The Act of the Legislature in creating the county provided that, until otherwise prescribed
by law, the court of common pleas and special session should be held at such place as
should be designated by Charles Gamble, Robert Patterson, and William Lauderdale.
They designated the house of Hasten Poe, situated at the foot of Walden's Ridge, where the Poe Turnpike starts up the Mountain.
It was a large two-story log house and was used as a public house and stock stand for the accommodation of travelers and stock drivers. It was known far and wide as Poe's Tavern.
Here the courts were held for several years.
They were then moved to the house of John Mitchell, only a few miles from the Poe house, where they remained only a short while.
Then the county seat was established on the farm of Asahel Rawlings, and a log courthouse was built, around which a town sprang up, called Dallas in honor of Alexander James
Dallas, an American statesman who died in 1817. He was the father of George M.
Dallas, of Pennsylvania, who became Vice-President in 1845 when James K. Polk was President of the United States.
In 1840, by popular vote, the county seat was changed to Harrison on the south bank of
the Tennessee River, about twelve miles northeast of Chattanooga. Harrison, before this,
was an Indian village, named Vann Town, after the chief of the tribe of Indians living in the vicinity.'
A substantial and very convenient brick courthouse was built at Harrison. The contractor
who built it was Thomas Crutchfield, the father of Hon. William and Thomas Crutchfield, who were important factors in building up the city of Chattanooga, and who were prominent in all the business enterprises and social ventures of the early town.
The last court that was ever held in this old building was on the fifth day of December, 1870.
The county seat had been changed to Chattanooga by vote of the people. The only business which could come before the court was the making of an order appointing a new clerk and master, and directing the removal of the records and files to the new location in Chattanooga.
Mr. James A. Caldwell, Judge Key's appointee as clerk and master, with his bondsmen was on hand with a two-horse vehicle to haul away the records. A few lawyers went to Harrison with Judge Key, to witness the dismantling and passing of the old temple of justice which had stood for thirty years.
Meanwhile the people of Harrison, through their attorney, Charles C. Patton, were busy in a
vain effort to procure an injunction to prevent the removal. The complaint in their bill was that the election for removal was carried by fraud and repeating in Chattanooga.
Nothing ever came of the suit. Mr. Caldwell had loaded the books and papers and safely
landed them in Chattanooga, before Mr. Patton returned from his fruit-less quest for a fiat for injunction.
All the courts of the county were held in the courthouse in Harrison until 1858, when an act was passed by the legislature, establishing a law court at Chattanooga for the Fourth and Fourteenth civil districts of the county. This was soon followed by an act authorizing the holding of chancery courts in Chattanooga for the same districts.
The city of Chattanooga provided quarters for these courts at the Town Hall on Market Street.
No probate or other county court business was transacted in Chattanooga before 1870. For all this business, including the registration of deeds and other papers, we had to go to Harrison.
The clerks of each one of the courts kept a deputy in Chattanooga, but there was no deputy register in Chattanooga, for the reason that the register's books had to be kept at the county seat.
After the War Between the States the courts were held in Kaylor's Hall, a theater situated on Broad Street. The approach to Kaylor's Hall from Market Street was through an alley which is now the Arcade.
When the county seat was moved to Chattanooga in December, 1870, quarters for the courts and all the county offices were secured in James' Hall on the northeast corner of Market and Sixth Streets. The county afterwards bought the property
at the southwest corner of Market and Fourth Streets and fitted it up for a courthouse and jail. This continued to be the court-house until 1879.
"Once an attempt was made to burn this building, the object being to destroy the books in the register's office. The purpose of the incendiary, who had procured an option on 'Wiltse's Abstract of Titles,' was to make that work valuable by the destruction of the original books in the register's office. This abstract had been carefully made by Jason S. Wiltse and Col. J. E. MacGowan, so that titles to real estate might be investigated without having to go to the register's office at Harrison. Upon the death of Mr. Wiltse this abstract had become the property of Milo Pratt, who had given to the incendiary an option on the purchase of the books. If the register's books had been destroyed, this abstract would have been immensely valuable and this was the motive for their attempted destruction.
Some of the books were badly scorched, necessitating the rewriting of them and the re-registration of many deeds. The perpetrator of this crime was prosecuted for arson. He was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of conviction on the ground that the proof made out a case of emotional insanity for the defendant.
Upon the return of the case to the court below, the attorney-general, S. J. A. Frazier, dismissed the prosecution.
"When James County was formed in 1871, the town of Harrison became a part of the new county and the old courthouse passed by operation of law to James County. It was torn down and moved to Ooltewah, and the material was used for constructing a courthouse there. This house, after several years' use as a court of justice, was utterly destroyed by a fire of incendiary origin.
"During the War Between the States the books of the register's office in the court house in Harrison were seized by a Federal colonel and carried by him to Chattanooga. After the War, with the exception of Book I, they were restored to the register. Book I has never been found and its loss has occasioned much confusion in land titles and difficulty in abstracting them.
"The old building at the corner of Fourth and Market Streets which the county bought and fitted up was used as the fourth courthouse. It had been built before the War by Hooke and McCallie for a business block.
During the War it was appropriated by the Government as a military prison and had been previously used by the Confederates as a prison.
After the War Between the States it was Chattanooga's municipal building and jail for several years, and was so used until the county purchased it and converted it into the courthouse.