The former Worcester County Courthouse is a historic

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

and

Classical Revival Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassic ...

building at 2 Main Street in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

, in the Lincoln Square district and within the historic Institutional District. It was individually listed 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 ...

in 2021.

History

The oldest portion of the current building was constructed in 1845 to a

design by Boston architect Ammi B. Young on a parcel of land which had been the site of a courthouse since the 1730s. As originally designed, the building had a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

of six

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric or ...

columns, modeled on those of the

Tower of the Winds The Tower of the Winds, known as the in Greek, and by #Names, other names, is an octagonal Pentelic marble tower in the Roman Agora in Athens, named after the eight large reliefs of wind gods around its top. Its date is uncertain, but was compl ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. In 1878 an addition, designed by Worcester architect Stephen C. Earle, was added to the rear of the building. In 1897 a major project to expand the building was approved by the state legislature. After a

design competition A design competition or design contest is a competition in which an entity solicits design proposals from the public for a specified purpose. Architecture An architectural design competition solicits architects to submit design proposals for a b ...

the project was awarded to Boston architects Andrews, Jaques & Rantoul. Their design more than tripled the size of the building in a style complementary to Young's building. Young's portico was demolished though its columns were preserved–a condition of the competition–and were, with two replicas, distributed across the facade.''Worcester's Best: A Guide to the City's Architectural Heritage'', ed. Elliot B. Knowlton and Sandra Gibson-Quigley (Worcester: Preservation Worcester, 1996): 20-21. Robert Day Andrews, senior partner of Andrews, Jaques & Rantoul, was responsible for the inscription on the Worcester courthouse: "Obedience to law is liberty." Its inclusion in the completed building was somewhat accidental: Andrews had written the phrase as a placeholder on the firm's competition drawings, and it was perpetuated in a set of drawings issued for a cost estimate. It was ultimately executed after a longer inscription by Senator

George F. Hoar George Frisbie Hoar (August 29, 1826 – September 30, 1904) was an American attorney and politician, represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1877 until his death in 1904. He belonged to an extended family that became politic ...

could not be fit on the freize. Andrews' phrase has been perpetuated elsewhere, such as on the

Cuyahoga County Courthouse The Cuyahoga County Courthouse stretches along Lakeside Avenue at the north end of the Cleveland Mall in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The building was listed on the National Register along with the mall district in 1975. Other notable buildings o ...

(1912) in Cleveland. Hoar's proposed inscription, "Here speaketh the conscience of the state restraining the individual will," was incorporated into the interior. In 1954 a second large addition was built facing Harvard Street, for which Stuart W. Briggs and Cornelius W. Buckley were the architects. By the late 20th century, the building was seen as outmoded and too small. In 2007 a new courthouse, "the largest courthouse ever built by the state," was completed several blocks to the south. The new building was designed by

Shepley Bulfinch Shepley Bulfinch (Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott Inc.) is an international architecture, planning, and interior design firm with offices in Boston, Hartford, Houston, and Phoenix. It is one of the oldest architecture firms in continuous pra ...

of Boston and built by

Gilbane Gilbane, Inc. (Gilbane) is a national construction and real estate development firm. It is the parent organization of Gilbane Building Company and Gilbane Development Company. Gilbane, Inc. is a sixth-generation, family-owned business. History ...

of Providence, Rhode Island. From 2019 to 2021, the building was extensively renovated and converted into 118 private residential housing units known as the Courthouse Lofts, and the building houses a small museum about Major Marshall Taylor, a prominent local African American bicyclist. The courthouse site also contains a statue of General

Charles Devens Charles Devens Jr. (April 4, 1820 – January 7, 1891) was an American lawyer, jurist and statesman. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Early life and career Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Devens g ...

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculpture, sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works include ''The Minute Man'', an 1874 statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and his Statue of Abr ...

and

Edward Clark Potter Edward Clark Potter (November 26, 1857 – June 21, 1923) was an American sculptor best known for his equestrian and animal statues. His most famous works are the marble lions, nicknamed ''Patience'' and ''Fortitude'', in front of the New York ...

, and the courthouse site was added to the

in 2021.

Notes

References

External links

Official Courthouse Lofts site
{{National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures completed in 1845 National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts