The State House was designed to accommodate the legislative and executive branches of the Provincial government. The great east room, to the left of the door on entering, was intended for the use of the Assembly. In this room the Declaration of Independence was signed and in this room, also, eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention sat and framed the Constitution of the United States. Whether the west room, across the corridor, and communicating with it by three large open arches, was originally meant for the Supreme Court of the Province is uncertain, but, at any rate, it was in time appropriated to that purpose. The second floor has a long gallery running the full length of the building along the north side facing Chestnut street, and this apartment has been variously designated as “The Long Room,” “The Banqueting Hall” and by sundry other titles. Facing the south are two smaller rooms, separated by a spacious hallway or lobby, which also opens into the Long Room. One of these lesser rooms seems to have been intended for the use of the Governour’s Council. Although the date of the building of the State House was 1733, its completion was not accomplished till eight years later. This fact probably accounts in some measure for the affinities of detail in the interior woodwork with the second Georgian type, alluded to in the chapter on Georgian architecture in Philadelphia and the neighbourhood. The doorway on the Chestnut street front, both by its proportions and its severe simplicity, belongs rather to the first type of Georgian as exemplified by Stenton, Hope Lodge and Graeme Park. Inside the building, however, we find the egg and dart moulding, modillion brackets carved with acanthus leaves, ornate cornices with triglyphs, dentils and mutules, fluted pillars and pilasters with ornate Roman capitals, rosettes, elaborately wrought modillion brackets under the treads of the stair, deeply panelled soffits and jambs, ornate pediments above doors and overmantels, and all the other details characteristic of the second Georgian period. In addition to being exceedingly elaborate, the woodwork of the State House is executed in a masterly manner and marked both by boldness and an unusual degree of grace. At the extreme east and west ends of the [Illustration: FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, 1741.] [Illustration: INDEPENDENCE ROOM, STATE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.] [Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, 1728.]