The Jamestown statehouse, housing Virginia's government at the time, burned down on October 20, 1698. The legislators consequently moved their meetings to the College of William & Mary in Virginia at Middle Plantation, putting an end to Jamestown's 92-year run as Virginia's colonial capital. In 1699, in a graduation exercise, a group of College of William & Mary students delivered addresses endorsing proposals to move the capital to Middle Plantation, ostensibly to escape the malaria – and the mosquitoes which transmit them – of the Jamestown Island site. Interested Middle Plantation landowners donated some of their holdings to advance the plan, and to reap its rewards.