In preparing the following sketches and reminiscences of our former public buildings, in addition to old papers, we have carefully consulted several of our aged and best informed citizens in regard to the latter, both the have our own recollections confirmed or rectified, so far as they go back, and to secure assistance in reaching the truth where our own recollections were faint and unsatisfactory. In regard to a few things there seemed at first to some doubt or discrepancy in the memory consulted; but, upon due reflection, we will be believed in having stated “the truth” – if not “the whole truth” – and “nothing but the truth;” and if, in any instance, we have failed to do so, it has been an unintentional failure. Hence, if our statements have not the attractions of romance, they certainly will have the higher and better claim of reliableness, even if prosaically given.
It is not our purpose to describe the early proceedings of our courts, or to give a sketch of the Cumberland County Bar of former years, but chiefly to gather up and bring together the historical and traditional fragments in regard to our earliest court edifices. In doing this, however, it may not be irrelevant to premise that, at the first settlement of our county and for many years afterwards the knowledge of the Law was quite limited in its extent and rather imperfect in its character. The courts of our county were presided over by the Justices of the Peace, any three of whom were competent to transact business; and yet it is admitted that the business was for the most part wisely transacted, as these ‘Squires were generally persons of acknowledged integrity and good common sense, and who, by careful observation and experience, became qualified to consider and settle the matters committed to them.
There was an interesting paper on the Courts of Pennsylvania in the 17th Century, by Mr. Lewis, read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, March 14th 1881, and published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Volume V., p. 141.
The Court House of the olden times were generally very humble and unpretending buildings, but in harmony with the new country and its primitive people. Nevertheless they were great centers of interest and attraction and importance to those who had business at them or were drawn thither by curiosity. Who ever read H. M. Brackenridge’s description of the first court that was held in Butler, in 1800, without having his risible faculties excited? It was an unfinished log cabin, with a carpenter’s bench and three chairs on it, and this constituted the hall of justice and the judgement seat! The detailed narrative is most graphically and amusingly given in his interesting “Recollections of the West,” and it also appears in Day’s Historical collection of Pennsylvania, pp. 78, 174.
Repeatedly has the writer seen the earliest seat of Justice of Perry County. It was a very ordinary-looking log building in Landisburg, whose rough exterior and dilapidated appearance now loom up in our vision, and in very manifest contrast with the present large and beautiful and convenient court house of that county. The several courts, however, were held in it from 1820 to 1826, when the public buildings were finished at Bloomfield, which had been selected as the county seat in 1823 by the commissioners appointed by the previous legislature. In Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania, volume 3 p. 304, May 9, 1829, there appears the following account of Bloomfield, taken from the Perry Forester:
“There are now 29 dwelling houses, 21 shops and offices, a Court House and jail, besides other out-houses, in this town. There are 4 stores, 5 taverns, 1 printing office, 2 shoemaker shops, 2 taylor shops, 1 saddler, 4 cabinetmakers, 1 hatter, 1 tinner, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 tanneries, 2 or 3 carpenters, more than half a dozen lawyers, and half as many doctors. The population of the town is about 220. Little more than four years ago, the site upon which the town stands was an inclosed clover field without a solitary building upon it.”
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