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Nineteenth
Century
- BACK TO TOP
-----The Legislative
act which set off Ocean County from the southern
half of Monmouth County on February 15, 1850, was
created after an appeal from Joel Haywood, a pioneer
Stafford Township resident. Haywood complained that
the citizens south of the Manasquan River were not
receiving their fair share of funding for roads,
bridges and welfare for its poor. Toms River was
selected as the new county seat of government over
Lakehurst by a one vote margin.
-----The new governing
body of Ocean County conducted their organizational
meeting on May 8, 1850, in the Tavern of Thomas
P. Barkalow, located on the corner of Main and Water
Streets in Toms River. Colonel Samuel C. Durham,
the local dock master, was chosen to be the first
director from among the body of twelve freeholders.
Each of the six townships selected two representatives
to the Freeholder Board. (Stafford, Dover, Jackson,
Plumsted, Union and Brick.)
 |
-----While
the new Freeholder board was conducting monthly
meetings, which began at 8 a.m. and sometimes
lasted for two or three days, consideration
was being given to determine where the new
Courthouse would be built. Interested citizens
offered several lots in the Village of Toms
River, but the one chosen was "a lot
on the center of my lands on the north side
of the road from the meeting house to the
Schenck's Mill Road", a cornfield on
what is now Washington Street. It was offered
by Joseph Coward, who was so pleased when
his site was selected that he presented the
Board with 6,000 bricks to start the construction.
----- The design
of the Greek Revival-style Courthouse reflected
the mid-nineteenth century interests in classical
architecture which was built from the architectural
plan borrowed from Hudson County. With its
tall Doric columns supporting a massive pedimented
portico, the Courthouse is an excellent example
of the temple form that was the most distinguishing
feature of the Greek Revival style. |
-----
The new Courthouse began to take form with the bricks
shipped from Haverstraw, New York, by schooners
and unloaded at Robbins Cove at the foot of Allen
Street. Teams of horses pulled the wagonloads of
brick up the hill to the new building site. The
building was finished in September 1851 so that
all the official business of the County could be
conducted in one building.
After the Courthouse construction was completed,
the Hudson County architectural plans were entrusted
to a local man to be returned to that county. He
did not get too far out of town on horseback before
he stopped of at Hyers Tavern in Jackson. The plans
have never been seen since.
----- The official
county seals were selected at their first meeting.
The County Freeholders' seal was a sloop, the County
Clerk's seal was a schooner and the Surrogate's
seal was a steamboat. These seals reflected the
commercial interest of the citizens enclosing the
words "Ocean County, N.J.".
-----The old cornfield,
where the courthouse was built in the center of
what later became a city block, is now bounded by
Horner Street, Hooper Avenue, and Washington Street.
Hooper Avenue was just a narrow dirt lane to Cedar
Grove and the Metedeconk in 1850. Thomas Hooper,
a local Toms River merchant, felt so strongly that
the town was now going to expand eastward that he
used his own money to widen the Metedeconk Road.
He was honored by having the road bear his name.
----- Washington Street,
at the time, was called "Meeting House Road".
The old Methodist Meeting House stood in the cemetery
at the crossing of the two roads. The Meeting House
Road had only extended to Dock Street; its name
was changed to Washington Street in the 1870's for
Washington Hadley who built his mansion at what
is now known as "The Mott Place" at Dock
and Washington Streets.
-----The first County
Courts were held in the old Mormon Church which
was located at the triangular point formed by Flint
Boulevard and South Main Street on the south side
of the river. Governor Daniel Haines had appointed
James Gulick as the first Judge of the Court on
Common Pleas in Ocean County. Other officials appointed
by the Governor were Joseph Parker, Sheriff, John
J. Irons, County Clerk, and David I. C. Rogers as
Surrogate. The first Supreme Court Justice to sit
in the new Courthouse was James C. Nevins.
-----The second floor
in the new Courthouse housed the Courtroom which
seated 250 persons on plain straight-backed benches.
The judge's bench of carved black walnut was on
a raised dais behind the walnut rail which separated
the bench from the spectators.
-----The 1872 extension
of the Courtroom in back of the judges bench, called
a "Grecian bend", with an overhead domed
skylight, brought a more Victorian look to the Greek
Revival style 1850 Courthouse. It is believed that
it was at that time that the use of dark wood and
elaborate ceiling carvings of birds, cupids and
ribbons were added in the French Rococo period of
the late Victorian period.
-----A costly fire
in the Grecian bend on October 26, 1829, destroyed
the judge's bench and furniture, charred the seats
and woodwork and damaged the courtroom with smoke.
The fire broke through the skylight which caused
a draft that fueled the fire, but the local firemen
were able to contain the fire to the Courtroom,
thus saving the Courthouse. This large Court Room,
located in the most impressive building in town,
has been used for many community, civic and religious
functions other than the courts. During the Civil
War, this room was the scene of Union recruiting
rallies. Company F, Fourteenth New Jersey Volunteers,
under the command of Captain Ralph B. Gowdy, was
organized in this room. Military drills were conducted
on the lawn in front of the Courthouse steps.
-----On August 17,
1862, Company "F" assembled on the Courthouse
grounds for the appropriate stirring farewell exercises
before the Company started for Camp Vredenburg in
Freehold, in a long array of carriages, sent off
amid sounds of music and peals from the Village
church bells and the booming of cannons.
-----As the village
expanded during the building boom of the 1850's
the Courthouse became surrounded by homes. The Gulicks,
Havens, Van Hise and the Van Nostrands were some
of the famous families who lived in the block. In
1853 the Methodist Church built a church on the
northeast corner of the block, at the corner of
Hooper Avenue and Washington Street. That church
stood until 1874 when the congregation built another
church across the street. All of these home sites
eventually became part of the Courthouse Complex
as the County began to expand and the need for additional
governmental facilities became necessary for it
efficient operation.
-----The Sheriff's
House, with ten attached jail cells, was built behind
the Courthouse by Robert Aiken for $4250 in 1851
in the Federal/Greek Revival style. The Sheriff's
and their families occupied this building for over
75 years. In 1921 twenty-four new jail cells were
added in a wing at the rear of the building.
-----Until 1926, family
functions and social affairs were held in the living
quarters of the Sheriff's House, which occupied
the front section of the building, while prisoners
were incarcerated in the cells attached to the back
of the house. Those first ten cells were nine feet
long, nine feet high, and five feet wide. Each cell
had a cot behind iron doors. A corridor divided
the cells with men and women fraternizing there
during the daytime hours, but locked in separate
cells at night. In the first two decades of the
jail there were rarely more than two prisoners confined
at one time with an annual average of about twelve
prisoners.
-----No prison records
were kept until 1860 when Sheriff Charles Wardell
began compiling them. His records show that crime
cost the County about $1,000 per year. The sheriff's
wife cooked the meals for the prisoners which the
sheriff carried through the connecting door of the
living quarters to the prisoners in the jail. The
County paid the sheriff fifty cents for each meal
fed to the prisoners.
The old bell, housed in the cupola on top of the
building, was used by the Sheriff to alert the Village
when there was a prisoner escape. This bell is now
in the belfry of the Cedar Grove Methodist Church
on Bay Avenue and Cedar Grove Road. |
20th
Century History - BACK
TO TOP
-----The
old wooden portion of the Warden's house and several
cells were torn down in August, 1921. The Freeholders
hired the Pauley Jail Company of St. Louis, Missouri,
at a cost of $75,000, to build twenty-eight cells
attached to the old jail, fourteen cells on each
tier. These cells had running water and a toilet.
-----The
County began to show signs of population growth
after World War I and the need for an additional
Court Room became apparent. A new Hall of Records,
to house the County Clerk in the first floor and
a Court Room and law library on the second floor,
was built in 1926 at a cost of $55,805.42. An alley
was created between the two buildings with a bridge
connecting the upper floors of the original Court
Room to the new Court Room.
-----The
County showed little population growth during the
depression years of the 1930's. World War II brought
officers to the area from the Naval Air Station
at Lakehurst and Fort Dix. After the war many returned
to live here permanently. By 1950 the County population
began to expand.
-----In
1954, when the Garden State Parkway was completed
and new housing developments began to sprawl about
in the County and new citizens began to flock to
the County from the cities, this second jail of
1921 could no longer accommodate the increasing
crime rate. In 1940 we had a County population of
36,706. The demands for additional facilities became
apparent as the County population expanded to 56,622
in 1950. In 1958 there were 98,300 citizens.
-----In
1950 the first of two additions were made
to the west wing of the original Courthouse,
called the West Wing. The County Clerk's Office
occupies this addition while the Surrogate
and Small Claims Courts occupy the 1974 second
expansion of the West Wing.
-----The
1926 Clerk's Hall of Records was torn down
to make way for the 1950 East Wing expansion.
In 1956 Hankin Hyers, Architects, designed
four new courtrooms which were added to the
1950's section of the East Wing. New Judges
were added to the Courts as the population
growth propelled the County into a new era.
-----The
Courthouse Annex was built on the east side
of Hooper Avenue, opposite the Courthouse,
in 1959 to house the Board of Election and
the new voting machines which replaced the
paper ballots. |
|
These
machines were removed in the early 1970's and stored
elsewhere. The first and second floors of the building
then became the headquarters for the Planning Board,
Road Department, and Engineering Department.
-----The
Courthouse became so crowded by the 1970's, when
the County population had grown by an additional
100,000 in the decade of the '60's and had reached
208,470, that a new facility was required to house
the Board of Freeholders and the administrative
division of the County. The Administration Building
was built in 1973 on the east side of Hooper Avenue,
opposite the East Wing of the Courthouse.
-----In
1961 an additional jail expansion added a capacity
for 110 inmates which was used in conjunction with
the 1921 wing of the old Sheriff's House. The Probation
and Sheriff's Department were also located in this
addition located behind the 1950 East Wing Addition.
This 1961 jail addition still did not meet the court
and jail needs of the County since the population
was increasing by 100,000 each decade. It had reached
346,038 by 1980.
-----In 1985 the fourth
jail to be built in the County along with seven
new courtrooms were added in a new facility called
the Justice Complex. The new jail, with 196 cells,
was built to the north of the Courthouse, incorporating
the old Sheriff's Street and former home site in
its building site.
-----The
Sheriff's Department moved its headquarters to the
Justice Complex in 1985 with the Prosecutor's Office
taking over their remodeled 1961 jail addition.
-----Courtrooms
occupy the first two floors of the facility while
the fourth floor is devoted to the Department of
Corrections and jail cells. |
21st
Century and Beyond
- BACK TO TOP
-----There
are a total of nineteen courtrooms affiliated with
the Courthouse complex. They include Courtroom No.
1 in the 1850 original building, six courtrooms
added in the 1950 and the 1965 East Wing additions,
and seven in the Justice Complex. An additional
courtroom is located at 213 Washington Street, three
at 125 Washington Street, and the Appellate Court
at 100 East Water Street complete the total of nineteen
court facilities to meet the growing needs of the
County.
-----The
continued population growth, up to about 415,000
by 1988 continues to put pressure on the freeholder
board to look for new avenues to house the increasing
departments to service the County's needs.
 |
-----The
grounds include commemorative trees, flagpole,
flowerbeds and war memorial plaques. The Cannon
on the lawn in front of the Greek Revival
section of the Courthouse was placed there
in 1908 by the Toms River Camera Club. It
is believed to have been one of the four cannons
from the Toms River Blockhouse which was spiked
into the Toms River by the British on March
24, 1782. The British had attacked and sacked
the town that day leaving the entire village
destroyed. The public drinking fountain near
the front steps of the original Court House
was donated in 1957 by the Toms River Kiwanis
Club. |
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©
2004 Ocean County Bar Association | PO Box 381 - Toms River,
New Jersey 08754 - (732) 240-3666
*** WEBSITE BEST VIEWED @ 1024x768 RESOLUTION ***
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