20                  HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

it was a round-log one. He gives it as his recollection that the original
court house and jail were built in 1827, and of hewn logs. The court
house was a two-story building, about 20 X 30 feet, which stood, not on
the public square, but on the oposite and north side of the street, east
of the old hotel building on the corner. The court room was on the
lower floor, the upper floor serving for the use of county officers and the
jury, though no special appointments by way of separate apartments were
made for the accommodation of public business.
    The first jail, which was a one-story house, was erected on the public
square, a little to the northeast of the present stand and platform of the
Old Settlers’ society. This house was about 20 x 20 feet, having a floor
of heavy hewn logs resting upon sills and extending to the outer edge of
the walls, which were double, with poles thrust upright between as a
precaution to the safe-keeping of prisoners. These rude wooden struc-
tures were occupied for the period of twelve years in the transaction of
judicial and official business and the confinement of prisoners.
In 1838 a contract was let to Dempsey Seybold, Sr., of Parke county, for
the erection of a two-story brick court house, about 40 X 50 feet, on the site
of the present one. About the same time Seybold contracted also, the
building of the county seminary. In the summer of 1838 the contractor
made the brick for these buildings on the vacant lot on the east side of the
town on which the frame district school house was located some years
afterward. The seminary was built the same year and the court house the
year following, 1839, and occupied in 1840, though not yet completed.
    Preparatory to the erection of the court house, the old jail building
was moved across the street to the east and put on the lot occupied by
the present one, adjoining the residence of Paul J. Geiger. This
removal and the required repairs were made by Thomas I. Cromwell. In
the, reconstruction of this building a stone foundation was put down,
another story added and the timbers driven full of spikes on the inside,
to make the delivery of prisoners the more difficult. In this new court
house, also, the court room was below, and the office rooms above, and
the partition walls of wood. On the lower floor the court room was on
the east side of the hall and the stairway on the west side. On the upper
floor the auditor’s and recorder’s offices were on the east side and the
clerk’s and treasurer’s offices on the west side of the hall. This house
stood twelve years—until the night of November 30, 1851, when it was
destroyed by fire, consuming all the public records but those of the
recorder’s office, which were kept at the time by Recorder Beam in his
tailor shop, on the west side of the square. In the northeast corner of the
building, on the upper floor, along side the recorder’s apartment, was a
narrow room used for storing rubbish, in which it was generally thought
the fire originated.
    The county commissioners at the time of the loss of the court house
were Daniel Dunlavy, of Dick Johnson township, for the first district,
William L. Cromwell, of Cass township, for the second district (who was
chairman), and William Edmonson, of Harrison township, for the third
district. They convened on Monday, the first day of December, and insti-
tuted an investigation as to the probable cause of the fire. Many of the res-
idents of Bowling Green and immediate surroundings were cited to appear
and give in evidence what they had observed and knew about the fire. But
nothing was developed on which to base any definite conclusion, the
board finding that the responsibility for the fire and the loss of property