James McCardle became proprietor of the Oak Hotel.
Can Sheriff Ashman have had hopes that the end of Millerton might be averted? If so, he was challenging manifest destiny. On March 11, 1874, appeared the following announcement of an actual improvement in the expiring village.
IMPROVEMENTS— Just think of it— a new building is being erected in Millerton: a dwelling house, too, and just now of all times, when the county seat is about to be removed. But such is the fact, nevertheless. Those two indefatigable knights of the saw, hammer and chisel — they haven't got any plane for we inquired — Joseph Lamper Smith and Henry Roemer are hard at work on a dwelling for J. Scott Ashman.
Until that historical courthouse and jail of 1867 was completed, to be abandoned with removal of the county seat after only seven years of occupancy, the housing of the officers and courts was a perennial subject of worry for the supervisors. They were scattered in as many as four different buildings at a time under one year leases, because from the time of the earliest discussion of the subject in June, 1859, the hope was ever entertained of a county-owned official home. But the finances never would permit. The tax rate with the early sparse population and scarcity of assessable property was not sufficient to perceptibly augment the created building-fund nest-egg. Besides builders were not inclined to bid for a contract with pay forthcoming in the scrip or bonds of a fledgling county, which had not yet attained a settled basis but was in the throes of development. While the community had, with the years, been educated up to an acceptance of the public necessity of a courthouse, another educational campaign was necessary to endorse a legislative appeal for a bond issue. Even after all these preliminaries were successfully overcome, the resolution to build was carried in the board by only a bare majority and over the formal protest of S. S. Hyde, one of the three members.
In those days under the '49 constitution, liberal a document as it was asserted to be, the legislature was entrusted with more regulative and supervisory powers over local government than it has today under the shot riddled constitution of 1879, which enlarged upon the home legislative body's governing powers in local matters. All these things are to be borne in mind to account for the years of wearisome delay before the county could luxuriate in its own courthouse. It may be soberly questioned even, whether in 1856, the territory with its scant population, its lack of known resources, save in the placers, the life of which no one could foretell, and with its future a serious problem, was prepared to assume every responsibility of independent county government. One local historian has epitomized the situation in the words that "Fresno had undertaken in county organization to satisfy a champagne appetite on a small beer income."
In June, 1859, in response to a call to buy a suitable county building, McCray" offered his Oak Hotel building for $8,000, and Henry Burroughs his much older wooden hotel structure and also to repair again the jail — the one with the voodoo on it, that he was paid $6,000 for. The upshot was a decision to secure plans for a courthouse building, and there the matter rested until November, 1862, when the subject was revived and a set was accepted in April, 1863. Meanwhile, in February, a site was bought from L. G. Hughes and Stephen Gaster, in the store and stable ground of Hughes, for $600, occupied by Gaster and J. B. Royal, and William Rousseau's adjoining lot, for $150.
No response forthcoming to the advertisement in the Mariposa Free Press from builders, another call for bids was inserted in June in the San Francisco Weekly Bulletin, and Weekly Sonora Union-Democrat and still no response, and with like experience a third call made in August, in the California Weekly Republican of Sacramento. One year elapsed, and then it was resolved to fence in the site.
In February, 1866, the Mariposa Free Press and Visalia Times were tried as advertising mediums and as a result Charles S. Peck of Mariposa offered plans, which later were accepted. In May proposals to build were invited and an issue of $20,000 bonds at ten percent, was authorized to meet the obligation. The bidding contractors were:
Charles P. Converse, $17,008.25; Peck & Hillenhagen, $18,500; George Chittenden. $20,000.
To Converse was awarded the contract under a $34,000 bond. His offer was raised $1,600 in August on account of authorized changes. Construction began in the winter of 1866 and ended in the summer of 1867, the brick was burned on the ground, and the granite and rock quarried nearby. On settlement Converse claimed $7,599 additional, $2,000 by reason of depreciation of county bonds and interest payments on loans by reason of non-acceptance of presented warrants because of the treasurer's defalcation. This $2,000 claim was disallowed, but in all he was allowed $5,728.25 above his contract price.
It must in all fairness be admitted that the building was most substantially constructed, the jail portion in the rear basement with its great granite slabs and heavy iron doors being second to none then in the state for fortress-like stability. Converse really took a pride in giving the county a durable and solid structure, the two dungeon walls being of granite blocks some weighing a ton or more. The building will serve, standing to this day, as a mute object lesson to present-day contractors of shoddy and ginger breaded public work. It made no pretense to architectural beauty. It was plain and simple and planned for use and not empty show. It could be made tenantable at no great expense in the refitting of the woodwork.
It is remarkable that after the years of agitation for a courthouse and a total expenditure of more than $24,336 so little in the end should have been thought of the enterprise as to overlook a celebration to mark its completion, or even in the beginning in the laying of the cornerstone. Vandals have burrowed through and under the front brick-walls for the cornerstone box of coins and relics, but in vain, for none was ever deposited. The old courthouse was the boast and pride of the Millertonian. Long after the desertion of the village, it was carried as a tangible asset on the books of the county, though it had legally passed into the possession of Charles A. Hart, who became the owner of the land by reason of a government homestead location.
The makeshift outside courtrooms had been the place for general public assemblies and traveling shows, such as in those days at great intervals lost their way into this far away neck of the woods, principally sleight of hand performers, lecturers on phrenology and stranded negro minstrels working their hazardous route homeward and during whose stay the hotel landlords kept watchful eye on stage departure days. The tribunal chamber in the Converse courthouse also became the townhall, but under the restrictions of August, 1867, forbidding traveling shows or exhibitions of legerdemain, and making exceptions as to musical concerts, vocal or instrumental, lectures on the arts and sciences and political and religious exercises. Balls and receptions were given and fraternal societies held forth there, the Odd Fellows' lodge on Monday and the Independent Order of Good Templars on Saturday evenings at the early hour of seven, besides the religious services at eleven in the morning on the fourth Sabbath of the month, conducted by Rev. J. H. Neal, who, on the other Sundays, preached in rotation at the Mississippi, Scottsburg and Dry Creek schools.
The erection of the courthouse recalls the first tragic story and mystery connected with the official annals of the county in the defalcation and disappearance of Gaster, the treasurer, well to do and a highly respected citizen — in fact there were defalcations in the treasurer-ship by successive elected incumbents. Sixteen days had elapsed on August 28, 1866, that Caster had, according to the formal official record, "without apparent cause absented himself and failed and neglected to discharge the duties of his office," wherefore it was resolved to open the office and force the safe. Investigation showed that $6,603.06 was missing, and County Judge E. C. Winchell declared the office vacant. Thomas J. Allen was later appointed to the vacancy, but failing to qualify. George Grierson was named.
In the safe were found five packages containing county scrip, notes, and a buckskin sack