Post by PeterW on Oct 7, 2009 13:34:36 GMT -5
Hi All,
I came across the following three drawings in a copy of the Illustrated London News dated February 17, 1855, and thought they might amuse our Canadian members.
They are of a courthouse in what was then the county of Simcoe and which I believe is now part of Ontario. The courthouse was a log cabin built in 1830 by a Mr McManus, a local farmer, about nine miles from Keenansville. Keenansville was twenty five miles from Lake Simcoe.
I can’t find any trace of Keenansville Ontario, only several Keenansvilles in the southern US, so presumably it was renamed. In 1855 it was described as a “flourishing village consisting of a sawmill, two log houses, a tavern and a store”.
McManus prospered, built a large brick house, and donated the log cabin to the county of Simcoe as a courthouse in which civil cases were heard every two months by a travelling barrister. McManus became Clerk to the Court.
Cases involving sums less than £25 were decided by the barrister as Judge, but those involving larger sums were decided by a jury of ‘five good men’. There was no separate room in the courthouse to which the jury could retire to consider their verdict, so they retired to a local orchard to deliberate over munching apples.
Anyway, here are the pictures:
Anyone recognise an ancestor?
PeterW
I came across the following three drawings in a copy of the Illustrated London News dated February 17, 1855, and thought they might amuse our Canadian members.
They are of a courthouse in what was then the county of Simcoe and which I believe is now part of Ontario. The courthouse was a log cabin built in 1830 by a Mr McManus, a local farmer, about nine miles from Keenansville. Keenansville was twenty five miles from Lake Simcoe.
I can’t find any trace of Keenansville Ontario, only several Keenansvilles in the southern US, so presumably it was renamed. In 1855 it was described as a “flourishing village consisting of a sawmill, two log houses, a tavern and a store”.
McManus prospered, built a large brick house, and donated the log cabin to the county of Simcoe as a courthouse in which civil cases were heard every two months by a travelling barrister. McManus became Clerk to the Court.
Cases involving sums less than £25 were decided by the barrister as Judge, but those involving larger sums were decided by a jury of ‘five good men’. There was no separate room in the courthouse to which the jury could retire to consider their verdict, so they retired to a local orchard to deliberate over munching apples.
Anyway, here are the pictures:
Anyone recognise an ancestor?
PeterW
