Michigan's County Courthouses

Cass County

31 CassoPolIs—though the historic courthouse of Cass County now stands empty, a rich and venerable history fills the land that surrounds it: from a dramatic confrontation against raiding Kentucky slaveholders in 1847 to the discovery of the only diamond ever found in michigan’s rough. the michigan territory first set off Cass County and named it for Governor lewis Cass. the governor had a long tenure serving michigan followed by several years of federal service as secretary of state and u.s. senator. he won the Democratic nomination for president in 1848. County commissioners first selected Geneva on Diamond lake as the county seat. the county quickly had the action reversed due to public outcry after the self-dealing of two of the commissioners who reportedly bought tracts of land near the seat before their decision was made public. Court first met at the house of ezra beardsley in edwardsburg on august 9, 1831, as did the board of supervisors about two months later. one source contends that court was actually first held at Cassapolis, which changed spelling in 1865 to Cassopolis,“under an oak tree just south of the public square.” Cassopolis offered half of its village plats for the county seat designation, which the governor approved on December 19, 1831. the first public building was a jail that eber root and John Flewwelling built in early 1834 for about $350. hewn logs made up the thirty-by-fifteen-foot frame one-story structure. the county accepted the building and modified the plank floors by having them bound with strap iron and driven full of nails. a newer jail by James taylor came Cass County in 1852, which in turn was replaced by a structure built in 1878–79 by W. h. myers of Fort Wayne to the plan of t. J. Nolan & son of the same place for $17,770. It was said of taylor’s jail that the “back door was shrunk and could be opened from the outside with a shingle.” the first courthouse came on may 1, 1835, and was used until 1841.a newer structure costing about $12,000 replaced it. specifications called for a stone wall foundation and a wooden structure painted white and measuring fifty-four by forty-six by twenty-four feet. It combined Greek revival and colonial architecture with four large columns and an unusual exterior stairway behind them that appeared like an inverted letter V. a small belfry capped the structure. the interior plans were elaborate, requiring“good pine siding ”throughout and a sixteen-by-seventeen-foot brick safe. Cass CouNty 32 a fireproof building for county offices was erected in 1860. It was called “the Fort.” the courthouse was the scene of part of a memorable dispute recalled as the Kentucky raid of 1847. Cass County contained the intersection point of two lines of the underground railroad: the Illinois line from the mississippi river near st. louis and the Quaker line from Kentucky and the ohio river. by 1848 the sympathetic Quaker population in the county had assisted an estimated 1,500 fugitive slaves in reaching refuge in Canada. a good number of the fugitive slaves in Cass County in 1847 were from bourbon County, Kentucky. several slaveholders from there organized and sought to reclaim the persons they considered their legal property. a scout presented himself as an abolitionist and worked for a lawyer in Kalamazoo while secretly gathering information on where to find the runaway slaves. the posse entered michigan on august 1, 1847, and was foiled in battle Creek. they regrouped in Indiana and decided to target Cass County. they captured nine fugitive slaves there, but an angry white mob confronted them and would not allow them to depart. before any violence erupted, some Quakers persuaded the Kentuckians to seek a court hearing in Cassopolis. the court dismissed their claim on the technical grounds that they failed to offer into evidence a certified copy of Kentucky statutes that proved the legal existence of slavery in that state. the slaves at the center of the controversy were quickly whisked to Canada before the losing parties could seek recourse. the episode was one of many nationally that led to the Fugitive slave act of 1850, a controversial piece of legislation that the Civil War and the thirteenth amendment ultimately rendered null and void. recently, the state bar dedicated a plaque commemorating how Cass County assisted fugitive slaves. the dual location of the courthouse and the county offices beginning...