The Old Meigs County Courthouse is a historic former government building in the small community of

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Erected in the early nineteenth century, the courthouse served multiple purposes for the surrounding community in its early years, but it operated as a courthouse for less than twenty years before being abandoned in favor of another courthouse in another community. Following a restoration in the 1950s, it was designated a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been re ...

in the 1970s along with an adjacent school; the two buildings are operated together as a museum. It is Ohio's oldest extant building constructed as a courthouse.

Community history

In 1819, the

Ohio General Assembly The Ohio General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio. It consists of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives and the 33-member Ohio Senate. Both houses of the General Assembly meet at the Ohio Statehouse in Colu ...

created Meigs County from part of Gallia County.Larkin, Stillman Carter.
The Pioneer History of Meigs County
'.

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of the U.S. state of Ohio * Columbus, Georgia, a city i ...

: Berlin, 1908. The courts initially met in a building in Salisbury Township, but after fire destroyed their first meeting place in 1821, the

county commission A county commission (or a board of county commissioners) is a group of elected officials (county commissioners) collectively charged with administering the county government in some states of the United States. A county usually has three to fiv ...

ers readily accepted a Chester Township resident's offer to meet in his house. Before long, the homeowner decided to

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

a town, which was to be named "Chester"; Chester was named the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

in 1822,Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 987-988. and a courthouse and jail were built. Throughout the rest of the 1820s, Chester flourished; both professionals and farmers settled there, and the

Shade River The Shade River is a tributary of the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio in the United States. Via the Ohio River, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of on the unglaciated portion of the Allegheny Plateau. The Sh ...

was busy with cargo travelling between Chester and

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. However, the 1830s saw the development of steamboats stopping at Pomeroy to load the area's rich coal mines, and Chester's two hundred residents suffered greatly from a plague of

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

in 1834. Ultimately, the county government moved to the current courthouse in Pomeroy in 1841; the old courthouse was abandoned,Meigs County Courthouse

Supreme Court of Ohio The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio is the highest court in the U.S. state of Ohio, with final authority over interpretations of Ohio law and the Ohio Constitution. The court has seven members, a chief justice and six associate justices, ...

, n.d. Accessed 2012-11-24. and Chester languished.

Construction

Meeting at the home of the hospitable Chester Township resident in late September 1822, the county commissioners voted to build a log jail and jailer's house and to begin planning for a permanent courthouse. Two weeks later, they voted in favor of constructing a two- story brick building measuring and tall with seven windows. Late in the month, they ordered that the height be increased to , and yet another meeting resulted in a decision to place a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

on top of the courthouse.Borchers, Perry E.
Written Historical and Descriptive Data: Old Meigs County Court House

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, 1959-02. Accessed 2012-11-24. By December of the following year, the building was complete; fourteen men were paid a total of $1,255.20 for construction. The completed courthouse is a brick building in the Federal style with a stone foundation; by the 1970s, its original roof had been replaced with metal.,

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2012-11-24. Its bricks were manufactured locally in the then-typical size of .

School

Chester's first school was established in 1830, largely under the influence of a Scottish scholar, Samuel Halliday, who settled in Chester Township and embarked on teaching the local children. The present three-story building was erected in 1839 with the goal of serving students from all over Meigs County. In its early years, the brick school building was used for all sorts of community events: the township trustees rented it as a voting place, social groups such as

debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...

societies and

singing school A singing school is a school in which students are taught to sightread vocal music. Singing schools are a long-standing cultural institution in the Southern United States. While some singing schools are offered for credit, most are informal progr ...

s held their meetings in it, and the complete absence of church buildings in the township prompted all of the township's churches to worship in it. The building remained in use for scholastic purposes until the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, after which the school closed and its building was converted into storage for the adjacent courthouse.

Later history

The courthouse in Chester remained in use as the county courthouse until Pomeroy was made the county seat; it later was converted into a meeting place for a local

Grange Grange may refer to: Buildings * Grange House, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906 * Grange Estate, Pennsylvania, built in 1682 * The Grange (Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, built in 1817 * Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to ...

hall. By 1951, it sat empty and unused, but two years later the Meigs County Pioneer and Historical Society undertook a project to restore the building. In 1975, the courthouse and school were listed together on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, qualifying both because of their architecture and the place that they had played in Ohio's history. The two buildings are presently operated as a museum by the Chester-Shade Historical Association.Educational Programs for Schools
Chester-Shade Historical Association, n.d. Accessed 2012-11-24. The courthouse is Ohio's oldest extant building that was constructed as a courthouse, and one of two surviving first-generation Federal courthouses in the state, along with the Old Perry County Courthouse in

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

References

External links

Chester-Shade Historical Association
{{National Register of Historic Places Government buildings completed in 1823 Government buildings completed in 1839 Buildings and structures in Meigs County, Ohio County courthouses in Ohio Defunct schools in Ohio Federal architecture in Ohio Former courthouses in the United States Grange organizations and buildings in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Meigs County, Ohio Museums in Meigs County, Ohio