PCN airs special on Carbon courthouse

Carbon County and its historic courthouse took center stage Thursday night in a 30-minute television program on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Sponsored by the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, Carbon is one of a number of courthouses being featured for its history and architecture.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein introduced the program noting that Carbon County was formed in 1843 from Northampton and Monroe counties. It was named “Carbon,” he said, because of the robust coal production and mining industries which developed following the discovery of anthracite coal in Summit Hill in the 1790s.

The current courthouse, opened in 1894 at a cost of $81,250 to build, is the third. The first courthouse, largely a storefront donated by the founders of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., burned in 1849. The second was opened in 1850.

Nothstein said that continuing population growth and judicial caseloads require another office building and courtroom on top of the three now operating for the three judges who comprise the 56th Judicial District bench.

Nothstein also gave a brief history of Jim Thorpe, formerly Mauch Chunk, and how it came to be named in 1954 for the famous Olympian athlete who captured two gold medals in the 1912 Olympics in Sweden, where King Gustav V proclaimed him the “greatest athlete in the world.”

Commissioners William O’Gurek and Thomas Gerhard, standing in Josiah White Park, explained how tourism has become big business, with more than 100,000 visitors coming to the county seat community every year to ride the trains to see the fall foliage, visit the borough’s shops and sights, ride and walk the county’s parks and trails and engage in activities along the Lehigh River.

Gerhard said, “Come and visit us; spend some money in our shops.”

County Judge Steven R. Serfass gave a visual and audio tour of the historic Victorian-style courthouse with its Big Ben-styled clock tower and mentioned its most infamous trial, the Molly Maguires in 1876.

He specifically pointed out an unusual stained-glass depiction of Lady Justice on the skylight above the courtroom. Why is Lady Justice not wearing a blindfold, as we usually see her? “Although justice may be blind,” Serfass said, “it is administered by people.”

Serfass explained the impact that Asa Packer had in the formation of the county.

“He may not have invented the county, but he was probably the most instrumental in defining the county,” Serfass said.

He noted that the 50th anniversary of the 1970 film “The Molly Maguires” will be observed next year. All of the infamous trial scenes in the film that starred Sean Connery, Richard Harris and Samantha Eggar were filmed in courtroom 1.

County Treasurer Ronald Sheehan, who serves as executive director of Asa Packer Mansion, gave a quick tour of the exquisite showplace that sits high on the hill behind the courthouse and overlooks the Lehigh River.

Packer, who was a founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Lehigh University, had the home built in 1860. It was last occupied by his daughter, Mary Packer Cummings, who, upon her death in 1912, bequeathed it and its contents to the borough of Mauch Chunk.

The home was closed until 1954 when the Bear Mountain Lions Club (now the Jim Thorpe Lions Club) was granted trusteeship and conducts tours of the mansion.

Blaine Dart, assistant director and guide at the Carbon County Old Jail Museum, gave a visual tour of the old jail, which was used from 1871 until 1995. He told of discrimination against the Irish and how they came to work in the coal mines under intolerable conditions.

After a bitter and bloody strike over working conditions and reduced wages, seven miners were hanged in the jail. Legend has it that the sweaty palm print of Thomas Fisher, one of the seven, could never be removed from his jail cell’s wall despite repeated washings.

Dart said investigators from Wilkes University did tests but found that the print was not Fisher’s or anyone else’s. The investigators found white painted plaster behind the hand print.

“What you and I see today does not exist,” Dart said. “It should not be on that wall. We should physically not be able to see it.”

But we can clearly see that it looks like a handprint. And so the mystery continues.

The special will air again at 2 p.m. Saturday.