Butte County CA Archives History - Books .....The County-Seat And Court-House 1882 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 14, 2005, 5:21 pm Book Title: History Of Butte County THE COUNTY-SEAT AND COURT-HOUSE. The Act of the legislature of February 18, 1850, creating the counties of the state and fixing the boundaries thereof, provided that the county-seat of Butte county should be at Butte City or at Chico, "whichever place shall be chosen by the qualified electors of the county at the first election to be held therein for county judge." At that election, June 10, 1850, it is well known that neither of these places was selected for the seat of justice. However, pending the decision of the voting public, the first courts were all held at Chico temporarily. Of course, no public buildings were erected there. The vote pertaining to the county-seat question was summarized by the board of inspectors, which met at Chico, as follows:— Bidwell's Bar, 386; Ophir, 161; Hamilton, 196; Ophir City, 17; Chico, 40; Butte City, 24. Making a total of votes cast on this proposition, 824. This statement was reported by the board, certified to by the county judge, and filed with the county clerk. It has been the general impression that this statement was a faithful abstract of the returns as they came in from the various precincts, but a careful compilation of the returns as they came from the polling places, all of which are on file, gives the following statement, which is accurate in every particular: — P L E B B A A I S R Z B D O A T B S I U W P N E O L T R G T E H H T E O O R U L T L I A S N N I A E E L R M V E G N R R C S I A R S S G L S T C H C L L A T S O I I B I T L N B B O T B T T C A T O E C A A W O A A PRECINCTS. Y O R Y N Y H R R N N R L Veazie City 20 1 21 St. Louis 4 1 5 Hamilton *1 77 78 Long's Bar 3 3 5 28 2 1 42 Ophir City 40 40 Stony Point 2 36 38 High Rock 30 30 Bidwell's Bar 283 2 285 Bartee's Ranch. 5 62 67 Stringtown 16 7 3 45 71 Stony Point L. tp. 1 4 24 2 4 35 Pleasant Valley 2 58 13 73 Brown's Bar 24 17 41 American Bar 38 38 Middle Fork 19 17 36 Total 24 13 386 169 151 13 62 2 32 45 2 1 900 *Cast for Ophir The discrepancies between this abstract and that of the board of inspectors were, doubtless, caused by the "counting-out" power possessed or assumed by that body. The actual vote cast and its manner of distribution are here given fully and succinctly. The board having declared Chico as having forty votes, being more than were given to Butte City. the other place named in the statute, though far less than to Bidwell's bar, it was thought by some that Chico was the legal county-seat. The reason for this opinion was that the statute only gave the people the privilege of choosing between Chico and Butte City, and not the power to select a third place. Others maintained that Bidwell's bar, having received the greatest number of votes, was as much the county-seat as though the statute had named it as one of the places to be voted for. Furthermore, Bidwell's bar was in the heart of the populated section of the county, while Chico was off to one side. The governor having appointed Hon. W. S. Sherwood judge of this district, that gentleman opened court in July, at Chico, but adjourned without doing any business, and when the court again convened, in September, the question of county-seat had been settled. Hon. Moses Bean, the newly-elected county judge, opened the county court at Chico. in July, but it adjourned to meet a few days later at Bidwell's bar, where the county court, probate court, and court of sessions were held until the question was determined. The people were dissatisfied, and but a few weeks elapsed before the court of sessions was loudly importuned to call another election for the special purpose of deciding this question, and at a time when no side issues of candidates striving for office would distract the voters' attention from the main subject under consideration. Accordingly, on the twentieth of August, 1850, the following order issued from the councils of the body which administered the affairs of the commonwealth, in convocation at Bidwell's bar:— "And now on this day was presented the petition of the qualified electors of Butte county, praying the court to order an election for the permanent location of the seat of justice of said county; when it is ordered by the court that an election be held on the twenty-first day of September, for that purpose." The returns were some time in getting to the clerk's office. On the twenty-seventh of September Mr. Sexton, the county clerk, canvassed the returns that were in at the time and filed the abstract that we give below. It will be seen that had this report been accepted by the court of sessions, the complexion of the county-seat problem, would have been somewhat different from what resulted. According to this, Ophir was selected as the county-seat;— COUNTY CLERK SEXTON'S ABSTRACT, Filed September 27, 1850. PRECINCTS. HAMILTON OPHIR. BIDWELL. TOTAL. Benton 14 14 Hamilton 53 53 St. Louis 14 7 21 Ophir 5 171 176 Long 13 89 1 103 Bidwell 20 11 118 149 Stringtown 68 4 72 Middle Fork 28 2 30 Total 201 291 126 618 But other precincts were immediately heard from, as the prospects of Hamilton became so ominously jeopardized, and the following report of Judge Moses Bean was filed on the succeeding day. This statement was adopted as final, and Hamilton became the county-seat:— JUDGE BEAN'S REPORT, Filed September 28, 1850. JUDGE BEAN'S REPORT, Filed September 28, 1850. PRECINCTS. HAMILTON OPHIR. BIDWELL. TROY. FREDONIA. FOOT OF RED HILLS TOTAL. Benton 14 14 Hamilton 53 53 St. Louis 14 7 21 Ophir 5 171 176 Long's 13 89 1 103 Bidwell 20 11 118 149 Stringtown 68 4 72 Middle Fork 28 2 30 Stony Point-Long 88 16 104 High Rock-Long 24 4 28 Adams' Poll-Long 62 1 63 Forbes' Store-Stony Point 67 24 91 Tolle's Ranch 70 22 92 Montgomery Bar 44 1 45 Gates' Store 11 11 Butte Bluffs 8 8 Mount Pleasant 11 1 12 Graham's Store 8 8 Brookie's Store 30 30 Dry Diggings 47 47 Smith's Bar 28 3 31 Onion Valley 37 63 1 101 Rich Bar 52 30 82 Mouth Nelson Creek 47 61 1 109 Clark's Store 34 4 9 47 Rich Bar, South Branch 18 16 34 Total 887 502 164 9 1 1 1561 In the article before alluded to Judge Sexton says of this election:— "The proprietors of Hamilton took an undue advantage of her sister towns, by distributing deeds (quit-claims) to a great many merchants and miners in the more populous precincts, of choice town lots, while to the more influential of the merchants, corner lots were deeded for business houses, etc., all of which were accompanied by glowing descriptions of the future prosperity and wealth of the place. We do not accuse the honest miners of the time of being so sordid as to let this influence their votes, but Hamilton did receive a large majority over any other place. At that time the town had two taverns, one store, and one blacksmith shop. Soon after, another tavern was erected, also a new store, under the influence of which, the old one gave up business. The clerk's office was fixed in the bed-room of Tom Gray's hotel, until a shake shanty could be built. Most of the other officers held their offices in their bed-rooms of the hotel where they were boarding." On the fourth of October, the court of sessions held its first term there, in an old shake house belonging to Mother Nichols, a widow, who lived in one corner of it. The necessity for a proper place in which to hold courts, and another to furnish lodgings for the refractory members of society, soon arose, and on the eighteenth of October this order issued from the court of sessions: "And now, on this day, it is ordered by the court that a tax of one-quarter per cent, be levied upon all the taxable property of Butte county, for the erection of a court-house and jail for said county." Some days previous, R. C. Baker had submitted to the court a design for a jail, which he guaranteed would be sufficiently commodious and strong for the criminal population. In reference to it appeared the following, on the nineteenth inst.: "And now it is ordered by the court that a jail be erected for the use of said county, upon the plans submitted by R. C. Baker, and the court appoints R. C. Baker to receive proposals for the erection of such building, and submit the same to the judges of this county; to contract for the erection of such building when suitable proposals have been received and approved by the judges of the court; and to superintend the erection of such building." But R. Bird & Co. had a plan which was deemed by the court to be more feasible than the others and the commissioner of the county was ordered, on the twenty-third, to adopt the plan submitted by them, providing the said Bird & Co. should become the contractors also. This was modified sufficiently to allow others to make proposals if they so desired. The contract was finally awarded to R. Bird & Co. in these words:— "Commissioner Reuel C. Baker is ordered to receive proposal for erection of county jail submitted by R. Bird it Co., and to draw warrants on county treasurer for one-half value of labor actually performed as the work progresses—warrants to be paid from funds collected upon assessment levied by the court for that purpose." For some reason Bird & Co. soon repented of their bargain and asked to be released from their contract. The court let them off on their paying the expenses of contracting, and also the expenses of re-contracting for the jail. Commissioner Baker was allowed to make whatever minor alterations in the contract his judgment might dictate. The contract for the jail was then let to E. K. Dodge for $8,500, and erected under the superintendence of Mr. Baker. Alterations in the contract made an extra expense of $700, raising the whole cost of the structure to $9,200. It was completed on the seventeenth of June, 1852, having been a long time in building. Considering the short period of its utility, the cost was hardly compensated for. It was a first-class jail, however, for that time. The walls were of great solidity and thickness, and so protected with sheet-iron that a prisoner once incarcerated within one of its two gloomy cells left hope of escape behind until liberated by due process of law. The other necessary concomitant of a county-seat was of course a court-house. As a preliminary measure, block 108, town of Hamilton, as set forth in the plat, was dedicated to county purposes. On the tenth of December, 1850, commissioner Baker was instructed to purchase the house of Campbell & Tate, in Fredonia, four miles below Hamilton, on the opposite side of Feather river, for a sum not exceeding $1,800, to be paid in county warrants, and to prepare such building for a temporary courthouse. A previous contract for a small court-house (probably as costly as the jail), was at the same time withdrawn. It is a curious fact that the material from which this building sprang was a year or two before shipped from Australia. The building thus negotiated for cost on the ground eighteen hundred dollars. Messrs. Crum & Poile took the contract of removing the building to the county-seat, and erecting it, for $3,000. The desks, tables, benches, etc., were made by the same parties for one hundred and thirty dollars, making the total cost of the court-house $4,930, and the total cost of the court-house and jail $14,130. For this sum warrants were issued on the jail-fund, and a specific appropriation was made by the court of sessions for its payment. Upon the tax levied for this fund in 1851, there were collected $576.57 towards redeeming the debt thus contracted. During the year 1852 $1,388.06 were applied to liquidating the court-house and jail debt, leaving a balance, in December of that year, of $12,103.15. In August, 1853, another special tax of one-fourth of one per cent, was levied for courthouse and jail purposes. At this time the town of Hamilton began to wane. Bidwell overshadowed her greatly, and its prosperity as a mining town inspired hopes in its residents of obtaining the county-seat. The required amount of work was done in the legislature, and that body declared, by the Act of March 19, 1853, that after the tenth of the following August the county-seat should be located at Bidwell's bar, but that the court of sessions should not order the removal of county offices and records until the citizens of Bidwell had prepared and deeded to the county suitable buildings for a court-house and jail, without any expense to the county, and free from any lien or incumbrance. This was done, and on the third of August, 1853, the court of sessions issued an order removing the county-seat to Bidwell on the tenth of the same month. The public buildings left at Hamilton by the removal of the offices were sold at auction. The ancient court-house was somewhat pretentious as to size, but as the bare frame structure had never been completed entirely, only two officials besides the courts had ever occupied it. The clerk, Warren T. Sexton, and the district attorney, Joseph W. McCorkle, had an office together in it. The other officers of the county transacted the public business at their bed-rooms in the hotel or boarding-house. Some years afterward the building was pulled down and the material used for other purposes. The expensive jail building was for many years devoted to various uses and finally became a granary. In the spring of 1878 it took fire and was destroyed, thus obliterating the last vestige of the old town as a county-seat. The new building put up at the expense of the Bidwellites was located on an elevation called Courthouse hill. It had more room in it than the Hamilton affair and was considered quite a creditable institution. It was also used as a church by the piously-inclined of that neighborhood, and its walls echoed both to the sonorous "Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" of the court crier, and the devotional anthems of the Sunday choir. The upper floor had an apartment where the somewhat uncertain decrees of justice were promulgated, while on the ground-floor the business of the county was transacted, and beneath all were the gloomy dungeons for the confinement of offenders against the peace and dignity of the state. The structure was entirely of wood. Court-house hill was found to be a valuable treasure-box. Mining claims were established all around it, and at a subsequent period its very site was invaded for the precious metal. In the winter of 1855-'56 the Butte-county representatives in the legislature procured the passage of a bill for the holding of an election to fix permanently the county-seat. The Act provided that whatsoever the result of the election, no change should be made unless good and sufficient buildings for courts and offices should be provided and deeded to the county. The election came off on the nineteenth of April, 1856. COUNTY-SEAT ELECTION, APRIL 19, 1856, By Townships. TOWNSHIPS OROVILLE BIDWELL LYNCHBURG WYANDOTTE SCATTERING TOTAL Bidwell 55 706 2 1 764 Ophir 1,246 216 261 105 2 1,830 Mountain Spring 34 157 191 Oro 191 200 7 34 8 440 Hamilton 72 2 74 Chico 80 91 171 Benton 38 38 Oregon 270 59 2 5 336 Eureka 192 40 1 2 235 Kimshew 118 14 132 Total 2,296 1,485 273 139 18 4,211 Once again Bidwell was doomed to lose its glory as the seat of justice, and both times, as she claimed, by a fraudulent vote. It is a significant fact that the total vote at the general election the fall before was but 3,162. Of this Judge Sexton once wrote: "The election, as well as whisky, was a free thing, and there was no registry law. I will not write how many votes were polled. The understanding was that the polls should be kept open until the returns from the balance of the county could be heard from, so as to be certain of getting enough votes to make the thing certain. The vote of the county on the railroad question (1860), and on the removal of the county-seat in '74 sink into insignificance when compared with the vote of April 19, 1856." The court-house and jail at Bidwell being estimated to be worth about six thousand dollars, the citizens of Oroville subscribed that amount for a new building, to which the board added eight thousand dollars, the requirements of the county demanding more commodious and substantial buildings than those formerly occupied. The first court-house then erected in Oroville cost $14,000. It was seventy feet in length by forty in width, with two stories and a basement, the latter being divided into cells for criminals and a jailer's room. The first floor was occupied by the various officers, and the second by the courts. On September twenty-fourth the board declared Oroville the county-seat. Ralph Bird and Jacob S. Morris, joint claimants of the ground upon which the court-house and jail stands, had executed a deed conveying one-fourth of an acre of ground in the form of a square in the center of block A, and all the remainder of the block adjacent to it. John Parry, J. McKinstry Smith, Seneca Ewer, and other citizens, also gave the county a deed of the same piece of ground. The requisitions of the legislative Act had been fully complied with, and the county buildings at Bidwell were declared incommodious and insecure, being built of wood, and Oroville was announced as the seat of justice. The board first met in Oroville September 30, 1856, and the rooms being assigned, the rest of the officials moved thither in November. It will be noticed that the county acquired, at the time of the removal to Oroville of the county-seat, only one-fourth of an acre, in the center of the plaza. The remainder was owned by Joseph Gluckauf, who had enclosed the plaza with a substantial fence. In 1860, measures were taken to purchase of him the property. The appraising committee, appointed by Thomas Wells, decided that the land was worth $2,500, and a warrant was drawn in favor of Gluckauf for that amount. On the fifth of February, 1873, A. J. Gifford presented to the board a petition signed by a great many citizens, praying for the removal of the county-seat to Chico. No action being taken by the board, the supreme court was appealed to, and a writ of mandamus issued from that tribunal to the board of supervisors, requiring them to show cause why an election to determine the location should not be called. The board called a special meeting for June 14, to determine their future action, but nothing whatever was done. On the fifteenth of April, 1874, the supreme court ordered them to call an election for such purpose, and in accordance with this mandate, they fixed upon June 8, 1874, for the election. As an inducement for removal, the people of Chico offered the county a block worth $10,000 and $20,000 in gold coin, with which to build a court-house. General Bidwell and a few others gave their bonus for $40,000 for the faithful performance of this agreement. The election was the most exciting ever held in the county. In the contest Oroville again came off victorious. The total number of votes cast was 3,678, of which Oroville received 1,904; Chico, 1,693; Biggs, 74; Gridley, 2. Five votes were cast for other places. Much bad blood was created by the vote, both sides accusing each other of doing many dishonest acts to obtain a majority. After all, there never was an honest county-seat election, and probably there never will be. Men who would scorn to do illegal voting at a regular election, will resort to all kinds of fraudulent practices when the interests of their town are jeopardized at the polls. In March, 1876, the first steps were taken towards building an addition to the court-house. The old building had for many years been too small to accommodate all the county officers with rooms, and large amounts had been expended in rents to provide offices for the district attorney and the county judge. On the eleventh of that month the board of supervisors instructed the clerk to advertise for plans and estimates, and on the thirteenth of May sealed proposals for a fire-proof building were asked for by the board. In June the contract was let to Reinhart, Bryan & Cook for the sum of $12,939, the building to be 34x75 feet and two stories in height. Early in November it was completed, and with the extras put on it, cost $13,585. The two lower rooms of the addition are thoroughly fire-proof. They are commodious and airy, and in these are kept the most important of the records. They are occupied by the recorder and the county clerk. The second floor is divided into a grand jury room, assessor's room, office of the superintendent of schools, and another office used for various purposes. The court-house is now a commodious structure, sufficiently large for the transaction of the county business, and built so substantially that it will stand for years. It is supplied with both water and gas, and the surrounding yard is ornamented with a fine growth of shade-trees, that add greatly to the pleasing appearance of the structure. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF BUTTE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, IN TWO VOLUMES. I. HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA FROM 1513 TO 1850. BY FRANK T. GILBERT. The Great Fur Companies and their Trapping Expeditions to California. Settlement of the Sacramento Valley. The Discovery of Gold in California. BY HARRY L. WELLS. II. HISTORY OF BUTTE COUNTY, From its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. BY HARRY L. WELLS AND W. L. CHAMBERS. BOTH VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED WITH VIEWS AND PORTRAITS. HARRY L. WELLS, 517 CLAY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO 1882. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by HARRY L. WELLS, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. FRANCIS, VALENTINE & Co., Engravers & Printers 517 Clay St., San Francisco File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/butte/history/1882/historyo/countyse45nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 27.0 Kb