Before I volunteered at the visitor center today, I stopped by the Hamilton County Courthouse for its 100th birthday celebration. This very day, October 18, 1919, this institution came into being. This is the sixth installation of the courthouse and the fourth one on Main St since 1819. The three buildings before this suffered through fires and riots.
Among the speakers at the celebration were Gov Mike Dewine, Warren G Harding III, and Judge Melba Marsh, the first African American female judge of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. A luncheon and presentation of "Spirit of the Courthouse " Awards followed. Among the honorees was retired Judge Jack Sherman, Jr., who was a graduate of the Salmon P Chase College of Law and went on to serve as a magistrate on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Rewind to 1842. Salmon P Chase got his legal start here. One of the cases he tried here was Jones vs. Van Zandt case. Former Kentucky slave holder John Van Zandt was accused and convicted of transporting fugitive African American slaves from Walnut Hills to Glendale, OH, but he died in 1847 before the case was even tried.
Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge William Mallory was also the first African American judge of the Hamilton County First District Court of Appeals.
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