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LAWRENCE COUNTY HISTORY
Arkansas Genealogy Trails COURTHOUSES JUDGES SHERIFFS Source: Excerpts from The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas, c1889, Chicago, p. 768-769. The act creating the county provided that the first county court and circuit court to be holden for said county should be held at the house of Solomon Hewit, on Spring River. Later, at the October term, 1815, Louis De Munn, William Robinson, William Hix, Sr., Morris Moore, Solomon Hewit, Andrew Criswell and Isaac Kelley, commissioners appointed to select the permanent seat of justice for the county, or a majority of them, reported to the county court that they had fixed the permanent seat of justice on Big Black River, near the mouth of Spring River, and purchased the town site from their several owners, for the sum of $255. Soon after a town was laid out on the site selected, and named Davidsonville. At this place the county seat remained until 1829, when it was removed to Jackson in what is now Randolph County. No vestige of Davidsonville at this time can be found. May 22, 1837, David Orr, Alexander Smith and William Thompson, commissioners previously appointed to select a new site for the seat of justice, reported that they had located the county seat on fifty acres of land in Section 33, Township 17 north, Range 3 west, donated by James H. Benson for the purpose. To this place, where a town was laid out and named Smithville, the county seat was immediately removed, and remained there until 1868, when in accordance with the act of the legislature creating Sharp County, it was removed to Clover Bend on Black River, six miles south of Powhatan. Afterward the question of removing the seat of justice to the town of Powhatan, was submitted to the voters of the county, at an election held November 15, 1869 on which occasion 207 votes were cast in favor of the removal, and only six against it. In accordance with this decision of the people, the records were taken to Powhatan, which became the final and permanent seat of justice. At all the former
county seats, excepting Clover Bend, but ordinary
public buildings were used. In 1873 the first court-house at
Powhatan, a large two-story brick structure, with offices below and
court-room above, was completed by Thornton & Jones, of Little
Rock, at a cost of between $16,000 and $17,000. It was
destroyed
by fire in the month of March, 1885, supposed to have been the work of
an incendiary. The records, however, which were in a vault
that
had been attached to the building after its original construction, were
saved in good condition. The present court-house was
constructed
in 1888, by the contractors, Boon & McGinnis, at a cost,
including
the pay of the commissioner, J. P. Coffin, and the removal of the
debris of the old building, of about $12,000. It stand on the
site of the former building, and is a handsome modern two-story
brick structure, on a rock foundation, with fine offices and
fire-proof vaults below and the court and other rooms above.
The
jail, near the court-house is a substantial stone house, containing
iron cells. When the county was divided into judicial
districts,
a two-story frame court-house, with the clerk's office and two jury
rooms on the first floor and the court-room on the second, was erected
at Walnut Ridge, at the expense of the citizens of that district.
FIRST JUDGES OF THE COUNTY
James Campbell, 1929-32 T. S. Drew, 1832-33 John Hardin, 1833-40 J. C. Floyd, 1840-44 J. Kicklin, 1844-46 A. H. Nunn, 1846-50 John Milligan, 1850-52 G. McGehey, 1852-56 W. C. Smith, 1856-58 George McGehey, 1858-60 C. S. Wainright, 1860-62 G. McGehey, 1862-64 Solomon Yeager, 1864-66 G. McGehey, 1866-68 Josiah Dent, 1868-72 Commissioners, 1872-74 J. N. Hillhouse, 1874-76 Davied Wagster, 1876-78 Alex Jackson, 1878-84 W. A. Townsend, 1884-86 David C. Smith, 1886-88 W. A. Townsend, 1888- FIRST SHERIFFS OF THE COUNTY Joseph Hardin, 1819-25 J. M. Kuykendall, 1825-36 T. McCarroll, 1836-44 L. Toney, 1844-46 L. B. Poer, 1846-50 C. C. Straughan, 1850-54 W. J. Hudson, 1854-56 T. C. Steadman, 1856-60 J. D. Wyatt, 1860-62 B. F. Matthews, 1862-66 J. H. W. Campbell, 1866-68 J. B. Judkins, 1868-72 W. G. Wasson, 1872-78 W. A. Townsend, 1878-80 John Darter, 1880-86 C. A. Stuart, 1886- Return to Lawrence County Index 2007 Arkansas Genealogy Trails |