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A History of
THE OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COURTHOUSE
The fourth courthouse on this site.Built: cornerstone set August 26, 1886, dedication ceremony December 10 1887.
Architect: Henry F. Kilbourn, New York.
Style: Richardsonian Romanesque, after the style of Henry Hobson Richardson
Contract: Bartlett Bros., Whately, $68,000; S.C. Davis, Superintendent. Change orders, landscaping, interior finish work and furnishings brought the cost to $100,000.
Dimensions: 70’ x 105’ with 96’ tower
Stonework: cut on location and laid by 52 men supervised by John Doherty, Springfield
Granite: Dummerston, VT; minimum 6” thick
Brownstone: Longmeadow
Roof: Monson, ME, black slate; tower roof: tile
County Commissioners: Elisha A. Edwards; Elnathan Graves, Flavel GaylordIn 1884 jurors fed up with poor courthouse conditions (coats and umbrellas had to be piled on tables and women had to wait in the same room as men!) wrote up a petition asking the County Commissioners to build a new courthouse. Perhaps they were inspired by judges and lawyers who worked in the building daily. The Gazette published, “As all must know, the pretext under which the lawyers secured the new house from the people was the danger from fire in the old. Hence, all documents are kept in the center of the building, separated from cellar floor to roof, from the unfire-proof end by thick walls, except where there are doors and they are iron. In this space, there is no lath, no wood studding or joists.” The Commissioners agreed and were on site overseeing every step of the construction, making workers dig the foundation deeper; discarding stones because they were not cut quite square, or had a crack . . . they must have driven the workers nuts! They built this building to last for a hundred years. It almost did not make it though.
In 1957, a report on the Commonwealth’s courthouses recommended “that this archaic building be torn down and the space used for parking. . . ” By the 1970’s when planners across the country were theorizing that Main Street malls might revitalize downtowns, dreams for a parking lot were replaced with dreams of a mall on the courthouse site, with a new court house removed from the center of downtown. Local citizens, Mary Willard and Dr. Thomas Wilson among them, rose up to protect their old building and the plan was thwarted. Instead, near-by buildings were connected, remodeled and expanded, a new heating and ventilation system replaced windows and transoms that opened, fireplaces, a passive ventilation system built into the interior walls, and filled the entire fourth floor with ductwork, pumps and fans. While the work was in progress, the Northampton Historical Commission registered this building, along with the rest of downtown Northampton, on the National Register of Historic Districts.
Today, the building is owned by the successor to the County Commission, the Hampshire Council of Governments, with offices on the second floor. The building also houses the Hampshire Law Library, the Tenancy Protection Project, the Housing Court Mediation Service, the Urban League’s Foster Grandparent Program, and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program. The beautiful historic courtroom on the third floor continues to be used by the Superior Court. The original meeting room for the County Commissioners is now the meeting room for the Councilors, furnished with chairs and tables original to the building.
If you love old buildings, call ahead and we will arrange a tour for you.
The fountain and the fence were added to the courthouse grounds in 1902.
County Commissioners Prouty, Davis, and Brewster awarded a contract for a steel fence to Collins and Norton of Springfield on May 17, 1901, specifying completion by July 1, 1901. More than a year later, in October 1902 the County Commissioners acknowledged the installation, and asked the contractor to comply with the contracted specification for two coats of paint. On November 5, 1902, they approved full payment of the contracted $1,600.
During this time, Commissioners were also discussing putting a fountain on the lawn, and on June 10, 1902, decided to go ahead with it. Contractor Kiely and Gleason did the concrete work for $249.96. Custodian Hervery wrote to an individual in each Hampshire County city and town asking them to donate a stone for the centerpiece. Hampshire Marble Co. was paid $27 for the lettering. Twenty three stones have town names engraved, six have the year 1902, and 22 stones also have one more letter. If you can figure out what the extra letters mean, please let us know!
One theory is that the extra letter is the initial of the stone’s donor. County Commissioner Davis donated the Northampton stone, which bears the letter D. Donors of the other stones are unknown. Do you have evidence or ideas that would confirm or refute this theory?
