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Location of seat: Orange
County Established: 1734
Present Courthouse Built: 1859
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Orange County burst into being in 1734, when the Virginia House of Burgesses divided Spotsylvania County into more easily-digestable county chunks. At its inception, Orange County's western border theoretically extended to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, but once settlers started doing their settling thing in numbers, other counties were formed to administrate them. |
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Five miles to the west of the county seat at Orange is Montpelier, the home built and died in by US President James Madison: Orange County tends to thus claim Madison as a native son, though he was born in King George County. Another President, Zachary Taylor, really was born in Orange County, but most folks would agree that Taylor (spent sixteen whole months in office before perishing) wasn't anywhere near as big a deal as was Madison (Founding Father). Regardless, both are commemorated on the courthouse green.
The railroad brought Orange Court House prosperity in the 1850's, when the Orange and Alexandria Railroad connected with the Virginia Central line to Richmond. This led to the demise of Orange County's 1804 courthouse, as for some reason the railroad had to be built over a portion of it. In 1857 a new courthouse was proposed to be built on nearby property owned by the Orange Hotel. The courthouse that stands today was completed in 1859, in the Italian Villa style. |
While the Italian Villa style was an unusual choice for a Virginia county courthouse, its portico provided the arched columns that echoed the classic Virginia courthouse design as inspired by that at Williamsburg. Mayhurst, another edifice in the Italian Villa style, was completed just outside Orange Court House in 1859: Plus, the original inspiration may have been the B&O Railroad Station, a block from the capitol in Washington, DC, another in the Italian Villa style that had been completed in 1851...and imitating such a building may have been a way of cozying up to the railroad.
No identifiable trace of a clerk's office remains, although it is purported to have been built in 1894 and still exist, and likely just missed my uninformed attention. The Orange County jail was built in 1891, and still sits directly to the courthouse's west, presently serving what function I cannot imagine. A local woman in an antique store across the street told me that she remembered walking down the hill on Madison Road (today's Route 15), which runs along the courthouse's east side, when she was a little girl, past some sort of county lockup. She said that the inmates regularly called out to her, though she didn't relay what wisdom they uttered: No doubt they were inviting her to innocent bake sales and knitting circles.
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 Orange County's courthouse in the 1920's or 30's, judging by the First World War-vintage artillery piece on the green. This image came from the book Virginia's Historic Courthouses by John O. and Margaret T. Peters, and the caption says that this was "before the demise of its splendid arcaded porch." Astute persons will note, however, that the only thing that looks significantly different between this and the image at the top of this page is that the staircase leading up to the portico is a grander affair today. Apparently this courthouse's "splendid arcaded porch" was bricked in in 1949 to make more office space, but sometime betwixt 1995, when Virginia's Historic Courthouses was published, and now, the portico was restored to its pre-1949 grandeur. |
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Orange County's Confederate Monument was erected in 1900, and lists the names of 139 soldiers, most of whom served with the 13th Virginia Infantry and the Orange Artillery. In 1939 Orange County donated eight feet along the front of its courthouse green to the Virginia Highway Department, which had determined that a road such as Orange's Main Street needed to be 40 feet wide in order to exist. The Confederate Monument was moved several feet closer to the courthouse to allow for this, lest folks be bashing into a Confederate Monument every time they drove past the courthouse. Orange County also honors its dead from post-Civil War wars in plaques on the courthouse: The Great War, Second World War, Korean War and the War in Vietnam are all represented thus: Click 'em to see 'em.
1949 was a banner year for screwing up the Orange County Courthouse: A clock was added in existing round windows in the courthouse's tower, which certainly wasn't a bad thing, but the portico was also bricked in to create more office space, which was an absolute crime against nature. Fortunately, Orange County has since come to its senses and restored its portico. |
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