Stuart J. Park
Concord, Merrimack County, New Hampshire
Marker Inscription
The State Capitol Building of New Hampshire was built in 1816-19 by Stuart J. Park. It is constructed of New Hampshire granite quarried in Concord. The original part was occupied June 2, 1819 and is the nation's oldest State Capitol in which a legislature meets in its original chambers.
The Story
Raised between 1816 and 1819 from granite quarried right in Concord, New Hampshire's State House rose in the first decades of the young republic. Its original chambers, occupied in 1819, still house the state legislature today. That unbroken use makes it the oldest state capitol in the nation where lawmakers meet in their original rooms.
Why it matters
The building embodies the durability of early American self-government, a working seat of democracy that has served without interruption for two centuries.
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