Smithfield Times Publisher Jesse Scott wrote a front-page editorial for the Feb. 24, 1938, paper praising the federal government’s plan to construct a new post office in Smithfield. The building would be right smack dab in the middle of Main Street, placing it conveniently in the midst of the town’s commercial district.

In backing the plan, he endorsed the demolition of the colonial courthouse, located in the 100 block of Main Street. The old brick building, having been repurposed a century earlier as a residence, had been purchased by the government, and plans to demolish it were in place.

But Scott went further than just advocating the courthouse destruction. He suggested that the old must give way to the new on a much wider basis:

“Old and dilapidated structures throughout the county are gradually becoming extinct … The building drive has been launched and will probably cleanse the entire country of old structures in years to come.”

Within a few days, Mr. Scott must have wondered what had hit him. The matriarchs of Smithfield, under the leadership of Mrs. F.B. Simpson, had organized a branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and were determined to preserve the courthouse.

The next issue of the Times carried a letter by one of those ladies, Eliza Timberlake Davis. Her epistle, dripping with Southern politeness, much in the vein of “bless his heart,” proceeded to take poor Mr. Scott to the woodshed.

“Believing that your editorial in the Smithfield Times of date February 24 was written amid the bustle and hurry of getting out your worthy and interesting weekly paper, and not done with the thoughtful consideration that the subject merited, I am assuring you that it does not express the sentiments of the majority of the citizens of Smithfield,” Mrs. Davis wrote as she opened her broadside.

“Mr. Editor, has our town grown so small that we cannot have both the old and the new?” she asked.

The courthouse, she proffered, was the most historic building in Isle of Wight County, having been in service during the American Revolution. The APVA had proposed purchasing and restoring it if the town would, in exchange, provide another site for the post office — and the ladies already had a site in mind. Would the town not be wise to accept that offer?

“Our answer to all these questions will lie in the sort of heritage that we leave behind when we have served our day and generation. Shall we deprive those who come after us of what should rightfully be theirs?” Mrs. Davis opined.

The same week that Scott’s editorial was published, the ladies held a mass meeting aimed at preserving the courthouse. According to the paper, 100 people attended — an amazing turnout since, at the time, the town population couldn’t have been much more than a thousand people.

The APVA followed through on its promise, and local advocates of preserving the building pressed the town to agree to purchase an alternate lot for the post office. Townspeople raised money to underwrite much of the purchase.

Soon after that, the Town Council agreed and appropriated $1,500 to complete the purchase of the lot where the post office was built and still stands.

A year later, in March 1939, Mr. Scott wrote another editorial, this time praising the APVA’s efforts to preserve the old structure.

“The past is behind us, the present with us, and the future ahead of us. Yet the present owes much to the past, and the future depends much upon the present. We will do well to help preserve the past for the future,” he wrote.

Once the U.S. Postal Service had agreed to build on the corner of Main and Institute streets, the APVA and its local members set about preserving the old courthouse. It would take another two decades, during which the country was immersed in World War II, but by 1960 its restoration was complete.

The ladies of Smithfield had won over the federal government, the Town Council and the local newspaper. Thanks to their persistence, the Colonial Courthouse today stands as Mrs. Davis declared it: arguably the most historic building in our county. 

 

John Edwards is publisher emeritus of The Smithfield Times. His email address is j.branchedwards@gmail.com.