The Temple of Justice

Photo by Steven McQuillin

Mansfield, Ohio

A piece of Richland County History lingered in a farm field for over 50 years, camouflaged by the undergrowth like a Mayan ruin, until preservation consultant Steven McQuillin tracked it down.

When the courthouse came down in 1969, the cupola that topped the clock tower and held up the statue of Lady Justice was luckier than the rest of the demolition debris. When it showed up at the disposal site on his top-soil farm, Lester Hampton had it set aside in a fencerow while other debris was being dumped as landfill to build embankments on his 11-acre fishing pond.

Fellow sheriff’s deputy Clayton Long, who owned the farm after Hampton’s death in 1975, contemplated doing something with the cupola over the years but was told it was unrestorable. After Long’s death in 2009, the piece of farmland with the fishing ponds became the property of Sandy Helsel who now, at McQuillin’s urging, has donated the cupola to the Historical Society in Clayton’s memory. The challenges of getting the 10-foot tall, 7-foot diameter tin relic out of the weeds are being met one by one to relocate it in the Historical Society’s warehouse and workshop on Surrey Road near Oak Hill Cottage.

The Courthouse in the 1960s. Ohio Genealogical Society Collection

The Courthouse

The cornerstone for the H. E. Myer designed Richland County Courthouse was laid in 1870, as McQuillin will tell you. The building was completed and dedicated in 1873. Some 30 years later substantial changes to the courthouse architecture were inflicted upon it with a new roof of an oddly different design.

The loss of the tower, clock, cupola, and statue of Lady Justice during the 1903 remodeling was corrected in 1908. A massive domed clock tower was added, topped by the new cupola made in the shop of tin-smiths C. E. Martin & Bro. The original Seth-Thomas clock mechanism was installed and if you believe a 1954 news article, the new Lady Justice was concocted by altering a Lady Liberty statue with a locally made sword, scales, and blindfold in place of her torch, crown, and tablet.

Over the next 50 years or so after the 1908 installation the cupola suffered from corrosion in the acid rain of those days. Several News Journal articles of the mid-1950s describe makeshift repairs to keep Lady Justice securely on her perch. Nevertheless, on April 1^st, 1966, the 12-foot-tall statue broke free of the cupola in a storm, landing on the east courthouse roof where she lay until more than two years later when the courthouse was demolished. Her sword was saved and now hangs on a wall in the present day courthouse.*

The Cupola

The cupola is octagonal, consisting of pillars, arches, and pinnacles making up its lower part about 6 feet tall, topped by an octagonal roof of another 4 ½ feet in height. Over the years on the farm, someone has exercised their second amendment rights innumerable times on the relic, giving it the appearance of a war casualty. Many sheet-metal patches and internal framework repairs attest to the extent of rusting away that it suffered atop the clock tower.

The Dream

Steven McQuillin is an admirer of the Victorian era courthouses and public buildings of architects like Myer and frequently visits them around the country in his travels. He can probably name the architect of every surviving 19^th Century courthouse in Ohio. His hope has been to pay homage to our 1870s example by building a replica or derivative style building in Mansfield, and his discovery of the actual cupola that once topped it has reinvigorated his dream. He concedes the remains of the cupola will never see service again, but it’s a model for accurate replication and an artifact that testifies to historic preservation and the architecture he loves.

Now the questions arise: Where is the bell from the clock tower? Where is the clock? Are the remains of Lady Justice buried in a pond embankment or standing in someone’s living room? Future Indiana Jones characters like McQuillin still have a shot at more discoveries.

The c.1908 courthouse cupola will be on display during the Ohio Open Doors celebration on September 17^th, 2022, from 10am to 2pm at the Richland County Historical Society warehouse and workshop, 64 Surrey Road near Oak Hill Cottage.

*Corrected 8/18 (it is the sword from the 1870s that is in the Mansfield Memorial Museum)