Winnsboro, South Carolina

In 1785, the General Assembly of South Carolina authorized the establishment of a public market at this spot. The market was a square, wooden building, painted yellow, and was topped with a belfry. In the 1820s Robert Cathcart bought the building and also donated to the town his old duck pond and a small piece of land in the middle of Washington Street as part of the deal. Here was constructed a narrow building modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The works for the town clock were ordered from Alsace, France and the town promotes it as the longest-running clock in America. The town bell was also cast in France and did good service until 1895; during a fire that year two young men were ringing it so vigorously that it cracked and was sent to Philadelphia to J. McShane for repairs. When after some delay it was returned and sounded for the first time, the tone was so different from the old tone that doubt was expressed immediately as to its being the original bell. The first floor is now used as meeting space for the town’s various organizations and as a voting location. The second floor of the Town Clock is home to the Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce.

Marblehead, Massachusetts

The stylish Town House was constructed in 1727 to serve as both the town hall (upstairs) and a market  (downstairs). It is highly decorated with fashionable corner quoins, dentil blocks along the roofline and a distinguished entrance. It is one of the oldest municipal buildings still in use in the United States.

Elkton, Maryland

 

The first Cecil County courthouse in Elkton was completed in 1792. A one-story brick addition was later constructed to house the Register of Wills, the Clerk of Court and the Sheriff. By the eighteen-eighties, additional space was needed, but the building was hemmed in on every side. The county commissioners had to decide whether to tear down the structure and rebuild or add a third story. The courthouse was enlarged by removing the hipped roof. A mansard third story was added, and a tower was built in front of the building. The tower contained the entrance, a small balcony, a clock, and a semi-onion dome. The tower was topped with a weathervane in the shape of a fish.  The courthouse soon became crowded and an effort was made to replace it. In 1935 an act was passed authorizing the county commissioners to spend $5,000 for property on which to build a new courthouse. The site chosen was about 200 yards from the old courthouse. Cornerstone ceremonies took place in May 1939 and building began shortly thereafter. The new courthouse building officially opened on July 26, 1940.

Altoona, Pennsylvania

The first building on this site was erected for the Vigilant Steam Fire Engine Company in 1870, two years after Altoona was chartered as a city.  Funds for construction were raised through private subscriptions and contributions from members of the company. The engine house’s 75-foot corner tower, which served as a hose lookout, was a landmark on the late nineteenth-century skyline.

When the building was razed in 1925 to make way for this Beaux Arts city hall, the o!d clock and the bell, which for years sounded the general fire alarm, were donated to the Blair County Historical Society, where they remain today.

Construction of the new city hall commenced with a ground-breaking ceremony on June 22, 1925, and the building was occupied on November 11, 1927. Altoona architects Frederic Shollar and Frank Hersh designed the building with a Rockport gray granite foundation, a rusticated Indiana limestone first floor and Flemish bond buff brick on the second and third floors. However, to cut expenses, they decided to continue incorporating the various municipal functions under one roof, in contrast with the nationwide trend toward more specialized structures for each branch of local government. To this day, the police department, jail, courts, city treasurer, and mayor share the building.

When it comes to the selection of the county courthouse, in Fairfield County money talks and less money walks. There was much debate accompanying the placing of the Fairfield County Courthouse in Bridgeport. Fairfield was the site of the first county seat and there, in 1720, the colonists erected the first courthouse--a wooden structure that was burned by the British during the Revolutionary War. It was rebuilt in 1794. But by the mid-1800s, with the burgeoning industrial and population growth of neighboring Bridgeport made it the obvious choice to host the replacement of the overwhelmed Fairfield facility. Obvious, except to the folks in Norwalk. Bridgeport offered to pay $75,000 to build a courthouse and jail, ending the brouhaha. The sandstone building was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis in the Greek Revival-style, which resembles a temple. The building had two main floors for court and county government, a large ground floor for use as City Hall and a large gathering space, Washington Hall, for public meetings.

Today it is known as McLevy Hall, named for popular former 24-year Socialist mayor Jasper McLevy, for whom the green the Ionic-columned building fronts. it is remembered today as the location where a little-known Republican candidate for President delivered a two-hour impassioned political speech against slavery on March 10, 1860. Abraham Lincoln, however, probably best remembered Bridgeport as the place where he enjoyed his first plate of New England fried oysters.

Paterson, New Jersey

The New York architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings, designers of the New York Public Library, many buildings in Washington, D.C. and leading practitioners of the Beaux Arts style in America, won the design competition over eleven other architects for Paterson City Hall in 1892. The magnificent 164-foot central clock tower, adorned with sculpted wreaths, eagles, urns and shields, is a a reproduction of the city hall in Lyon, the silk center of France. When it was dedicated on July 6, 1896 it was acclaimed as the finest public building in the state. It was contemplated as a memorial to the Centennial of the City and two large windows on the Ellison street elevation were created to honor John Ryle, the “Father of the Silk Industry” and a city mayor, and John J. Brown, financial wizard and first Mayor of Paterson. When it was planned $200,000 was set aside for the new City Hall; the final tab came in at $530,971.80 - unfurnished.

Newburyport, Massachusetts

In 1804 Newburyport’s coffers were bursting with shipping money and it was no problem to lure America’s first celebrity architect, Charles Bulfinch, to design a courthouse. Bulfinch had the job done by 1805 and the building has served as a courthouse ever since - the oldest regularly operating courthouse in the United States. Unfortunately Charles Bulfinch would have a hard time recognizing his work here. He provided the courthouse with an open arcade of graceful arches across the front and a central gable on the roof. Both were eliminated in 1853 when the town sold the courthouse to the county. Actually, you can get a better feel for Bulfinch’s hand by walking around to the back and viewing the elevation overlooking the Frog Pond. The area around the Frog Pond has been used as a town common since the 1600s. The promenade known as the Bartlet Mall was created in 1800 through the efforts of Captain Edmund Bartlet by filling in a ravine. The bombshell on display in the front of the building was brought back from the Siege of Louisburg in 1759 during the French and Indian War.