Tennessee — The Ship on a High Sea,
Or Not

front view, image courtesy of
Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton University

end view, image courtesy of
Doug Bradley

The shape of the Tennessee capitol, its single, centered tower, and its position on top of a hill allow an imaginative viewer to see it rather like a ship on a high sea.

An Association, or Two
Can you see the ship on a high sea? Which sea? Tenne-see.
OR, for the less romantic, familiarize yourself first with Texas and then just remember the capitol that looks like an upside-down "T" is for the other state that starts with T: Tennessee.

image courtesy of
Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton University

The Tennessee capitol is on top of a hill in Nashville. As a result, most pictures are taken from below.

Photographs are taken of this capitol as often from the front as from either end. Examples of both are at right. The angled shot above I just included because I really like it, especially for the romantic association.

Vermont — The Capitol in the Green Hills

The Vermont State House is different from most in its size and setting. It is small, as state capitols go, and it is set virtually into a wooded hill. As a matter of fact, part of the hill was blasted away to make a suitable site for an earlier State House, and now that hill is always visible in photos since it is so close behind the current building. There is always the general impression that this capitol is in the wooded hills.

Several previous State Houses occupied the same site, so in any images from 1857 or earlier the building will look different while the green backdrop will be the same. When this capitol was first completed in 1859, the dome was painted terra cotta red. It was then gilded in the early part of the twentieth century.

 
 
image courtesy of omerka

This image is public through a
Creative Commons Deed

An Association
The impression of being in the wooded hills is very easy to connect to Vermont when you know how the state's name originated. The area was named “Verd Mont” for the Green Mountains Range back in 1761. “Verd” Or “Vert” means “green” in French, and while we call our peaks “Mount,” as in Mount McKinley or Mount St. Helens, the French name theirs “Mont,” as in Mont Blanc. So, the capitol in the green, wooded hill is in the Verd Mont – Vermont.