George Washington's Inaugural Chair (403)

George Washington sat in this simple mahogany chair the day he took the oath of office as the first president of the United States. It was April 30, 1789 and New York was the capital of the young nation. At Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, Washington waited in the Senate chamber till it was time for the swearing in ceremony. He sat in this rather plain chair, and his Vice President John Adams sat with him in a similar chair. When it was time, both men walked out on to the balcony of Federal Hall for the inauguration. And then they returned to their chairs in the Senate chamber. No one that day bothered to save the chair as a historical relic. That didnt occur to anyone till 1831 when a US Marshall named William Waddell identified it as the chair Washington had sat in. He took it home and his family guarded it for over fifty years. During that time they loaned it to two other presidents on their inauguration days...Ulysses S. Grant in 1873 and James Garfield in 1881. In 1916 the Waddell family donated the chair to the New York Historical Society.

Category:

Education

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• inaugural
• chair

[Rhinoxous]

The markings on the chair... Is that a solar cross above a pyramid?? Looks like it to me..