One of the longest-running historic renovation projects in Licking County concluded last week with a celebration that revealed the answers to two more mysteries about the Licking County Courthouse – the age of the artwork and why the walls included four empty frames where artwork presumably was planned.
Some speculated that the holes were to allow future generations to fill in the blanks between historical figures of centuries past with more contemporary figures, but no one seemed to know for sure.
The top-to-bottom, $18.2 million restoration of the 149-year-old courthouse took 10 years to complete. It started with a new roof and sheet metal on the bell tower, and included new windows, a new elevator and a host of important but mostly invisible projects to update utilities and systems.
The project ended in March with completion of the restoration of the ornate West Courtroom, which was rededicated in a ceremony on May 1. That day is national Law Day – a time each year to reflect on the role of law in the foundation of the country and in society today.
County Commissioner Tim Bubb, who has helped shepherd the restoration project, called it a “red-letter day in the history of Licking County.”
The courthouse built in 1876 – the fourth courthouse on that site – was designed to be “a statement building for the people of this county,” he said, adding that the message was that Licking County was thriving and growing.
The courtroom on May 1 was filled with invited guests – including current and former county commissioners, local elected officials, all local judges, the judges of the 5th District Court of Appeals that serves Licking County, and Ohio Supreme Court Justice Patrick Fischer, who was the keynote speaker.
Many of the guests spent more time craning their necks to look at the artwork on the walls and ceiling than focusing on the speakers.
Restoration of artwork in the courtroom earlier this year revealed answers to a couple of courtroom mysteries – the approximate age of the artwork and the name of the artist who painted large ceiling murals that had been virtually hidden by dirt and grime for decades.
The ceiling murals are by Adèle Bassi, a 19th century Swiss woman who studied and worked in Florence, Italy, and who was known for her elegant portraits. One of her courtroom murals revealed an approximate age of the artwork because it included an image of the first radio invented by Guglielmo Marconi, and first used around 1895.
| Read more: Courtroom restoration reveals museum-quality artwork and a few well-kept secrets
But uncovering the first radio didn’t pinpoint the age of the artwork, and nothing to date had explicitly explained the four empty frames amid the courtroom artwork – until local pastor and historian Jeff Gill did some sleuthing with the help of some very large and very old ledgers in the Licking County Records & Archives office.
“Our west courtroom for some 25 years was similar to the courtrooms on the first floor – steel framing for flat ceilings with pressed tin panels,” Jeff Gill told those in attendance at the rededication. “By 1903, there was growing interest in having a more finished main courtroom, but county finances were tight. Needed repairs on the ceilings of the second floor, however, opened up the possibility of some aesthetic refinement, and Nov. 9, 1903, the county commissioners’ journal records, ‘It was further decided by said committee to change 6 panels in ceiling of Courtroom from steel to plastering.’”
The commissioners also contracted with a local firm, Pratt & Montgomery, to deliver wood finishings for the courtroom, “as per specifications for $623.25,” Gill said. “This was the beginning of what would become the West Courtroom as we know it. It becomes clear from later payments that the commissioners on or after Nov. 9 selected W.J. Harper & Son as lead contractor for the “Court room” project, but I did not find that stated directly in the journals.”
So Gill’s research had answered more precisely the question about the age of the artwork and fixtures that make the courtroom, as Justice Fischer said, one of the most beautiful in Ohio. (Licking Countians “should be grateful for a fire in 1875” that claimed the previous courthouse and led to construction of the current one, he said.)
But why the empty frames on the walls?
Gill chuckled as he revealed the reason – one that is a common refrain in government now and across time:
On Feb. 5, 1906, records show, the county auditor told the county commissioners – who had been hiring contractors and buying artwork piecemeal – that they had run out of money for the courthouse.
Nearly 120 years later, the current Licking County commissioners found the money to fill the empty frames.
The two largest are on the east wall behind the judge’s bench. One mural depicts the signing of the Magna Carta in England in 1215, which established the principle that the king is subject to the law and not above it. The second mural depicts the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
The final two holes in the tapestry of courtroom artwork flank the doorway to the judge’s chambers. Those frames are now filled with bas relief plaques. One is of Samuel Hunter, a Civil War veteran who went on to serve as city council president, city solicitor, county prosecutor, and judge. The other is of William Stanbery, who came to Ohio in 1809 and was a lawyer in Newark for 64 years, also serving as a state senator and U.S. Congressman in the 1820s and ’30s.
Alan Miller writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.