Lexington First County Seat

Location: SR 356/Main Street, south edge of school, Lexington. (Scott County, Indiana)

Installed: 2002 Indiana Historical Bureau, Preservation Alliance, Inc., and Scott County Community Foundation

ID# : 72.2002.3

Text

Side one:

Scott County formed by Indiana General Assembly 1820; Lexington selected county seat. Attempts made 1823, 1839, 1840 to relocate county seat to more central location. Petition to County Commissioners 1870 was successful; town of Scottsburg platted 1871 as new county seat; actual move occurred 1874.

Side two:

Lexington laid out 1810; plat recorded 1813; town incorporated 1816. First Scott County courthouse built here 1821 by Daniel P. Faulkner. Specifications called for brick construction and a hipped roof with poplar shingles and a twenty-foot cupola. Structure served as school 1874-1889, then was demolished.

Keywords

Government Institutions, Historic District, Neighborhoods, and Towns

Annotated Text

Scott County formed by Indiana General Assembly 1820; Lexington selected county seat.(1) Attempts made 1823, 1839, 1840 to relocate county seat to more central location.(2) Petition to County Commissioners 1870 was successful;(3) town of Scottsburg platted 1871 as new county seat; actual move occurred 1874.(4)

Lexington laid out 1810;(5) plat recorded 1813;(6) town incorporated 1816.(7) First Scott County courthouse built here 1821 by Daniel P. Faulkner.(8) Specifications called for brick construction and a hipped roof with poplar shingles and a twenty-foot cupola.(9) Structure served as school 1874-1889, then was demolished.(10)

Notes:

(1) George Pence and Nellie C. Armstrong, Indiana Boundaries (Indianapolis, 1933), 730.

(2) Pence and Armstrong, 738.

(3) Scott County Commissioners Minutes, Scott County Auditor's Office, March 8, 10, 1871.

(4) "County Seat Wars, " Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1914), p. 17-18; Pence and Armstrong, 738; Scott County Commissioners Minutes, March 6, 1873.

(5)Logan Esarey, A History of Indiana from Its Exploration to 1850, (Indianapolis, 1998), p. 206.

(6) "Original Plat of Lexington 6-1-1813, " Deed Book A, June 1, 1813 and Mary Wilson and Nancy Asher, Lexington (n.p, n.d.), transcript of plat, 3.

(7) Donald F. Carmony, Indiana, 1816-1850: The Pioneer Era (Indianapolis, 1998), 11 and footnote 28, p. 635-36; The Laws of Indiana Territory, 1808-1916 (Indianapolis, 1934), 1815, p. 621-25. NOTE: The territorial law, passed in 1815, was effective January 1, 1816.

(8) Scott County Commissioners Minutes, April 20, 1821

(9) Scott County Commissioners Minutes, March 10, 1821

(10) Lexington Historical Society, Inc. members, Lexington, A Pioneer Town (Lexington, Indiana, 1988), 8; Wilson and Asher, Lexington, 17.