Colton Hall and the Constitution of Eighteen Forty Nine
Near Monterey, California
The white stone building above the lawn is Colton Hall, and inside it California became a state in all but name. It was the work of Walter Colton, a New England minister who arrived as a naval chaplain and became Monterey's first American mayor. To pay for his grand public hall, Colton taxed the saloons, fined the gamblers, sold city lots, and put convicted prisoners to work hauling the pale local stone.
It was finished in eighteen forty nine. That September, forty eight delegates climbed to the upper floor and, over six weeks of debate, wrote California's first constitution. They chose a tall Kentucky frontiersman named Robert Semple to preside.
Because so many Californians spoke Spanish, they ordered every law published in both English and Spanish, and the state stayed officially bilingual for thirty years. When one delegate proposed banning slavery outright, the convention adopted it without a single voice against. Voters ratified the constitution that November, and California entered the Union the following September, skipping the usual territorial stage entirely.
Today the second floor is a free museum, restored to look much as it did when those delegates argued a new state into being.
