Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., will chair the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works with a piece of West Virginia history close at hand.
At the start of a confirmation hearing Thursday, Capito was presented with a gavel crafted in 1956 by vocational students from wood sourced from the state’s first official Capitol Building in Wheeling.
The gavel was a gift from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the committee’s ranking member.
“It was made in 1956 of wood from the old West Virginia statehouse by the McKinley Vocational High School in Wheeling, West Virginia,” Whitehouse said. “It was then presented to the then-governor of West Virginia, Hulett Smith.”
Smith, the state’s 27th governor who served from 1965 to 1969, was ultimately term-limited, Whitehouse said.
“That was significant, for among other reasons, that it opened the office to the chairman’s father, Arch Moore,” he said. “May you bang it in good health.”
Capito thanked Whitehouse for the gift.
“That has great meaning to me, so I very much appreciate it,” she said. “I’m actually from the northern part of the state where it was made.”
West Virginia’s first Capitol Building, the Linsly Institute building, was erected in 1858 and served as the capital of the state for seven years.