Submitted to the Daily Reflector, April 2006

    In late 2004, Pitt County completed a seven-year expansion and restoration project of its 1910 courthouse, the sixth courthouse building inhabited by the county since its formation in 1761.  The $15.9 million project implemented a thoroughly modern system of convenience for the building, while at the same time protecting and preserving traditional architectural form and features.

    The Pitt County courthouse is only one of a hundred county courthouses that dot the Old North State.  Many current courthouse buildings are replacements for earlier structures that either burned or were dismantled over time. Regardless, they all have stories to tell and stand as unique symbols of pride for the communities they serve.

    In recent years, a greater concern for historic preservation has led a number of counties to reevaluate their courthouses not only from the standpoint of utility but also of cultural value.  Chowan County, for example, restored its 1767 courthouse in Edenton.  Characterized as possibly “the finest example of Georgian architecture in the South,” this courthouse building is now designated as both a state and national landmark.

    In a March 2006 issue of the Greenville Times, Pitt County historian Roger Kammerer writes that previous Pitt County courthouse constructions were not without problems and controversies.  A case in point was the county’s fifth courthouse (1858-1910). Commissioners and contractor John W. Cosby engaged in a feud over modifications to an original plan for that building.

    The matter came before the local courts, with the county charging Cosby for use of inferior materials and describing his ongoing work as “a specimen of architecture . . . unworthy of the county of Pitt.”  According to Kammerer, the case finally ended up in the NC Supreme Court, although the outcome is not clear.  The first floor of that courthouse was occupied by 1860 but the remainder of the building sat unfinished until 1877.

    It is thought that Martin County’s second courthouse (1835-1884) was a victim of arson.  The third courthouse, completed in 1886, was used until 1982 and since 1986 has been subject to a restoration effort by a nonprofit organization, Friends of the Old Martin County Courthouse http://www.oldcourthouseculturalcenter.com/. 

    An Italianate style structure, the Martin County building is an architectural gem among courthouses in North Carolina.  The Friends organization is presently seeking assistance from the North Carolina legislature to complete the project.

    This courthouse was the scene for the famed 1925 Joseph Needleman case that garnered attention from both national and international news agencies. Needleman, a Jewish chewing tobacco salesman, was charged with taking advantage of a local girl   While in the Martin County jail, he was forcibly taken out by a mob and mutilated.  The event proved a public relations fiasco for Williamston and Martin County and attracted a host of celebrities, including North Carolina Governor Angus McLean.  A fictionalized account of the story and the trial that ensued is the subject of Lenward E. Thomas’s Cry of Wounded Innocence (1994).

    Suggested resources on North Carolina courthouses from Joyner Library’s North Carolina Collection include
 

• North Carolina Taproots: Courthouses of North Carolina (1998), by Paul Shields Crane – Touted by the author as a handy guidebook to North Carolina counties. Text is accompanied by photos of each of the state’s one hundred courthouses.

 

• The Courthouses of North Carolina and Tales that Whisper in the Stone (1988), by Charles Heatherly – Heatherly focuses on some of the more notorious tales, true stories, and anecdotes associated with North Carolina courthouses.  The case of Tom Dula and the trial and circumstances surrounding the murder of General Bryan Grimes are reviewed here.

 

• 100 Courthouses: A Report on North Carolina Judicial Facilities (1978) – An inventory and needs assessment document of the state’s county court facilities twenty-five years ago.
  

    The North Carolina Collection also has a finely executed broadside called “Courthouses of Eastern North Carolina,” by Mitchell Virchick and the Albemarle Group (1997).

    Area residents, as well as members of the ECU community are encouraged to use the North Carolina Collection located on the third floor of Joyner Library.  To learn more, call 252-328-6601 or visit the website at http://www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.cfm.

 

    Fred Harrison is a staff member with the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection.