HISTORIC AMHERST COURTHOUSE COULD BECOME MEMORY, TOO

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 9, 1993                   TAG: 9301090156
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: AMHERST                                LENGTH: Medium
HISTORIC AMHERST COURTHOUSE COULD BECOME MEMORY, TOO
The colorful history of the Amherst County courthouse may be in jeopardy because its deterioration could result in its being abandoned or torn down.
Nagging problems about the building, built around 1870 and renovated in the early 1970s, are beginning to resurface. The heating and cooling systems don't work properly, the witness rooms lack soundproofing and some restrooms need repair.
The problems have forced the Board of Supervisors to decide the fate of the courthouse: Would it be better to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars - possibly millions - on renovations and expansions, or better to start from scratch and build a brand-new courthouse?
"There's no doubt the facilities are in bad need of renovation and modernization," said Commonwealth's Attorney W. Edward Meeks III, whose grandfather was a judge in Amherst. "But if you do move the court to a new building, the sense of continuation - of history from generation to generation - gets interrupted."
Meeks said the needs for a comfortable courthouse where cases can be appropriately tried "far outweigh the historical considerations."
"But it would be a shame to lose that historical perspective," he added. "I don't think any of us want to tear out our roots, as it were, and totally lose track of our past."
Take, for instance, the wooden railing in front of the clerk's desk on the second floor. Nine notches have been carved in it. The story goes that a sheriff who served from about 1880 to 1890 would carve a notch in the railing each time a prisoner was hanged.
In those days, the gallows were attached to the back of the old county jail, which still is standing near the courthouse, said William E. Sandidge, who was clerk of the court from 1933 to 1983.
The wooden platform with a trap door is no longer there, but it once was easily visible from the window near the clerk's desk. The sheriff would watch the hangings, then score the railing.
Sandidge, 88, remembers one of the last executions in the county, in 1907 or 1908. The condemned usually were hanged within a few days or weeks of a guilty verdict.
He remembers being awakened by galloping horses and men hollering. They were riding into town to witness the public execution.
"I didn't want to go [see it]," Sandidge recalled. "Even if I had, my mother would have caught me by the nape of my neck and dragged me back in the house."
Sandidge, whose father and grandfather served as clerk of the court before him, remembers a story his father told him about a strange jury verdict in the 1890s.
The jury found a man guilty of first-degree murder and fixed his punishment as death by hanging. But the judge reminded the jurors that the evidence supported only second-degree murder.
The judge said the jury could, at most, give the man a term in the penitentiary. Asked why they hadn't complied, the jury foreman told the judge that no one on the jury could spell "penitentiary," so they wrote "death by hanging" instead, Sandidge said.
In the early days of the court, lawyers and judges often carried sidearms and sometimes waged deadly battles outside the courtroom.
"I was coming home from school one day, and as I came through the courthouse yard . . . two attorneys came out of the courthouse arguing," Sandidge recalled. "Before I knew it, one of them was behind a tree. He shot at the other attorney, who then pulled out a pistol and shot back.
"I went over the brick fence as fast as a squirrel.
"There's a lot of history that goes back to the beginning of the courthouse," Sandidge said. "I would hate to see [the building] demolished. I'd like to see it preserved . . . if they decide to build a new one."
Circuit Judge J. Michael Gamble has asked the Board of Supervisors to make a decision on the future of the courthouse by July 1.
Gamble cautioned against leaving the old courthouse standing if a new one is built. It would be expensive to maintain and might be difficult to find a use for it, he said.
The town of Amherst may want to consider using it as the Town Hall, Gamble said.
"But if it's just going to sit there and fall down, then it should be torn down," he said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB