No Opening Ceremony for the Old Suffolk County Court House

New Court House, engraving from Elias Nason and George J. Varney, A Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts, 1890.

So far as can be found, there was no elaborate ceremony to celebrate the opening of the Suffolk County Court House in Pemberton Square. An article on the front page of the Monday morning Boston Herald for January 15, 1894, stated that "with the exception of the registry of deeds, all the officials and courts for whom it [the Court House] is intended are now safely ensconced within its four walls." From this article, it can be assumed that the courts and the Social Law Library were moved into the building at the end of 1893. A letter in the archives of the Social Law Library states that the Library would be closing on August 1 of that year, but whether this is for a summer holiday or to facilitate the move into the new Court House is unclear.

This lack of ceremony seems to have been a pattern with the new Court House. According to a note in the Boston Public Library's Boston Architecture Reference File, the corner stone was to be laid on Wednesday, July 9, 1887 at 9 o'clock in the morning, with no ceremonies. If this is true, it would have been highly unusual. The Bench and Bar in the 1890s, like the rest of Boston and the country, enjoyed special occasions. Every sort of ceremony was duly staged, with speakers and exercises. Addresses of the more noted speakers were almost always published. The lack of any published account, or even any mention, of a dedicatory ceremony or occasion, could mean that there were never any dedicatory exercises held for the Pemberton Square Court House.

"New Court House," engraving from Elias Nason and George J. Varney, A Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts, 1890. The only official statement attached to the opening of the Suffolk County Court House was the formal decree by the Commission established to construct the building. On October 22, 1894, they officially turned over the building to the care of the Supreme Judicial Court.

"To the Honorable Justices of the SJC Oct. 22, 1894

Gentlemen-We beg to notify you that the Suffolk County Court House, erected in pursuance of chapter 377 of the Acts of the year 1885, is completed; and whereas, by chapter 453 of the Acts of 1894,…we respectfully request that you take such action as shall relieve us of any further duties as commissioners.

We have the honor to be
Your obedient servants,
Solomon Stebbins, Thomas Whidden, Godfrey Morse"[1]

Footnotes:
[1] PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN. City of Boston, Oct. 22, 1894. City Doc. 175. 22nd and Final Report of Commissioners for the Erection of a New Court House for Suffolk County 916-917 (City of Boston, 1894).