Lumber for the Lake County Courthouse, 1849

I have begun indexing the daybook of the "Hobart Mills," which begins in 1846.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

On February 9, 1849, we find this entry for "lumber delivered and hauled to Crown Point for the Court House."



This frame court house was being built to replace the old log structure that had served as a courthouse since 1840, when Crown Point became the county seat.

The builder of the new courthouse was Jeremy Hixon, who appears on the February 9 entry as the recipient of the lumber. The courthouse's architect was George Earle himself.[1]

I have found only one image of this frame courthouse …


(Click on image to enlarge)

… which comes from Courthousehistory.com, where you can also find an image of the old log courthouse, as well as early images of the 1878 brick courthouse that we all know and love.

The "J. Premer" who hauled the lumber to Crown Point was probably John Premer — I have seen that name often throughout the 1840s (and as early as 1837) in the ledgers I have indexed. I shall write a little about him and his family in another post.

_______________
[1] T.H. Ball, Lake County, Indiana, From 1834 to 1872 (Chicago: J.W. Goodspeed, 1873), p. 163, https://books.google.com/books?id=TjvWAAAAMAAJ.