Section 21:  Borough Growth

October 7th, 1886

The last written in this book was in April last. As the days grow long and the evenings short, I don't feel like thinking over my past life or noting down the incidents that come to me naturally on the long evenings of fall and winter.

Since I came here the people of Clarion County have paid for two jails and three courthouses. In the summer of 1841, Edward Derby and Gen. Levi G. Clover took the contract from the commissioners and that summer and fall built the first courthouse and made a very good job of it. Derby was a good mechanic and an honest man and did good honest work.

It was built on the same site as the present courthouse. The courtroom was on the ground floor at the back end next the jail, and the offices were in the front next the street. It was, of course, a stone foundation, and the building was brick. The courtroom was not so wide as the front end and two doors were at the offset on each side by which communication was had with the jail. A large hall ran all across between the courtroom and the offices, and stairs went up on each side to the upper story.

The floor over the courtroom was swung to the roof, and I recollect that we were afraid to hold meetings in the upper story for fear that the supporting rods might give way, and it was never used much. It would have answered the purpose till this time and with necessary repairs would have been a good building, but about March, 1859, it took fire and burned down. We lost a good bell.

David English of Brookville built the second courthouse a little larger than the first. He took it too low and lost money on the contract. After it was finished, the Grand Jury recommended the payment of fifteen hundred dollars additional which was done and he came out about whole. In this building the courtroom was on the second floor and it was a commodious, well arranged house, and large enough far the county for a hundred years, but sometime in September, 1882 it too went up in smoke. Both caught fire from defective flues, and the fire was first seen in the roof. The dockets and records were saved, and I think no papers of importance were lost in either fire.

Although the old buildings cost far less than the present house, with the furniture, bells and clock I suppose each cost the county twenty thousand dollars. The new building will cost the county at least a hundred thousand, making the outlay for courthouse fully $140,000.00, and the two jails not far from the same amount. The old jail was not burned, but was not large or tight enough to hold our criminals. As stated before, it was built in a hurry to be ready for the February Court of 1841. In a few years after it was built the front walls began to swing out, and under a contract with the commissioners, Captain Barber took it down and rebuilt it. The front was of cut stone and the sides and back and jail yard was of rough stone. I have no doubt the entire costs of our public buildings will foot up two hundred and eighty thousand dollars -- a pretty heavy burden for Clarion County to carry, but at least three-fourths of it is paid and our county buildings will compare favorably with any in western Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh.

The town was settled generally with young people and families of limited means. Strattonville and Greenville were on the east; Reedsburg, Curllsville and Rimersburg were to the south, and Shippensville to the west. All these places were older towns and more or less business centers, and most of them had more capital than Clarion, and of course strove to retain their trade and for a good many years did so to a great extent. The consequence was that our town, though settled by an intelligent, industrious and reasonably energetic population for the first twenty years, advanced very slowly. Instead of taking or feeling proud of the county seat, there was a feeling of jealousy against it throughout the county, and it used to be said that fifty bushel of oats would glut the market in Clarion.

Between 1860 and 1870 the town began to accumulate some surplus capital and most of the new buildings that now ornament our town have been erected since that time, and gradually the business of the county began to concentrate at the county seat and the surrounding village to lose their prestige till now there is more business done here than in all the surrounding towns put together. Strattonville, our most formidable rival, is going back, and real estate there goes a begging.