated records the room had contained. Mr van Laer, the archivist, however, cherished hopes, and I thought, too, there might be a way of saving something.

"Torrents of water had been poured on the building, and we figured out that the soaked manuscripts might not have burned, that at least those on the lower shelves might have been protected by the fallen rubbish from above. However, there was no means of gaining access to the room. The stairway was gone, and that part of the building had been declared unsafe.

"Being an architect, I came to the conclusion that there was not sufficient weight on the floors above to make it unsafe to enter that part of the building if an entrance could be effected. We decided to ask the fire department to give us ladders so as to make an entrance into the third story, but while arrangements were being made for this scheme, we studied the plans of the building and found that it would be possible to get to the floor the archives were on through the burned floor of the room above the apartment of the clerk of the Senate.

"We promptly did this, and by breaking through the panel of the door, were able to climb into the room where the early records of New York's colonial history had been kept.

"The sight did not encourage us in the hope that anything could be saved. Everything had been burned, the shelves and desks, and there was four feet of smoldering debris on the floor. From the ceiling streams of water leaked through. Here and there little fires were starting. It seemed a hopeless proposition.

"Still, knowing the power of resistance to fire that compressed paper possesses, we made the attempt. Mr van Laer, through many years of familiarity with the archives, knew exactly where to look.

"'Here,' he said, 'were some early Dutch records of the State.'

"When we got down through the debris, we caught a glimpse of paper which, while charred and water soaked, was still decipherable. Here were some remaining Dutch records. Evidently, our idea that some things might be saved was not altogether a vain one.

"As quickly as possible we climbed out again and sought the Governor. We laid before him our plan for salvage, and he readily saw that there was not a moment to be lost. He promised his prompt cooperation, and we got back to the scene of action without loss of time. Adjutant General Verbeck sent soldiers, who helped us dig in the rubbish and formed a chain to pass the baskets full of saved stuff to safety.

"The water came down, not in streamlets, but in a steady downpour, filled with soot. It was indescribably dirty and hopeless looking; but, fortunately, we had to waste no time in looking for the most valuable records, since van Laer could point out where they should be and recognized them the moment they were brought to light.

"The room where the archives were contained was a continuation of the corridor. It was about forty feet long and fifteen feet wide, and had a window at the farther end. When the flames broke through the panels of the door, spreading through the corridor, the length of the room and the window at the other side made a kind of flue for the flames to sweep through, and this, of course, had made the spectacular blaze that was seen during the fire. The manuscripts around the upper shelves had been promptly burned to bits, and, just as we had hoped, their fall and the streams of water poured in by the fire engine had saved some of the things at the bottom.

"Many of the volumes were burned when we got to them and were so hot they could not be held in the hands. We had a hose with us and were constantly obliged to turn on more water to put out the little fires that would break out every once in a while. There was much smoke and discomfort. Although I had assured the men that the building was safe, whenever there was a noise as of something falling they would be startled and anxious to quit work, for which nobody could blame them.

"We tried to sort things roughly and to indicate even as we worked in the midst of the debris of the room which were the most important papers. There was a constant line of baskets passing from soldier to soldier. In this way we were able to get out what Mr van Laer considered the most valuable documents during the first day.

"At seven o'clock the next morning we were back at work. Fire had broken out during the night, and more water had been turned on, so that our task was harder than the day before. Then, you will remember that immediately after the fire a cold spell set in with a high wind. Much of the debris at the bottom was frozen stiff, and could not be taken from the floor, and once in a while a loose paper would be caught up and whirled away.

"There was some criticism of this flying paper afterward, but I do not see how working under such conditions we could have prevented a few leaves from escaping, and the only wonder is that the wind, rushing through the gutted building, did not whirl away more of them.

"We worked hard all through the second day, and at the end were able to feel that about everything had been got out that could possibly be saved. Of course, much that we rescued was in an indecipherable condition, and most of it is in a dreadful muddle, so that it will take a year or more for the archivist and his assistant, who alone know the manuscripts thoroughly, to get them into order and make them available for use.

"The useless debris was thrown out of the window as we dug, Mr van Laer himself standing by to examine every shovelful and make sure that no fragment that could be of value was thrown out.

"It will be remembered that the loss of General Washington's sword and the General Worth sword was reported at the time of the fire. The Washington sword was recovered rather curiously. As we worked the first day I saw a workman pick up a twisted bit of metal and show it to another. The other shook his head, thinking the thing useless, and the finder threw it away.

"Mechanically I noticed the incident and saw where it fell. I thought the bit of iron was one of the supporters of the shelves. The whole room was filled with bits of twisted metal.

"The next day I heard of the loss of the Washington sword and recalled the piece of twisted iron I had seen the men handle. It occurred to me that that bit might have been the sword, and as I remembered where it had fallen I got the men to dig there, and it turned out just as we hoped. It was the sword, very much out of shape, but it can easily be straightened and made the same as ever.

"Bishop Doane kindly gave us the use of the house at 162 State street for our manuscripts. They were all taken there as they were rescued. The reference librarian fitted up shelves of laths, where the soaked material was put to dry.

"A corps was organized from the women employees of the Library, and they set to work to tear off the covers of many of the books. The water collected in the covers and kept the inside damp, so it was better to separate the two and let them dry apart. We telephoned to Herbert Putnam, the librarian of Congress, and asked him to send Mr Berwick, who has charge of the repairing of the national archives, to offer suggestions. Mr Berwick promptly responded.

"The Catholic Society came to the rescue later, when the house at 162 State street was filled to overflowing, and gave their large gymnasium as a temporary drying place for the books and manuscripts. This gives room to work in, and all the saved records are there still, so far as I know."

[This ends the portion of Stokes’ quoted report as reprinted in the New York State Library's 94th Annual Report---the sole document which constitutes the single official "findings" of all aspects of the Capitol fire. However, the Times article continues with an additional six paragraphs of Mr. Stokes’ first-person reminisces:]

"Mr. Van Laer calculates that 20 or 25 per cent. of the value of the archives rooms, that is about 20 per cent. of the importance of the library, has been saved. That does not mean that 20 per cent. of the important books have been saved; it means that the library's value for historical research is now about one-fifth of what it was before the fire.

"Happily, among the saved volumes were the two first books of the Dutch land patents, a series of early records from 1630 to 1664. A good half of the early records are completely destroyed. There is a remaining proportion which is in such fragments and so charred that it is practically valueless. About 20 per cent. of them are saved and decipherable.

"I should say by far the greatest part of the Sir William Johnson manuscript, most valuable for the student of early history, is gone. Perhaps two volumes of the twenty remain.

"Some of the George Clinton papers were saved and some of the Andre papers, with perhaps one-half of the volumes of the Thompkins manuscripts, which bear on the war of 1812. Fortunately the manuscript records of that war were saved intact.

"Of the English Council Minutes after 1664 Mr. Van Laer wrote me a few weeks ago that six volumes, or possibly eight or ten, would be saved. I think perhaps 20 per cent. of the Colonial records are still of use. Some of them, of course, are available in printed form, but some are not.

"The saddest feature of the destruction is that of the Van Rensselaer surveys, extremely valuable documents. Only thirty or forty bundles of leases, not of the earliest period, were saved. The Van Rensselaer family gave them to the State's care only a year ago, so their loss is peculiarly tragic."

Mr. Stokes told his tale with what his listener knew to be glaring omissions, for State Archivist Van Laer has paid a glowing tribute to his courage and skill. However, you cannot expect a man, at least the kind of man Mr. Stokes is, to sound his own trumpet. In between the lines the reader will have to supply the idea of the smoke that made work at times almost impossible and the danger which must have been there, though Mr. Stokes makes light of it, from the falling stuff of the floors above.





Stokes' report places the manuscript archive room at the southerly end of the long corridor running north to south past the Great Western Staircase, with the single window he describes being marked on the plan as Room 328. The third story, being the home of the Senate and Assembly chambers, was of enormous height, perhaps the tallest story of any of the five in the structure, and many reports describe the various substandard mezzanines constructed on this floor over the three decades it was continually being reworked.

Stokes says, somewhat ambiguously, that "we studied the plans of the building and found that it would be possible to get to the floor the archives were on through the burned floor of the room above the apartment of the clerk of the Senate." He must be describing a similar mezzanine level above either Room 325 or Room 327, which abut the location of the archive room.

Understanding that the actual floors between the different stories would have been originally built in solid concrete, or of other fire-proof masonry construction, leaves Stokes' description of access through the "burned floor of the room above the apartment of the clerk of the Senate," as questionable, since this was done "by breaking through the panel of the door," where they "were able to climb into the room where the early records of New York's colonial history had been kept."

Since Stokes describes a holocaust in the manuscript room, where it was visible to those outside when "flames from the room of the archives window had burst out and spread half across the street," he seems to be describing the door between that room and the adjoining room on the mezzanine as functioning successfully as an unbreeched fire-stop.

We must leave aside for the moment the implications behind there being a secondary entrance into what constituted the most precious treasure room in the State Capitol, since even the plan of the third floor proper fails to indicate a clear demarcation between the space occupied by the State Library and that in control of the Senate.

Burned Building Twice as Costly as National Capitol at Washington,

March 29, 1911, The Evening World, Night Edition, Page 2, Column 4, Burned Building Twice as Costly as National Capitol at Washington,

Perched upon the highest of the seven hills upon which the city of Albany is built, the Capitol, a gigantic structure of white granite, with red-capped towers, stands. It is 300 feet north and south, by 400 feet east and west, and covers three acres. The first stone in the foundation was laid July 7, 1871, the corner stone was laid with great ceremony by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. The Capitol was first occupied by the Legislature on Jan. 7, 1879, the formal occupation taking place on the twelfth of the following month.

Some writers upon architecture say that the white granite Capitol, with its towers, reminds them of the famous Tag Mahal, in India. Others think it a superb reflection of French architecture.

Has National Reputation.

The Capitol at Albany has had n national reputation as being one the most costly public buildings in the United States. Up to the beginning of the present fiscal year $24,265,082 had been expended on it, and estimates placed the cost of it at several millions more. Only one other public building in the country has cost more and that is the Philadelphia City Hall, on which more than $30,000,000 has been expended to date.

A comparison with the cost of some other notable public buildings will give an idea of the great burden the cost of its construction has been to the State. The National Capitol at Washington, which covers two and a half acres more, cost $11,723,400. The Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg cost $13,000,000. The Parliament Buildings at Ottawa, Canada, cost $5,000,000.

An Imposing Structure.

The Capitol was the most imposing building in Albany not only because of its great size, but also because of its commanding position on the highest of the hills which rise above the waters of the Hudson River. It's white granite walls and red-capped towers were visible from almost every section of the city and from all of the railroads entering the capital.

The Capitol has been under construction forty-four years. The act authorizing the erection of a building to cost not more than four million. The original architect was Thomas Fuller.

Fuller was superceded as architect in 1875 by an advisory panel consisting of Frederick Law Olmstead, Leopold Edlitz and Henry H. Richardson. The original Italian Renaissance plan was modified to the Romanesque, but the legislature demanded a return to the original plan, and its orders were obeyed.

Formally Occupied in 1879.

The formal occupation of the capital occurred on Feb. 12, 1879. At that time the Assembly chamber was already occupied. The Senate chamber was not occupied until March 10, 1881, Other parts of the building were later occupied as they were completed.

The ground floor contained a number of long corridors from which opened offices occupied by the State Treasurer, the Superintendent of Public Works, Superintendent of Public Instruction and other important State officials. Magnificent stone stairways, the beauty of which have been widely celebrated by architects, ran from the main corridor to the Senate and Assembly wings.

On the second floor were the offices of the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General and a number of other officials. The exquisite marble wainscoting on the corridors of this floor was particularly noteworthy, though the rooms occupied by the Governor and some of the members of his official family, were remarkable for their elegance.

Floor for Legislature.

On the third floor were the Senate and Assembly Chambers, the show rooms of the building. The Senate chamber was designed by H.H. Richardson of Boston, the leading architect of his time. The walls of this chamber were of Mexican onyx and tinted Sienna marble, and the effect produced by this arrangement was one of singular richness and beauty.

The Assembly chamber was designed by Leopold Eidlitz and when finished according to his plans, was a magnificent room and resembled the interior of a church. The ceiling was of sandstone supported by four splendid columns of Tennessee marble. The stone ceiling proved unstable, and it was decided to substitute quartered oak, in connection with this occurred the celebrated "ceiling scandal."

The contract for the new ceiling was awarded to John Snaith of Albany. The special commission that awarded it thought that it had provided for a quartered oak ceiling, but when the job was finished in 1889, a newspaper expose showed that it was made of papier mache. The cost had been $238,000.

Supt. Andrews Accused.

It was charged that Superintendent Andrews, who had charge of the work, had substituted the words "or of papier mache" in that clause of the specifications which had called for quartered oak. A special committee recommended the indictment of Snaith, Andrews and T. J. Sullivan, who was associated in the work, but no indictments were found.

On the third floor of the Capitol were also located the rooms occupied by the Court of Appeals and the State Library. The collection of books and historical documents in the library was extremely valuable. Estimates of its value run all the way from $1,500,000 to $3,000,000.