PUBLIC
BUILDINGS
Transcribed from the Book
"Counties of Cumberland, Jasper, and Richland, Illinois"
Originally Published by F.A. Battey & Co., Chicago, Ill.
For fourteen years
Cumberland County had no public buildings. The location of the
county-seat was delayed so long that no action could be taken in this
matter. In the meanwhile temporary quarters were secured of James Ewart, who furnished room for the County court
and the Clerk of the Circuit Court, which office be first held. Later a
house was secured of Daniel Porter, and this served as courthouse for some
ten years. The Circuit Court was domiciled in an old log schoolhouse,
which continued to serve as a temple of justice until a hail was
secured, and then the courthouse at the county-seat. In 1855 the County
Commissioners, reciting the fact of the election by which Prairie City
was made the county-seat, ordered the building of a courthouse as
follows: “Whereas, at said election Prairie city received 608 votes and
Greenup 518 votes, making a majority of 90 votes in favor of Prairie
City; and, whereas, it is made the duty of the County Court of
Cumberland County, by the terms of said act in the event of a majority
of the votes cast at said election being in favor of the removal of the
seat of justice to Prairie City, to procure suitable public buildings
for the public officers of said offices of said county, and also to
provide a suitable place for holding court in said Prairie City. It is
therefore ordered by the court here, in pursuance of the provisions of
said act. that a brick courthouse be erected upon the public square in
the said town of Prairie City, of the following dimensions, to-wit: —
feet long, and — feet wide, and the side walls of the house to be
twenty-eight feet high. from the ground, and made of good merchantable
sand-moulded brick, and to stand upon a foundation of limestone rock,
to be two feet below and two feet above the surface of the earth, the
top foot to be of cut rock, hammer-dressed, and be well bedded and laid
in lime mortar; and said building is to be covered with sound joint
shingles, and finished in a neat and substantial manner; and it is
further ordered that the Clerk of this county receive sealed proposals
until the last day of this month for furnishing the materials for the
construction of said building, and also for the mechanical work in
erecting the same according to such plans and specifications as may be
furnished by the court previous to the time of letting said contract,
and that
James Redfern, Esq., be and he
is hereby appointed a committee to supervise the erection of the
courthouse and other public buildings at Prairie City.” This was done
in June, 1855. In the meanwhile Charles Hubbard was appointed agent of the county to make
contracts and supervise the construction, because of the hostility of
the County Clerk to the removal of the seat of justice. In the
following December a contract was made with Bennett Beals and Wiley Ross for the erection of a courthouse at a
cost of $10,500, the building to be enclosed by November, 1856, and the
lower room to be completed for the April term of the Circuit Court in
1856. So determined was the opposition to all this action by the Clerk
that he refused to record the contract, and it did not appear on the
Commissioners’ journal until his successor wrote it in 1857. The
contract provided that the building should be forty feet square, that
the foundation should be of good thick heavy limestone, three and a
half feet high, twenty inches below the ground and twenty-two inches
above; to be three feet thick below the ground and twenty-eight inches
thick above. The walls were to be twenty-seven feet high; the first
story walls fifteen feet high and twenty-one inches thick, the second
twelve feet high and seventeen inches thick Other specifications called
for three outside doors, nineteen twenty-four light windows, a cupola
and “a bell that can be heard five miles;” the entire building to be
painted and penciled outside, the blinds painted green and trimmings
white. The plan and inside arrangement were common in that day, hut
appears quite primitive beside the structures of to-day. Double doors
provide for admittance to the Circuit Court rooms from both the east
and west sides, while a single door on the south side, with an enclosed
entrance and stairway, leads to the offices above. One-half the
courtroom is reserved, by a substantial railing to the court., bar,
jury and witnesses, while the other half is provided with pews for the
accommodation of interested spectators. In its prime the outside
presented an attractive appearance. The bright red of the brick, with
regular and clear penciling, its green blinds and white trimmings, made
it an ornament to the village, and even now, though shorn of its early
freshness and beauty, it possesses a quaintness and air of decayed
luxury that hides to a great extent, its lack of repair. This first and
only courthouse still serves the county in its original capacity. There
is a wide-spread feeling that a new building is imperatively demanded
for the safety of the records, which are now protected only by wooden
closets, but the old competition in regard to the county-seat has so
far intervened to prevent a new building. Greenup still affects to
believe that the seat of justice may be moved, although this would
require a three-fifths vote in its favor, and hence uses its efforts
against a new courthouse at Toledo. Considerable repairs have been made
upon the structure, of late, and as it is will probably serve the
county for several years to come. The site of the public square was
originally very unpromising. A large pond of water covered a part of
it, and one of the first improvements attempted was the filling of this
slough. In 1858 a neat wooden fence enclosing the square was built by Reuben Beals and W. H. Laughter, at a cost of $488. This fence is now
sadly broken down, but the Board of Supervisors have contracted for a
fine fence with the Champion Iron Fence Company of Kenton, Ohio. This
is to be a park railing of iron spears, very ornamental in its style,
and to cost $1.85 per foot. About one thousand feet are required.
A jail
building
did not seem so vital a necessity to the county,. and under the
circumstances in which the Commissioners found themselves, they made no
attempt toward erecting one until 1859. In the meanwhile when a
prisoner was had that required secure keeping, the jails of Coles or
Clark counties were brought into requisition. Petty offenders were kept
in a large “gum” which the Sheriff had near his house on the bank of
the Embarrass River. This it is said was quite as secure for the time
as the modern iron contrivances of the present. It is related of one
prisoner, that he succeeded in reaching the top, and after knocking off
the board covering was attempting to make good his escape, when the
whole institution toppled over, shooting the prisoner down the bank
into the river, from which he finally emerged none the worse for his
involuntary bath. This was probably the cheaper way of releasing him,
and nothing further was done for his recapture. In March, 1859,
however, a contract was entered into with William Jones and Reuben Bloomfield, to construct a jail and jailers
quarters. The building was a single story brick, twenty by thirty-two
feet in outside dimensions. This was divided into two parts, the west
side being adapted for living apartments. An official report upon this
building, in 1874, gives the facts in the case: “It will offend nobody
in Cumberland County, to say that the jail at Prairie City is a
miserable affair The jail and jailers house, one block north of the
courthouse, are a one story brick building, twenty feet by thirty-two,
erected in 1859, at a cost of $2,500, and now in very bad repair. The
jail proper consists of four cells, two on each side of a dark and
narrow corridor, three and a half feet wide, the corridor entered by a
double door from the jailers room, the cells about seven feet square
and seven feet high, two of them of boiler iron, and two of oak timber.
The iron cells are secure but uncomfortable, being destitute of
sufficient light or ventilation. The jail is insufficiently heated in
winter by a stove in the corridor. There is no privy in the jail, but
buckets are used instead; no water, except as it is carried in by the
jailer; no separate provision for female prisoners (there never was but
one, however, in the jail); and the corridor is perfectly unsafe. The
floor and the ceiling are of plank, and both have been broken through.
The jail was very dirty when visited (June 30), and entirely destitute
of furniture, with the exception of straw ticks and blankets. There was
but one prisoner in confinement.” The building was poorly planned for
the purpose for which it was intended, and has never properly satisfied
the needs of the county. But few prisoners have occupied it a great
length of time, though on one occasion some thirteen or fourteen were
crowded into those contracted cells. In the latter part of 1863 the
building was found greatly out of repair, the sleepers rotting, and
greatly in need of renovating throughout. Considerable money was
expended at this time, and other expenditures have been made from time
to time to add to the comfort of the jailers family. It has since been
condemned by the grand jury, but it still remains to vex the public eye
and disappoint the public service, and will do so until public
sentiment will rise above the jealousies engendered in the county-seat
contest, and consent to the building of a new one.
The care of
the
pauper poor in Cumberland county has long been a vexed question. During
the early experience of the county the poor were cared for by some
family in the neighborhood, and the cost of their maintenance paid by
the County Commissioners. A tract of land was early secured with the
design of fitting it for public alms-house, but for some reason the
design was never carried out and in 1862 the Board of Supervisors
bought 160 acres of George Moreland, at a cost of $1,900, $500 of which were
paid by the transfer of the land bought early. The more recent purchase
is pleasantly situated in the northeastern part of Sumpter Township,
about four miles from Toledo. The property was provided with a log
barn, and an old residence part log and part frame. With slight repairs
this was made to serve as the abode of tenant and paupers. The log part
of the house was subsequently abandoned, as it was not worth repairing,
and in 1873 a new building was erected at a cost of about $l,500 for
the tenant and his family. This building was without halls ‘or other
passage-way; partitions of inch boards, and ceiled with lumber. It
contains seven rooms. Later in this year the report on the Poor Farm
showed that the old house was in bad condition; that it was not worth
repairing, and that a new house ought to be built at once. The Board of
Supervisors, with commendable promptness, ordered a new one to be
erected at the same meeting of the report, and in March of the
following year the building was ready for occupancy. This is a neat
frame, two stories high,. and about forty by eighteen feet, with a wing
sixteen by twenty feet. In 1875 the old log stable, which had literally
rotted down, was replaced by a frame structure, thirty-four by
thirty-six feet, at a cost of $375. In 1882 a neat cottage was erected
for the tenant of the farm, and the building formerly occupied by the
tenant given up to the inmates of the institution. The farm is let to
the highest bidder, who pays an annual rental, and receives a weekly
allowance for each pauper boarder maintained. The tenant keeps,
clothes, and boards the pauper, stocks the farm at his own expense, and
gives a bond in the sum of some $2,000. The rental at first was $2 per
acre for cultivated land, and the allowance $2 per week for each
inmate. Since then as the farm has improved, the rent has increased and
the allowance, at times, decreased, so that the annual rental reaches
$200, and the weekly allowance is something less than $2 per week. The
county employs a medical attendant by the year, the services of the
lowest responsible being retained. The farm is provided with a good
apple orchard and good fences, and presents an attractive appearance to
the visitor.
