The Bicentennial Minute
Now that St. Marys was officially a platted town, the proprietors, minus John McCorkle, as he bailed out selling his interest to a John Manning and a Mr. Berry, could move forward in conjunction with a newly formed county government. They clearly intended that St. Marys would be the “seat of justice” for Mercer County as was set forth in the dedication the proprietors filed in August of 1823 along with the plat of the lots.
As noted in the previous Bicentennial Minute, in August, 1823, there was no government in Mercer County, as Mercer was attached to Darke County for regular governmental purposes. That changed when on Jan. 2, 1824. Then the Ohio General Assembly passed an act organizing the County of Mercer. The act allowed the local electors to select county officers. The immediate problem for the St. Marys proprietors was that the legislation designated Shanesville (now known as Rockford) as the place where courts would be held until “a permanent seat of justice shall be established for said county.”
The legislation also provided that the legal electors residing in the county would assemble on the first Monday of April to elect county and township officers. As authorized by the state, the commissioners organized that April. The official journal shows that they chose by lots their initial terms of office, with one commissioner serving a term of three years, one for two years and one for only a year.
The commissioners soon decided that St. Marys was the better location for a county seat as in June, 1825, pursuant to an agreement signed a year earlier, the St. Marys lot owners deeded to the Mercer County Commissioners 30 lots for the consideration of naming St. Marys the “seat of justice.” We might speculate that the commissioners saw a good deal as they could then raise money for county operations by selling town lots. Historical records are silent but perhaps the St. Marys offer was more enticing than retaining the county seat in Shanesville.
Funds were definitely short at this time as in 1824. The auditor valued each town lot at $1 and the tax levied at the rate of half a cent per lot raised $34. In December,1825, the first priority was not a courthouse but rather a county jail. At an auction for the right to build the jail, Asa Hinkle prevailed. He would construct the jail in exchange for five lots in St. Marys and $150 in cash. The Commissioners could only afford $50 down and gave a bond for the balance. Some accounts show that Hinkle constructed the jail not on the Public Square, but at the corner of Spring and Main at the site of the current Methodist Church Parking lot.
Hinkle built well. James Hough James, an Urbana attorney and later a well known figure in Ohio politics, road “the circuit” in 1827. When in St. Marys he shared a whiskey with Charley Murray before participating in the legal proceedings of the day. During his stay, he took note of the jail, describing it as “a very strong one... built entirely of wood.” Completion apparently proceeded slowly as it took a couple of years for Hinkle to complete construction. The commissioners authorized final payment in June, 1829.
In the meantime, in May,1828, the commissioners sold the right to build a courthouse for $291.49. These building projects were funded according to a plan. Earlier they had decided that the proceeds from the sale of half of the their 30 town lots would be dedicated for public buildings. The official records reveals that they raised about $1,000 for the sale of 15 lots.
The status of the Town of St. Marys by 1830 would show that a primitive form of local government was functioning. All that was need were individuals willing the challenge a wilderness.