BY KEITH EDWARDS

Staff Writer

CONCORD, N.H. -- The world's third-largest, English-speaking, lawmaking body in the world resides next door to Maine in the New Hampshire Statehouse.

That's the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

All 400 members.

If you visit, you don't want to be in the way of any of those representatives when it's time for them to vote. That's because their votes only count if they're in House Chambers to cast them, and the doors are locked once voting has started.

"You don't want to be standing in the doorway when a roll call comes," said Virginia Drew, director of the visitors' center at the New Hampshire Statehouse. "They come stampeding and running back into the chamber. The doors are locked (once voting starts). We've had representatives (who were too late) pounding on the door."

The large number of legislators makes New Hampshire residents the most heavily represented in the country, at about 1 legislator for every 3,200 residents.

Such a large legislative body would seem to indicate the state of about 1.3 million people values its representatives greatly.

That high value doesn't translate to high pay.

Representatives get just $200 for their two-year terms. They do get reimbursed for mileage while on state business, but they don't get per diem allowances for food or overnight lodging.

Nor do they get their own offices.

"They get lockers," Drew said. "But there are not enough lockers for all. So some, especially married couples, share a locker."

With so many legislators, including the 24 state senators, it's not uncommon for multiple representatives from the same family to serve simultaneously. And, nearly every session there are legislators from both extremes of the age spectrum.

"We have legislators from teenagers to so old they won't say," Drew said. "We had three married couples. We have a mother and son. We have a son and father, and the father requested a seat behind his son to keep an eye on him."

Built in 1819 at a cost of $82,000, state officials describe the New Hampshire Statehouse as the oldest in the country still in continuous legislative use. (Vermont officials describe their statehouse, built in 1859, as the oldest legislative building still in use in its original form, insisting the New Hampshire Statehouse, while older, has been significantly renovated.)

It was built of granite quarried in Concord.

The building was renovated in 1864, including the addition of the prominent gold dome atop the roof, as well as the addition of a gallery providing additional seating in Representatives Hall. The dome's structure is made of steel, and covered with 16.5 pounds of gold leaf.

Additional renovations in 1910 doubled the space for Statehouse staff, and included the addition of elevators to the building.

Some quirks remain from the building's initial construction. There is no seat number 13, or 113, in the House of Representatives due to superstitions that the number 13 is unlucky.

In the ornate Senate chambers, a marble-faced E. Howard clock keeps time. Occasionally, when a deadline is approaching, senators will be locked in the room, and the Sergeant-at-Arms has physically stopped the clock from turning so they could finish their work before the deadline, Drew said.

Before the Statehouse was built in Concord, New Hampshire had a traveling capital for several years. Municipalities playing host to the capital before Concord included Portsmouth, Exeter, Hopkinton, and Hampton.

Men in the legislature, Drew said, are required to wear suit coats and are only allowed to take them off by a motion from a woman legislator.

Women in the legislature are called OWLs, for the Order of Women Legislators.

"If you hoot at them, you'll be keeping your coat on," Drew said.

More than 200 portraits of government leaders and other prominent citizens decorate walls throughout the building.

One of the few portraits of women hanging in the Statehouse is a portrait of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science religion, who was born in nearby Bow and lived for a time in Concord.

The site of her Concord home later became home to the Christian Science Pleasant View Home, a large senior citizen residential facility. It was built by leaders of the Christian Science Church for practitioners of the religion. It still stands, but is now a secular nursing home and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

A large portrait of Gen. John Stark hurrying from his Manchester sawmill to fight in Bunker Hill is one of four large murals in the Senate Chambers.

There also is a statue of Stark in front of the statehouse.

Stark is the state's most distinguished Revolutionary War hero, but one of his more lasting legacies is perhaps one of the best known state mottos, New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die."

The motto, which adorns New Hampshire license plates, was part of a toast that Gen. Stark sent to his wartime comrades declining an invitation to head up a 32nd anniversary reunion of the 1777 Battle of Bennington in Vermont because of poor health.

The toast said in full: "Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils."

Keith Edwards -- 621- 5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com