Fires
The building has been gutted by fire three times (1705, 1859, and 1862). The first fire was accidental and began in a basement in the North Wing of the building in 1705. Reconstruction after this fire, commanded by Governor Alexander Spotswood, was completed by 1716 with partial funds from Queen Anne. A second fire ravaged the building in 1859, and when it was rebuilt, the Wren Building had a newly fashionable Italianate design. A third fire was set intentionally by Federal troops during the Civil War in 1862. Each reconstruction incorporated the surviving exterior walls, but the overall look of the building has varied considerably over time.
Sir John Randolph, a Speaker of the House of Burgesses, an Attorney General for the Colony of Virginia, and the youngest son of William Randolph and Mary Isham, was interred at the chapel of the Wren Building after his death in 1737. After the burial vaults were disturbed in the 1859 fire, a physician who examined the contents of Randolph's tomb discovered the bones of Randolph and an unknown second person.
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Famous quotes containing the word fires:
“My flowery and green age was passing away, and I feeling a chill in
the fires had been wasting my heart, for I was drawing near the
hillside above the grave.”
—Petrarch (1304–1374)
“Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Talleyrand said that two things are essential in life: to give good dinners and to keep on fair terms with women. As the years pass and fires cool, it can become unimportant to stay always on fair terms either with women or one’s fellows, but a wide and sensitive appreciation of fine flavours can still abide with us, to warm our hearts.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (b. 1908)