Remembering the Old Courthouse Part XIV

Remembering the Old Courthouse

Part XIV

By: Willis P. Whichard

As I write this, I am in my office at the State’s second largest law firm. But I am looking at a picture of the old Clay County Courthouse. That may seem strange, but there is nothing new about it. Te same picture hung on my wall during the twelve-plus years I was a justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and the seven years I served as Dean of the Campbell University School of Law. It may have been on my office wall even longer, but I am certain of the foregoing.

So why does a man who grew up in one of the State’s largest cities (Durham) , and has spent his adult life as a lawyer and public servant in Eastern North Carolina, keep a picture of the old Clay County Courthouse on his office wall? My Clay County roots run deep. My maternal ancestors were among the early mid-nineteenth -century settlers of the county after the government  removed the Indians to Oklahoma. Eight generations of my family have now lived there- four before mine, and three subsequent to it. While I have never lived there year round, neither have I stayed away very long. I first went there to visit my grandmother when I was not quite two months old. I was last there a little over a month ago. I have maintained a part-time residence there for over thirty-one years. When I am there, I am very much a part of the community, and if I am away very long, I miss it greatly. Most of the county’s part-timers are also relative “short-timers”. I have been a Clay part-timer for over seven decades -all my life- and I hope to be for a good while yet.

Even so, why is the old courthouse important to me of sufficient significance that for many years I Have kept a picture of it on my office wall? I view it, as I think most people do, as the living symbol  of the county. The picture on my wall evokes for me deep seated memories form the summers there in my childhood as well as memories from the long weekend spent there recently. Although the mountains visible from the courtroom window ( and from my house) are not in the picture, the picture conjures mental images of them for me. It also recalls to my mind the day in the summer of 1965 when my uncle, Andy Padgett, introduced me to Gene Carter, one of Clay County’s legal giants, on the courthouse lawn. I had just taken the North Carolina bar examination and was appropriately nervous as I awaited the results. Gene, bless him, was gently reassuring. There are many other such memories that space limitations preclude recounting.

I am confident that my experience with, and deep feelings for, the courthouse are not unique. Almost everyone who lives or has lived in the county would share them. For this reason, it is important to preserve the old structure and thereby to preserve history and memories that accompany it.

I am grateful for the efforts of those who are working both to preserve it and find productive uses for it, and I would urge other caring members of the community to join then in a worthy endeavor.