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Southampton County Courthouse

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1834. 1924, Clement Rochelle and Jeremiah Cobb; 1960, addition, Shriver and Holland, U.S. Business 58, Courtland
  • Southampton County Courthouse (Virginia Division of Historic Resources)

Formed in 1749, Southampton County remains largely rural, with peanuts, tobacco, cotton, and lumber its major products. The slave insurrection of 1831, led by Nat Turner, is the most significant event in the county's history. Turner was hanged in front of the Southampton courthouse on November 11, 1831. When that courthouse was constructed in 1798, the town was named Jerusalem; the name was changed to Courtland in 1888. It remains a small town. The present Southampton County Courthouse was originally an austere, two-story, brick temple-form building with a pedimented gable, simple entablature, and lunette window. In 1924 it received a tetrastyle Tuscan portico, pilasters, full entablature, and circular window, which gave the building an 1820s GrecoRoman or Jeffersonian appearance. The 1960 addition is awful. Across the street from the courthouse is the former Mahone Tavern (c. 1820), a two-story clapboard structure.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Franklin
Beechwood (Jericho; DensonPretlow-Darden House)
Sunnyside
The Elms (Paul D. Camp House)
Franklin Congregational Christian Church

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Southampton County Courthouse", [Courtland, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-ST14.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 470-470.

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