Old State House Marker
Current location
Installed February 24, 1938
Funded by the South Carolina General Assembly
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Old State House Marker, 2019. Historic Columbia collection
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Old State House Marker, 2019. Historic Columbia collection
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Old State House Marker, 1949. Image courtesy Russell Maxey Photograph Collection, Richland Library
This granite tombstone, sponsored by S.C. Representative John A. May and paid for with a $110 expenditure from the General Assembly, memorializes the destruction of the original wooden State House following the city’s surrender to General William T. Sherman on February 17, 1865. That building, designed by Irish emigrant James Hoban (the architect of the White House in Washington, D.C), was built after the General Assembly voted to relocate South Carolina’s capital to Columbia from Charleston in 1786. Although technically accurate, the marker’s language implies the total destruction of the state’s seat of power. It does not account for the current State House, which was nearly completed at that time and in use shortly after the end of the war.