Wayne County was formed August 15, 1796, before Ohio became a state and was part of the Northwest Territory. The area originally covered all of Michigan's lower peninsula, northwestern Ohio, northern Indiana and included some of Lake Michigan's shoreline. Detroit was the county seat and included, what is now, Chicago.
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| Before Ohio became a state, Wayne County was huge. It's county seat was Detroit. |
Wayne County, in its current form, began March 1, 1812. Wooster, which was laid out during the fall of 1808 had already been declared the seat of justice on May 30, 1811. The Court of Common Pleas was held for the first time on August 6, 1812, being conducted in a log cabin built by John Bever.
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| This log cabin was built around 1820 in Wayne County and rebuilt on the public square in Wooster for the centennial celebration in 1896. The first location of Common Pleas Court may have looked something like it. |
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Through 1819 court was held at the newly built Baptist church, the county renting the space from the church for the sum of $50 per year.
In 1819, on the site of the current courthouse, the first purpose-built courthouse was constructed by Wooster founding fathers, John Bever, William Henry and John Larwill. It was a three story brick structure, built in the federal style, popular at that time. It had a central bell tower which housed a bell donated by John Bever in 1823. It housed county offices as well as the local Free Masons. Inside was a gallery, probably for the public to observe court proceedings.
It had a short life as it was destroyed by fire in 1828, before any organized fire fighting organization existed. This happened during a session of court so many records of the time were destroyed with it.
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| The first Wayne County courthouse, built in 1819, burned after only nine years of service. |
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The second courthouse was designed by an architect by the name of 'Mr. McCurdy'. This was most certainly John McCurdy, builder of courthouses in Hancock and Harrison Counties in Ohio, and
other counties in Pennsylvania, as well. The 2nd Wayne County courthouse was completed the spring of 1832 at a cost of $7,200. Atop the bell tower was a spire and two hand-crafted balls, both gilded
and bronzed. The largest of the balls was approximately 22 inches in
diameter. The smaller of the two was approximately 7 inches in diameter. Both were made by John Babb and gilded by David Barr. Mr. McCurdy paid sixteen dollars (about $240 in 2013 money).
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| The second Wayne County courthouse can be seen as the dark square building in the center of the photograph, shortly after it was built. |
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It became evident that more room was needed for the rapidly expanding government of Wayne County. In 1868, the North Courthouse Annex was completed, giving breathing room to county employees.
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| The second Wayne County courthouse after the North Courthouse Annex was built in 1868. |
This courthouse served the people of Wayne county until 1877, when the deterioration of its timbers and walls forced the county commissioners to condemn it. Court proceedings were moved to the France building on Liberty Street and the process of building a new courthouse was started.
What structure in Wooster better defines the city more than the current courthouse. This building eludes both grace and strength in it's presentation. The design type is known as '
Second Empire'. This type of architecture was popular in the mid to late 1800s because it lent itself well to large masonry projects, typical of a growing government. The architect was the esteemed Thomas Boyd, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mr. Boyd served as architect for other similar structures in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, as well as the
courthouse in our neighbor to the south, New Philadelphia.
Planning began in February 1878. The sum of $75,000 was
allocated for the project, and in October of that year the cornerstone was laid. Since much of the construction was of sandstone, expert itinerant Italian stone craftsmen were summoned to Wooster to aid in the construction.
Boyd's original design was much larger than the building that was constructed. He had planned a symmetrical building with the clock tower in the center. But local planners bulked at that idea because the Annex was only 10 years old and was still in outstanding condition. So Boyd's design was truncated at the Annex, giving the offset appearance of today structure.
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| Thomas Boyd's original plan was for a symmetrical structure. That didn't happen because the Annex was still functional, and replacement of it was not financially feasible. |
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| A victim of the budget axe, the Wayne County Courthouse is only half as large as Thomas Boyd intended. But that asymmetry is what makes it uniquely Wayne County, uniquely Wooster. The Annex, as it turns out, is a connection to the past. |
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Wayne County Courthouse are the four statues of Atlas (or, telamones, an interesting side note is that Wikipedia uses Wooster's telamones as a photo in their article), which appear to bear the weight of the building on their shoulders. If you search for Wooster on the internet, you will undoubtedly see images of them in your initial search results. Traditional knowledge is that the Italian stone carvers made these magnificent statues. But more recent research has challenged this assumption. It is now argued that the telemones were actually carved by two sculptors, one from Germany and one from Prussia.
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| The four Atlas statues, known as telamones in architecture, were carved by itinerant artists, and are arguably one of the most symbolic landmarks in Wayne County and Wooster. |
The next time you are downtown, take a moment to appreciate the enduring wonder of the courthouse. Someday, it will meet the fate of it's three predecessors, but let's hope it is not in our time. The Wayne County Courthouse, along with its older sibling, the Annex, is a powerful symbol of Wooster's not-so-distant past. It anchors all of us in the values and ideas of the people that have brought us to this point.
