Woodstock Sept. 25. 1857

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Dear Sir,

I send, with this, a letter received yesterday from Mr Silloway and have written him as follows: "The number of copies of the perspective which we thought best to have printed, when we were last together, was 400. Should more be wanted they can be ordered hereafter. I will write to Mr Marsh, who is now in Burlington, and request him to communicate with you, when he shall receive a copy of the lithograph; and with regard to the order for the payment of Mr Bufford, it is proper, I think, that it should come from the Auditor and had better be deferred until the meeting of the legislature."

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I do not recollect what was said about the manner of distributing the pictures. I told Mr Silloway that I would see that the Governor was supplied if his quota should be sent to me, but would it not be best to have Mr S. send or take the mass of them to Montpelier?

I do not comprehend what is meant about on the picture but whatever is requisite to be done in that behalf I wish you to do, for there is no time for conference, and in the mean time make any suggestions to Mr Silloway which you think his letter to me may require.

Yours, truly,Norman Williams

Hon Geo P. Marsh.

References in this letter:

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.

John Henry Bufford, (1810-1870), was a distinguished lithographer and publisher of the period. At the time of the reconstruction of the State House, Bufford worked in Boston where he published Silloway's drawings and plans for the Vermont State House.

Governor Ryland Fletcher, (1799-1885), was born in Cavendish, Vermont. He was the first distinctly Republican Governor of the state of Vermont, and was active in the anti-slavery movement. On January 6, 1857, during his administration, the State House in Montpelier was destroyed by fire, and he appointed a committee to oversee the reconstruction.

Norman Williams, (1791-1868) was a State Senator in 1854 and 1855 before he was named by Governor Fletcher, to the committee which oversaw the construction of the new State House in Montpelier, to replace the building destroyed by fire in 1857.