Jefferson County Courthouse at 150: A View From The Clock Tower

BROOKVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – The Jefferson County Courthouse has one feature that is both incredibly obvious yet somewhat mysterious.

The clock tower, rising above Main Street Brookville, is a clear piece of the landmark. Drawings and images of the courthouse, some dated 1878, show the tower overlooking the building through its many revisions over the years. However, seeing inside the tower is an honor that many residents have yet to enjoy.

The clock tower, photographed from Main Street. The scaffolding for the paint touch-ups is visible.

Jefferson County Commissioner John “Jack” Matson has acted as a tour guide for the courthouse on several occasions. The bell tower, without a guide, is somewhere people visiting the courthouse do not get to see. Matson has guided people there, however. He leads them up a narrow staircase to the balcony over the courtroom. There, in that balcony, is another, narrower door and and even narrower staircase. To get to the ladder that leads up to the top of the tower, a visitor has to crawl under support beams and step over gaps in the structure as old as the building itself.

Once there, however, it is clear that Jefferson County residents have wanted to ensure future generations see that they made the climb. The walls interior to the tower are decorated with names and dates.

“People write their names on the walls,” Matson said. “We have chalk there, in case someone wants to mark that they came up here.”

Matson pointed out that the oldest signature he found has “1885” written under it. While others may be older, in Matson’s searches, that year is the earliest he has found.

“It’s pretty amazing that people from this area have been putting their names on these walls for almost the whole 150 years it’s been here,” Matson said.

The names fill almost every section of wall both around the bell house and on the bell house itself. Later names have been written in chalk, but there are different media present as people who visited the courthouse, presumably under positive circumstances, marked their passage. Matson has his signature on the wall, as do other Brookville leaders.

The clock’s gears are encased in a house that is, in turn, encased in the tower. The extra protection keeps nature from damaging the assembly. The age of the tower, Matson said, means that very few people can maintain the equipment there.

The ladder to the top of the tower is nestled in a corner overlooking the face of the clock. In anticipation of the 150th anniversary, the tower is currently being painted and repaired.

“A long time ago, we ignored maintenance on the building,” Matson said. “It cost us a lot of money to correct that. Now, we’re trying to keep up with it.”

The balcony over the courtroom, for instance, needs a little plaster work. When workers came to work on the tower many years ago, the original builders had a sort of skirt around it. No one knew why. It turned out, Matson said, that the skirt kept water from coming down the tower and into the courthouse. Without that structure, some of the ceiling in the balcony has crumbled. But that is something that can be corrected, and the cosmetic work being down on the tower, while making it difficult to get a great view of the town at the moment, will make sure the clock tower stays in perfect operation.

Crawling up into the tower is not something Matson likes to do. When there, the wind whips hard and fast. The sound of Brookville seems distant, muted somewhat by the wind. During the construction work, a painter on a scaffold is more than helpful when someone wishes to see downtown. He helps navigate the scaffolding, telling where to put a foot or where to grab on for a handhold. He said that he usually paints big water towers, so painting this tower is not all that unnerving. However, looking down, anyone else might soon discover a new fear of heights, made worse by the tight space of the tower with the scaffolding closing in.

Matson talked to courthouse employees while giving a personal tour. Some employees said that they had not been up in the tower even though they have worked in the courthouse for years. Even though the tower is there, rising above Brookville, and has seen 150 years of Brookville history pass beneath it, the idea that there is a life inside that tower seems foreign to those whose names are not on the walls.

Matson sees the tower as another element of the courthouse that is too important to lose. Instead of a nondescript flat building outside of town like other courthouses – like some residents had proposed when the courthouse needed those expensive renovations – Brookville has preserved a piece of history.

“I think it’s the most beautiful building in the county,” Matson said. “People come from all over to see it.”

A view of Brookville from the Courthouse bell tower.

This is the latest article in a multi-part series celebrating the Jefferson County Courthouse’s 150th anniversary. Check back later for additional articles.


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