State Capitol Annex - Trenton, NJ
N 40° 13.252 W 074° 46.261
18T E 519482 N 4452296
Started in 1927 and completed in 1931, the Annex serves the needs of the N.J. Legislature, providing much needed space. It is a beautiful building and fits nicely into the prevailing architecture which lines this historic street.
Waymark Code: WM6Y4D
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 08/04/2009
Views: 4
”The State Capitol Annex (open 9-5 weekdays), W. State St. opposite Taylor’s Place, is a four-story Indiana limestone building of neoclassic design, built in 1931. Designed by J. Osborne Hunt of Trenton and Col. Hugh A. Kelly of Jersey City, it is a well-planned H-shaped structure. Within the annex are a number of State departments and courts, plus the State Library of about 175,000 volumes, noted for its law, history and genealogy collections; ” --- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939, p. 408
An examination of the cornerstone is interesting. The building looks like the letter H from the sky, but out front it looks like a right-angled letter "n". It is on the right side, closest the street, the cornerstone may be found. On a map it would be the northeast corner of the building, the arm of the Annex extending out toward West State Street. Given the HUGE amount of Free Masonry in the area and their involvement with the community, N.J. State Government as well as the formation of our country, it is no accident the stone as been placed in the northeast corner of the building, at least on that wing.
The only other northeast spot would be on the outside of the left wing and it would be on the outside of the H, facing the Capitol building and harder to find. You see, tradition holds, that Masons, in building churches, temples and other Masonic edifices, usually placed the first stone in the northeast corner of the building. This was as close as they could come, while remaining inside the courtyard.