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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 423
the body in the woods, however. He was taken to the spot and the remains
were found On the.spot he indicated. The body Avas removed to Ruff &
Son's undertaking establishment and Taylor was taken to jail.
The report that Taylor had confessed and that the body had been
found spread around the toAvn like wildfire, and a mob at once gathered
at the jail and demanded the prisoner. UnknoAvn to the mob he Avas
removed from the jail by a back way, but the matter was so bungled by
Sheriff Starr that the mob learned of it and started in pursuit. Starr
stopped Avith Taylor at the infirmary and the mob caught up and bulldozed
Starr into surrendering Taylor. As soon as they got Taylor they
took him to a pagoda then standing in East Washington Park, where a mob
had gathered, and a rope was procured and placed around Taylor's neck
and he Avas jerked out of the pagoda head first and dragged across the park
down Columbus Avenue to Market Street, where he was hung to a lamp
post in front of the building now occupied by the American Bank. The
disposal of his body is unknown.
The cornerstone of the present courthouse was laid August 15, 1873,
and a copper casket was placed therein containing the following articles:
Copies of the constitutions of the United States and State of Ohio; copy
of the specifications of labor and material for the building; copy of the
premium list for the Eri'e County Agricultural Fair of 1872; list of
county officers with mayors of Vermillion, Huron, Milan and Sandusky;
list of city officers and council of Sandusky; list of Sandusky customs
officers and internal revenue officers; list of postoffice employees; name
of courthouse architect and contractors; first seal used by Erie County
recorder, date 1838; various United States coins; Sandusky Second
National Bank $1 note; copies of Daily and Weekly Register; report of
secretary of state; list of common pleas judges of Fourth Judicial District;
seventeenth report of state school commissioner; list of Milan
council members, churches and population; Masonic documents.
The Register of December 25, 1874, contains a picture of the new
courthouse and a five-column account of its completion at a cost of
$154,222.98. The Common Pleas Court room is described as having in
the rear of the judges' seat a fresco of the Goddess of Justice, and directly
above it the portrait of Judge E. Lane, and on the right the portrait of
Peter Hitchcock, former supreme judges of Ohio. Next are the portraits
of Jefferson and Jackson, and in the south end of the room the portrait
of George Washington. At the present writing all these pictures have
been removed and been replaced by various seals. The first court Avas
held on February 2,1875.
THE CIRCUIT COURT
After the constitution of 1851 took effect and the old Supreme Court
ceased to travel the circuit, a neAV intermediate Appellate Court Avas
created, called the District Court, Avhich was composed of three common
pleas judges, and visited the counties as the old Supreme Court had done.
The District Court had some peculiar, features of its jurisdiction, one