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bodies, they unhesitatingly appoint- ed a committee to study the situa- tion and return with its recommen- dations.Years would go by.
By the 1840s Lynchburg had become a wealthy commercial cen- ter, marketing and manufacturing a variety of native commodities, dark fired tobacco the most lucrative by far. Boasting a population of 6,395 in 1840, Lynchburg had matured into a major Virginia city, although legally it was still only a town incorporated in Campbell County, with Rustburg as the county seat. As a town, Lynchburg needed only a modest courthouse to tend the legal business not accommodated in Rustburg. But that subordinate condition was being addressed by Lynchburg’s citizens and, in 1852, the Virginia General Assembly would incorporate Lynchburg
as an independent city, acknowledging the decades of expansion and development Lynchburg’s citizens had pur-
sued with so much industry.
Now there was a true need
for larger legal chambers and
the mood of the city advocated something “ornamental” for the new project.
Lynchburg’s legal history is typi- cal of communities throughout the commonwealth. Based on English common law and organization, county courts were authorized
in the colony by the House of Burgesses and appointed by the British royal governor.After inde- pendence, the form of these courts changed very little. Justices were elected to sit at the local Hustings Courts and judges were appointed by the governor of Virginia to the Superior Court of Chancery or District Court, which were superior to the Hustings Court and heard their appeals. During the American Revolution there were certain courts of expediency derived
from the Committees of Safety.
Colonel Charles Lynch’s court in Campbell County was one of the most famous with its “Lynch Law,” but the other Virginia courts gener- ally repeated their English ancestral form.
When the Virginia General Assembly gave John Lynch a char- ter for his town in 1786, it was administered by the courts of Campbell County held at Rustburg. There was no provision for a courthouse during Lynchburg’s formative years.That need arose when the General Assembly raised Lynchburg’s status by incorporating it as a town in January 1805.
the town limits and for a half mile around.The Hustings Court was composed of these six justices of the peace, any four of whom could hold court. Following an election in April 1805, the first Hustings Court was held on the first Monday of
the month, May 6, 1805, in Mason’s Hall, built in the 1790s on the north corner of Church and Ninth streets.
Shortly thereafter John and Mary Lynch donated the land needed for a “courthouse, prisons and other public buildings” at the top of the hill overlooking the site of Lynch’s ferry crossing on the James.The town completed a jail almost imme- diately but delayed the start of construction for a courthouse until
1812 because the Mason’s Hall seemed adequate for the court’s
needs and the town would have had difficulty in financ-
ing both buildings at once. Lynchburg’s first court-
house was completed in
1813, and is described as a modest brick building with
a shingle roof, 32 feet x 24 feet, and two stories tall, fac-
ing along Court Street and indistinguishable from the several residences also located on the hill.
The courtrooms were arranged one above the other with the Hustings Court located on the ground floor. There were alterations made to
the structure over the years, one conjectural drawing illustrates a proboscis-like addition on the sec- ond story which juts out over the entrance facing the street. The local press recorded complaints about the condition of the building with- in ten years of its completion and the discontent swelled with the advance of years and Lynchburg’s fortunes.
In 1849 Lynchburg’s citizens, no longer able to tolerate “the eye sore” on the hill, voted to build a new courthouse and the Common
An original 1855 gargoyle preserved in the museum collection. Replicas carved in 1976 by Lynchburg artist Michael Creed adorn the building today.
At that time Virginia law required incorporated towns to form a gov- erning body of twelve qualified citizens elected by the “freeholders and house keepers” of the com- munity.This “Common Hall” then elected from among themselves: the Mayor, the Recorder, and four Aldermen, while the remaining six served as Common Councilmen. The Articles of Incorporation
also required that the Mayor, the Recorder and four Aldermen serve as justices of the peace within
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