An Early Pacific County Seal

It’s been nearly a month now since Barbara Hale, a visitor from Mill Creek, Washington, came calling to talk about the chair that had once been in the first Pacific County Courthouse. Or at least that was the family story, told to her by her grandfather more than half a century ago. The question was which first courthouse?

Pacific County was formed in 1851 while this area north of the Columbia River was still a part of Oregon Territory. The commissioners met at J. D. Holman’s hotel, the Holman House, – probably in the dining room – at Pacific City which was located at Cape Disappointment.

By 1853, the commissioners were meeting in Chinookville (located near the newly established Station Camp and not to be confused with current-day Chinook). County business was conducted there in a zinc cabin belonging to Bill McCarty. When not in use as a meeting place, courtroom, jail or for other county business, McCarty stored his fishing gear there.

Oysterville Courthouse

In early 1854 the commissioners held several meetings at J.D. Holman’s Schoolhouse, built for his children on Baker’s Bay in what is now Ilwaco. A county election resulted in the county seat being moved to Oysterville in 1855 where the commissioners met in hotel, store, or hall spaces often leased from R.H. Espy or Andrew Wirt.

A more permanent county meeting place was established in 1857 when the county began renting Munson’s store (now “The Red Cottage”) in Oysterville. In 1868 they finally purchased the building for $200 and, at least in Oysterville, that little building is known as Pacific County’s first courthouse. In 1875, the Oysterville Courthouse was built on School Street. It was a substantial building with two rooms on the lower floor for the county officials and a courtroom on the upper floor. An Annex was added later.

Inside the Oysterville Courthouse c. 1890

Probably because the county seat was at Oysterville for a considerable period of time, and also because the first building actually constructed with public funds for use as a courthouse was here as well, most people think of it as the first county seat. But of course, it isn’t. To add to the confusion, the terms ‘county seat’ and ‘courthouse’ are sometimes used interchangeably.

Barbara Hale had always assumed that her chair had come from Oysterville. But her Mechals Family roots were in Chinook and Chinookville and, since those 1853 commissioners’ meetings were held at McCarty’s place, the mystery is compounded.  Is that the “county seat” Barbara’s grandfather was referring to?

Mystery Chair

Yesterday I finally got to Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum to take a look at the “courthouse chair.” It is what I would call a “side chair” for use in a bedroom or, perhaps, in a small parlor. It certainly is not the institutional, heavy duty sort of chair that might have been called for in the commissioners’ minutes of November 2, 1874:

            Ordered: That the Auditor be required to draw an order on the Treasurer in favor of W.H. Lupton for $100 to be applied for building chimney and furniture for Court House from current expense fund.

For the time being, the accession record at the museum refers to the chair as “from Chinook or Chinookville” and doesn’t mention the possible courthouse connection. They are hopeful that more definitive information will be forthcoming.  Barbara and I are, too.