Licking County Records & Archives Blog

  Record of the Month! For the month of June, we are featuring a variety of entries from the Historic Jail Registers. Licking County’s Historic Jail is a well-known structure throughout the county, and is considered one of the county’s most architecturally significant buildings. Constructed in 1889, the historic jail was the fourth detention facility constructed in the county. Initially the jail could accommodate sixty-eight inmates across four cell blocks. Designed by Ohio architect Joseph Warren Yost in the Richardsonian Romanesque Revival style, the jail’s overall appearance is that of a castle fortress. Yost also included several intricate details, such as carvings of cat-like creatures into the windowsills and a frog water spout.   The iconic structure served as the county’s primary detention facility until 1987. The jail registers track who was arrested and booked into jail, regardless of whether or not charges were formally filed through the court. The information...

  Record of the Month! For the month of May, we are featuring a wide assortment of records from 1812-1929 that showcases the variety of hands they were written in. The ability to express oneself in writing has been a long-developing skill in our species for thousands of years. The earliest known written records can be traced back approximately to the end of 4 th Millennium BCE to the city of Uruk, written in Sumerian pictographic representations and cuneiform script. As languages have developed, evolved, and gone extinct across the world, so too have the writing systems that express them. Throughout the 18 th and 19 th Centuries students were taught penmanship (writing) by copying different writing styles known as “hands” in a copybook, which contained the alphabet and several phrases. Due to the cost of quills, paper, and ink, penmanship was reserved for the wealthy upper classes (usually white males) and those whose professions required it (clerks, merchants, businessmen,...

  Record of the Month! April is a busy month, with well over fifty nationally recognized movements, industries, heritages, and histories observed on a daily and weekly basis, as well as all month long. Additionally, April is filled with the anniversaries of several positive and negative historical events, including the first presidential assassination in American history, as well as the beginning and end of the American Civil War. While little mention of these events is made in the Commissioners’ Journals, there are a couple of entries that allude to the fiery trial facing the United States at the time.    The American Civil War started in the early hours of April 12, 1861 when traitors attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The Fort’s commander, Union Major Robert Anderson agreed to surrender on April 13, 1861 and evacuated the following day. Despite the nearly 34 hour bombardment, no casualties are recorded for either side. Fort Sumter is often n...

  Record of the Month! For the month of March, we are featuring our new house history research guide: Introduction to Historical House Research . The guide can be found under the Research Tools page of the Licking County Records & Archives webpage  or a paper copy can be accessed in the Records & Archives Center Reference Room. Introduction to Historical House Research It is natural to wonder about the history of your home and property regardless of how long you have lived there. Researching when the house was built, how the structures evolved over time, and who previously lived there can be not only interesting, but helpful for the long term maintenance of your home. However, researching the history of your home can be difficult due to the complex legal situations that can surround real estate, and because there isn’t a clear linear research path to follow. This guide systematically walks through a few of the most common misconceptions related to house research ...

Record of the Month! In honor of Black History Month, we are featuring the medical certificate of Dr. Andrew Samuel Burton, who became the first African American doctor in Licking County in 1932. Andrew Samuel Burton was born November 20, 1893 in Brownstown, Jamaica to Samuel and Sarah Burton. At the time Jamaica was part of the British West Indies, making Andrew, his parents, and four younger siblings subjects of the British Crown. In 1911, Samuel and Sarah decided to move their family to the United States, eventually settling in Brooklyn, New York. When the United States entered the First World War on April 6, 1917, the war had been raging across Europe for two years claiming the lives of millions. The combatants, the Triple Entente and the Central Powers, each had a well-functioning recruitment and mobilization program by this stage in the war in an effort to outpace the other. However, the United States, which was unprepared for war had to begin rapid recruitment, training, and...

  Record of the Month! As the holiday season draws to a close and we begin to focus on New Year’s resolutions, we at the Licking County Records and Archives Center would like to focus on a different type of resolution. For the month of January we are featuring a page from the second volume of Commissioners’ Journals.   The Board of County Commissioners held their final meeting for 1875 on December 31 st . It had been a difficult year due to the burning of the Licking County Courthouse in April. While the Licking County government established temporary offices and began recovery efforts within a few days of the fire, it took over seven months to clear the ruins and begin making plans to build a new Courthouse. During the final meeting in 1875, the Commissioners made a $100 allowance (approximately $2,365.72 today) to Mr. Alexander Koehler for two sets of drawings showing elevations for the new Courthouse. Additionally, the Commissioners authorized H. E. Meyer (Henry Edwar...

A Festive Feature! For the month of December we are featuring a variety of records related to the history of the Licking County Courthouse Holiday Lighting. While Licking County residents young and old enjoy the ornate multicolor lights of the courthouse today, the origins of this dazzling tradition were very humble. In 1929 cities and towns across the United States put up special light displays as part of  Light’s Golden Jubilee,  a national tribute to Ohioan Thomas Edison and the 50 th  anniversary of his electric light bulb. The Licking County Courthouse tower was crowned with simple white stringer bulbs and the roof edges were vertically lined. The lights were maintained for several years after the jubilee, but when the United States was pulling into the Second World War the lights were removed and the tower remained dark. The lights would return during the 1948 holiday season through the tireless efforts of Allan Milliken, who had taken over as executive of the Newar...