A YEAR after the 1795 formation of Schoharie County, a movement started to erect a courthouse. In 1798, the state legislature authorized the county to borrow $2,000. By 1801 the new structure was apparently built but still incomplete and the county was authorized to borrow again.

The new stone structure housed the courthouse and jail. “It was of unostentatious design, but dignity was added by a belfry, centrally placed,” wrote an anonymous author in the Historical Society’s January, 1943, Quarterly Bulletin.

On a Saturday in 1845, the courthouse burned down. An unidentified newspaper article dated July 2, 1845 and reprinted in the SCHOHARIE COUNTY HISTORICAL REVIEW on May, 1956, gave this account:

The Court House and Jail of this County was totally destroyed by fire, which broke out about half past eleven on Saturday evening last. It was set on fire by a prisoner who was confined in one of the prison rooms of the building, on a charge of stealing a wagon and harness...

The prisoner attempted to affect his escape by burning a hole through the door. Not having at hand any means of controlling the fire which he started, he became alarmed for his personal safety and commenced pounding on the floor. He was heard by Sheriff Brown whose residence is in the lower part of the building.

Sheriff John L. Brown freed and then secured the prisoner. Residents were able to save most of the sheriff’s household goods but the courthouse was destroyed.

The following year, a building “of more pretentious appearance” was erected, as the nineteenth century historian, William E. Roscoe, put it.

“It was built of stone and consisted of the Court, Supervisors’ and Sheriff’s rooms and office. The jail which is still standing, was built in the rear, and though a small structure it is sufficient for the purpose for which it is intended, and is frequently destitute of occupants.” That second courthouse lasted until 1870 when, on January 17, fire took the barn at the Eagle Hotel, behind the present Parrott House.

“The flames reached the Court House, and soon laid the wood work in ashes” says Roscoe. It “seriously damaged the court house,” the news article says. “As a result the building was condemned.”

1870: Cobleskill Seeks to Become County Seat

Roscoe says the residents of Cobleskill petitioned to build the new courthouse there “and as an inducement offered to give the location and at last, to bear the expense of building without cost to the county. Schoharie, awakened, made a like offer to retain the county seat, to which the Board acquiesced.”

The 1870 building is 54 by 57 feet and three stories high. Hamilton Child says in his 1872-73 Gazetteer and Business Directory that it cost about $20,000. A small addition was built on the rear in 1965.

The present renovation and expansion started in 1998 with exterior repairs. Then, the interior was renovated and the addition built. Completion had been expected in 2000. The cost, originally estimated at about $3.4 million, turned out to be about $8.2 million by the time the work was done and the courts moved back, in March 2002.

1913: Cobleskill Bids Again

During the Fall of 1913, the state Education Department directed the county to provide a secure place for the preservation of public records. The county was required to provide and maintain fireproof rooms, vaults, safes and other fire resisting receptacles for public records, which were to be kept in the building in which they were ordinarily used.

Citizens of Schoharie formed a committee and obtained an option on two parcels near the court house, where the present Health Department building now stands, and on Dec. 10, 1913 the Board of Supervisors voted to buy the lots.

The following morning, however, the board agreed to publish in its Proceedings a Dec. 8 letter from Cobleskill residents who sought to move the county seat from Schoharie.

“It is well understood and generally conceded, that the location of the county buildings at Schoharie does not accommodate and convenience a large majority of the people of the county,” the Cobleskillians wrote. “Cobleskill is more generally located as to population, and more easily accessible.”

They asked that no repairs, enlargements or construction of new buildings be made until a petition to change of the county seat from Schoharie to Cobleskill could be submitted.

“If you will take into consideration the removal of the county seat and county buildings from Schoharie to Cobleskill, a suitable site for these necessary buildings will be donated to the county, and in addition the sum of not less than fifteen thousand dollars in cash, to be used toward the construction of new county buildings,” the Cobleskillians wrote.

Supervisors proceeded with plans to build on the Schoharie lots and Demers, Mosley and Campaign of Troy were engaged as architects.

On March 10, 1914, Cobleskillians protested again, claiming procedural errors had been made. The protest was read and printed in the minutes. The next day Supervisors defended their choice by describing what the new building would offer and voted 9-7 to invite bids for construction of new county offices in Schoharie.

In April, $30,000 in bonds were issued and the Nial Brothers Construction Co. of Troy was selected as the general contractor. By Dec. 1, the building for the Surrogates Court, county clerk and other offices had been completed.

With the coming of the automobile, county clerk’s work increased and an addition was built on the rear for the motor vehicle bureau.

Surrogate’s Court moved back to the courthouse when an addition was built there but otherwise, the 1914 building served as intended until November of 1987 when the county clerk moved to a new county office building.

1967: Highway Garage

As early as 1958, county officials recognized the need to better house highway department equipment and offices, recalled county Highway Superintendent Samuel A. Scranton in his 1967 annual report. Supervisors had waited that long to act. That January, the board agreed to buy land for a new building, for $9,500. Architect William E. Cooper of Amsterdam was engaged for a project that was estimated to cost $260,000. By the end of the year the project was under contract and footings were being poured. The building was finished by September of 1968.

1985: County Office Building

By 1971, county officials were renting space for their growing county offices, and looking for a permanent solution. Purchase of several buildings including the old almshouse¹ was considered, and preliminary plans were drawn for a building to be built at the corner of Main and Spring streets. But paying for a large new building was a problem.

In 1983, supervisors enacted a local sales tax to help pay for a new office building. In February, 1984, they hired architect James Jordan of Richfield Springs and construction began in 1985. In November of 1987, county workers started moving in. Cost of the three-story building was about $4.5 million.

The Health Department had been operating in a wood-framed building at the southeast corner of Main and Spring Streets since the 1940s. A 1969 study of the efficiency of county government, conducted by a New Jersey consulting firm, had said, “in addition to this [Health Department] space being poorly lighted, badly arranged, poorly heated in winter and cooled in summer, the building itself is a fire trap.”

Health officials had been pressing for improved facilities and upon completion of the new office building, the county renovated its 1914 building. In December 1989, the Health Department moved in.

1991: Public Safety Facility

In February of 1988, the State Commission of Correction started pressing the county to improve its 1938 jail. On Aug. 17, the Schoharie Fire Department inspected and reported that a relatively minor fire at the jail could result in a large loss of life. The commission barred the boarding of inmates from other counties and commenced closure proceedings. On Nov. 15, it ordered the jail closed and emptied by Dec. 22, but said the immediate construction of a fire escape would stay the closure. The fire escape was built.

The county selected a site on Depot Lane in 1989 and in July 1991 broke ground on an 81-bed jail and attached office building. The size was quite controversial. The plan was to board 50 or more inmates from other counties and use the boarding fees to help pay for the jail but quite a few people were skeptical that statewide jail overcrowding would continue.

In September of 1992 the $8.5 million facility was opened. It includes offices for the sheriff and staff, a dispatch center, the Probation Department and emergency management and fire coordinator’s offices.

For Further Information

Early courthouses are described in Jeptha R. Simms’s 1845 History of Schoharie County and Border Wars; Hamilton Child’s 1872-73 Gazetteer and Business Directory; William E. Roscoe’s 1882 History of Schoharie County; the Society’s Quarterly Bulletin of January, 1943 and the REVIEW of May 1956, which quotes an unidentified news report of July 2, 1845.

The late Donald Keyser researched the 1914 building and wrote a detailed article in the Spring 1985 REVIEW. Its renovation for use by the Health Department was reported extensively by your editor when writing for the Schenectady Gazette in 1988 and 1989. The 1969 report of consultants Hanawalt Associates of Westfield, N.J. is quoted in a Gazette article published on July 4, 1988.

The highway garage project is discussed in the 1967 and 1968 annual reports of the highway superintendent and in Board of Supervisors minutes, all published in the Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors for those years.

Planning and construction of the county office building and public safety facility was observed by your editor in the 1980s and 1990s while reporting for the Gazette and were the subject of numerous published articles, condensed herein.

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1. Now the Mountain View Manor Adult Home on Route 145, Middleburgh.

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