1796 Charles Bulfinch Capitol Above the Site of an Early Witch-Trial Hanging
800 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Modest admission fee for general public; check current rates on the official site.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Indoor museum with paved approaches
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1796 · National Historic Landmark · First public commission attributed to architect Charles Bulfinch · Site of the 1647 Alice Young witch execution, first in the American colonies · Home of Joseph Steward's Hartford Museum (1797-1808)
Connecticut's Old State House in Hartford held its first legislative session on May 11, 1796. The building is generally credited to American architect Charles Bulfinch as his first public commission, and over the following 82 years it housed legislative debate, court cases, and political policy-making at the center of Connecticut civic life.
The site itself predates the building. A colonial meetinghouse stood on the same ground in the 17th century, and Hartford historians place Alice Young's 1647 hanging on or very near where the Old State House now stands. Young's execution is generally identified as the first witchcraft execution in the American colonies, predating the more famous Salem trials by about 45 years. Connecticut's witch trials ran from 1647 to 1663 and were the first large-scale colonial witch panics, with at least 11 documented executions.
From 1797 to 1808 the building also housed Joseph Steward's Hartford Museum, an early American cabinet of curiosities that displayed natural-history specimens, oil portraits, and an array of unusual objects. The Old State House later served as Hartford's city hall after the state legislature moved to a new capitol in 1878. Today the building is operated as a public history museum and includes a recreation of Steward's original 1798 collection. It is a National Historic Landmark.
Sources
The Old State House's haunted reputation centers on its second-floor museum level, where Joseph Steward's recreated cabinet of curiosities is on display. Local accounts describe footsteps echoing through corridors after public hours and an indistinct figure associated with Steward, who maintained the museum inside the State House from 1797 until 1808.
A separate strand of legend ties the building to the 1647 execution of Alice Young on the meetinghouse green that once occupied this ground. Some visitors associate cold sensations and discomfort on the ground floor with that earlier history rather than with the post-1796 building itself. The site also carries a tradition of phantom assembly sounds, as if a legislative session were quietly proceeding behind closed doors.
The Old State House remains an active public museum, and its staff treat the ghost stories as part of the building's long civic memory rather than as a programmed attraction.
Notable Entities
Tour the 1796 building attributed to Charles Bulfinch, including a recreation of Joseph Steward's Hartford Museum cabinet of curiosities that operated inside the State House from 1797 to 1808.
Staff-led walk through the legislative chambers, governor's offices, and second-floor museum spaces, with discussion of Hartford's pre-revolutionary witch trials and 19th-century political history.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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