Northampton County Courthouse Square is a historic

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

complex located at

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Q ...

Northampton County, North Carolina Northampton County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,471. Its county seat is Jackson. Northampton County is part of the Roanoke Rapids, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area, whic ...

. The courthouse was built in 1858, and is a tall one-story, three bay by three bay,

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

style temple-form brick building. It sits on a raised basement and features an imposing prostyle tetrastyle portico with great fluted

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns. The building was remodeled and a two-story rear addition built in 1939 by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. The clerk's and register's office was built in 1831, and is a one-story brick building with stepped parapet gable ends and a plaster cornice. A later clerk's office was built in 1900 between the 1831 building and the courthouse. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1977. It was built on land previously developed by Jeptha Atherton in 1762, who allowed the use of a building for county court meetings. The Atherton plantation had a large stables and specialized in horse breeding. There was also a

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

, a tavern, and a store.

References

Works Progress Administration in North Carolina County courthouses in North Carolina Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Greek Revival architecture in North Carolina Government buildings completed in 1858 Buildings and structures in Northampton County, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Northampton County, North Carolina {{NorthamptonCountyNC-NRHP-stub