Welcome
to
Switzerland County,
Indiana 
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My name is Sheila Kell
I am the New
County Coordinator for Switzerland
County, INGenWeb. Feel
free to E-mail me with questions, comments, or submissions of data and
information regarding Switzerland Co. Please have patience while I work
on adding to this site. We have a new assistant coordinator-
I am pleased
to welcome Julia Miller to the Switzerland site you can contact her at Julia
My e mail is still
Sheila
In 1841 the shade trees that had been chopped down in 1815 were replaced. In 1841 the citizens of the county petitioned the commissioners for a new courthouse that would be large enough to protect the growing county records.
John Haley who was living in Frankfort Ky. and was a prominent contractor in that state was the builder. He began construction in 1861. He completed his work in 1865. The columns on the building are corinthian type. In 1864 when the courthouse was near completion the commissioners entered into an agreement with Israel Fowler, a clockmaker of Madison, to make and construct a good and correct timepiece to be put in the cupola of the courthouse, at a cost of $1,000. At about the same time a bell was purchased from the Coffin company of Cincinnati for $800.00 and installed with the clock.
In the late 1880's the commissioners ordered an iron fence which was placed around the square. At the beginnings of both world wars, the fence became a center of controversy as to whether or not to sell it for old iron. During the clamor, preceding the second world war, the commissioners had announced their intentions to sell the fence. But many protests of womens clubs and civic groups stopped the action.
Building materials of the
courthouse include limestone slabs about 18 inches thick, yellow poplar floor
joists and red brick on the exterior walls, and a classic portico.
Extensive restoration took place in 1991. The original courtroom is still intact
and one of the most beautiful interior spaces in the country.
Table of Contents -Come on in and visit 
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"The Chosen"
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying - I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."
by Della M. Cummings
Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and
Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."
Be Sure to Visit Our Neighboring
Counties
Dearborn
County
Jefferson County
Ohio County
Ripley County
Our Kentucky Neighbors
Carroll County
Gallatin
County
Our Ohio Neighbors
Hamilton
Butler
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