this epithet. This ostentatious collection, some of the members of which
appeared placed there rather for show than service, consisted of the
courthouse, the jail, the tavern, and the shop of the blacksmith--the
two last-mentioned being at all times the very first in course of
erection, and the essential nucleus in the formation of the southern and
western settlement. The courthouse and the jail, standing directly
opposite each other, carried in their faces a family outline of
sympathetic and sober gravity. There had been some effect at pretension
in their construction, both being cumbrously large, awkward, and
unwieldy; and occupying, as they did, the only portion of the village
which had been stripped of its forest covering, bore an aspect of mutual
and ludicrous wildness and vacancy. They had both been built upon a like
plan and equal scale; and the only difference existing between them, but
one that was immediately perceptible to the eye, was the superfluous
abundance of windows in the former, and their deficiency in the latter.
A moral agency had most probably prompted the architect to the
distinction here hit upon--and he felt, doubtless, in admitting free
access to the light in the house of justice, and in excluding it almost
entirely from that of punishment, that he had recognised the proprieties
of a most excellent taste and true judgment. These apertures, clumsily
wrought in the logs of which the buildings were made, added still more
to their generally uncouth appearance. There was yet, however, another
marked difference between the courthouse and jail, which we should not
omit to notice. The former had the advantage of its neighbor, in being
surmounted by a small tower or cupola, in which a bell of moderate size
hung suspended, permitted to speak only on such important occasions as
the opening of court, sabbath service, and the respective anniversaries
of the birthday of Washington and the Declaration of Independence. This
building, thus distinguished above its fellows, served also all the
purposes of a place of worship, whenever some wandering preacher found