Publication InformationBoston Sept. 15..1858

Page 1

My Friend Marsh.

I am expecting to go to Montpelier again on Teusday next, to stay there till Friday. The finish is being put up about the dome, and it is important that some one besides Powers, be present. The Carpenter informs me that he is daily in want of information. I hear nothing new in regard to the wooden stairs project, only, that he offers to make a contract with the men they will run all risks of getting their pay. He tells them he fears he may not get an appropriation. His fears are well grounded. will never get an appropriation any part of which is to be used for such an abomination as that. Our already expended $6,000 for fire proof work must not be jeopardised by any of his botching now. The probabilities now are, that unless the legislature takes immediate action, and , the whole work will remain unfinished for another year. I shall try and go to

Burlington while I am up this next time.

I am yours trulyThomas W. Silloway

121 Court St.

References in this letter:

Dr. Thomas E. Powers, (1808-1876), of Woodstock, Vermont, was appointed by Governor Fletcher to be the Superintendent of Construction of the 1858-1860 project, to build a new State House in Montpelier to rebuild the structure burned in 1857. He and the architect, Thomas W. Silloway, were soon at loggerheads over their roles in the project. Powers became State Senator in 1861.

Gunnison was the master carpenter of the rebuilding project between 1857 and 1860.

Thomas W. Silloway, (1828-1910), was only thirty years old in 1857 when he was chosen architect for the new State House in Montpelier. Silloway was from Massachusetts, and had worked in the office of Ammi B. Young, the architect who designed the previous building. Silloway and Dr. Powers, the superintendent of construction for the 1857 job, had worked together to design and build a new courthouse in Woodstock, Vermont, that burned in 1854.