Clinton County Courthouse Is Celebrated on 150th Birthday
LOCK HAVEN – The Clinton County Commissioners Thursday celebrated the Clinton County Courthouse birthday by way of a special commissioners’ session in the stately building’s large courtroom.
The current commissioners moved their Thursday meeting from their current home at the Piper Building to the courthouse at Water and Church Streets, a building which had served as their meeting place until 1990. The very first commissioners’ meeting was held there on Feb. 8, 1869, 150 years ago this Friday.
The building’s past was recognized through comments from President Judge Craig P. Miller and local attorney Justin Houser, the building’s future restoration plans announced by current commissioner Jeff Snyder.
Judge Miller detailed past judges who had presided in the courthouse and said he looked forward to the building being restored to its past grandeur.
Houser traced the development of the new courthouse, a project first broached in the late 1850s, the proposal delayed by the Civil War. Construction then quickly followed, a loan from the state approved in February of 1868; it was a loan, Houser noted, not completely repaid by the taxpayers until 1917. Construction cost for the new building was $93,000.
Houser touched on the courthouse history over the last century and a half, “Important public decisions, trials of great moment, triumphs and tragedies have all occurred here. Tens of thousands of families were commenced with the issuance of a marriage license downstairs; many thousands were severed by the entry of a decree of divorce recorded in the office across the hall. This building stands as a tangible symbol of the abstract concept written on the wall behind me (a quote from the Declaration of Independence). And we need such a symbol,” he said.
And he ended with a quote from 20th century English philosopher, G. K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”
“So, too,” Houser said, “Even as we do not need this physical building to show us that there is injustice, inequality, and evil in this world, we all do need this courthouse to show us that there is also justice, equality, and goodness and that, if we work together to further these ideals we can slay the dragons of our age and make our ideals a reality for those who come after us. And that is truly a reason to celebrate.”
Commissioner Snyder said the county has $280,000 for improvements to the courthouse, $200,000 of that amount from an existing bond issue and another $80,000 in a state grant. The funds will go towards improvements to the entrance stairwell and a “top to bottom” clean-up of the large courtroom which has been plagued by falling ceiling paint for some time. He said there are no short-term plans for an exterior building restoration but said county workers will paint over areas where paint has been peeling from the outside walls.
