First County Courthouse. Named for General Zebulon Pike, killed in the War of 1812, Pike County
was organized in February 1815. Commissioners were charged with
establishing a county seat and on May 12, 1815
accepted a conveyance
of 40
acres from Elisha Fitch. The new seat was named "Piketon."
In 1816, the commissioners let a contract for the construction of a
courthouse and jail. A fine two story courthouse with brick laid in
Flemish bond was finished in 1819. A fire destroyed some county
courthouse offices on October 9, 1844. The repaired courthouse was
the seat of county government until 1861 and is part of the Piketon
Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1974. Limestone headers above the windows have the names
of the county government offices.
Removal of County Seat. At the behest of Waverly businessman James Emmitt, State
Representative Shedrick Shaw petitioned the Ohio General Assembly
to move Pike County's seat from Piketon to Waverly in 1860. Obtaining
signatures for the petition had started a bitter political battle that
continued through the early 1860s. Among other inducements,
Waverly's advocates promised to build a new county courthouse in
Waverly free of charge. Enabled by state law in February 1861,
voters chose to
move county government to Waverly by a margin
of 310 votes in October. The promise to build the new courthouse
went unfulfilled, and in 1864 another bill was proposed to move
the county seat back to Piketon. The bill goaded Waverly's
advocates to action The courthouse in Waverly was built and
deeded over to the Pike County Commissioners on December 8, 1866.
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