PERRY COUNTY, OHIO
Officially founded on March 1, 1818 and named after the Hero of Lake Erie, Oliver Hazard Perry, during the war of 1812 - Perry County like its adjacent territory, was the home of the Indian. Far back, beyond the memory of men, and even traditions, a race of people lived here known as the Mound Builders. They left no records, save apparently imperishable memorials in the form of mounds and earthworks. More than one hundred of these may be found in the county, the most wonderful being the "Stone Fort," in Glenford, Ohio.
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Many of these mounds have been explored. Human bones, trinkets, implements, earthen- and silverware have been found, but no tablets containing written characters or hieroglyphics - nothing to show who the Mound Builders were, or in what age they lived. If they left other than the monuments noted, these have perished. It is certain, however, that human ingenuity of high order planned, and skilled human hands constructed, these works of earth and stone.
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The first settler in Perry County was Christopher Gist. In 1751, he spent a few days on the shores of Buckeye Lake, near Thornport. In 1773, Lewis Wetzel and Simon Girty were visitors in the county, but it was not until 1800 that any permanent white settlements were attempted.
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December 26, 1817, is the date given which marks the official organization of Perry County. It is the fifty-second in order, and was created from parts of territory of Washington, Muskingum and Fairfield. The residence of Thomas Mains Somerset, was used as the first courthouse. Towns began to develop; the cross-roads store, the water-mill, the blacksmith shop and the church edifice made buildings enough for a village.
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Hanover was platted in 1804, but it never had an official existence. New Reading, in Reading Township, first called Overmyer Settlement, is the oldest town in the county, and at one time a warm competitor for the county seat. Somerset was settled in 1804, and was called Middletown. Thornville became a town in 1811 with a population of 1,200, handsome homes, beautiful streets, fine school buildings, bank, hotel, and two railroads.
Rehoboth was laid out, in 1815, by Eli Gardner, who provided an ample public square, and, when the time came, what is now "The Deserted Village" was a formidable rival for the county seat. Losing the contest for the shire town, its ambitious citizens turned to the culture of tobacco, and, it is said, raised a brand the chewing and smoking of which helped mightily to assuage the grief for the lost court-house.
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(Source: Village of New Lexington, Ohio)
EST. 1818
Perry County Courthouse
Built 1887
THE PERRY COUNTY COURTHOUSE - After Perry County was established in 1817, the county commissioners and courts met for their first two years at John Fink's tavern on the eastern side of Somerset at the corner of Main Street (the Zane Trace) and High Street. At the end of the two years, county officials began using their newly completed jail as a courthouse; it was a jail more than anything else, and the commissioners and other people did not like to call it a courthouse, but a courtroom was provided in the second story, as well as room
for other county officers.
It functioned as a courthouse from 1819 until 1829. In 1826, bids were let for the construction of a purpose-built courthouse on Somerset's public square; it was occupied three years later, and the old "courthouse" jail soon succumbed to fire. Ever since the creation of the county, the village of New Lexington had been agitating to become the county seat, and a county seat war ensued in the 1850s; after three new state laws, three elections, and two decisions by the Supreme Court, the county offices departed Somerset for the upstart community in early 1857, leaving the old courthouse to be used by Somerset as its village hall.
The first courthouse at New Lexington was not paid for by the taxpayers in general, because advocates of New Lexington as county seat had raised the necessary amount through private donations. Among the stipulations of the state law permitting the removal of the county seat was that suitable buildings should be provided if the seat were to be moved; such a building was finished, but it stood vacant for several years before the offices were placed in it. As the end of the nineteenth century approached, the county's needs expanded to the point that the old courthouse was insufficient, and a fifth courthouse, the present structure, was erected in 1887 and dedicated one year later.
Designed by Joseph W. Yost, and built at a cost of $143,000 in 1887, the present Perry County Courthouse is a large Richardsonian Romanesque building constructed of stone; the ashlar walls are laid in a random fashion, while the ashlar of the foundation is laid in a more regular manner. Visitors can enter the building through a grand recessed entrance under an archway at the top of a grand staircase; upon reaching the interior, they find themselves in a hallway with a tiled floor and plaster reliefs on the walls between the entrances for various county offices.
The most prominent component of the exterior is the two-part clock tower in the center, which rises 40 feet (12 m) above the street, but the entire building derives an appearance of great size from its three-story construction and from the large monolithic wall above the main entrance. Its Romanesque influence is apparent from details such as the miniature turrets above the main entrance and on the corners of the tower. From its earliest years, the courthouse has been considered one of Ohio's grandest, due in part to its location in a small community in a rural county.
FOLLOW
PERRY COUNTY, OHIO
