The Sheridan Monument
1829 Courthouse
The Sheridan monument was erected by and given to the Village of Somerset by the State of Ohio in 1905 to honor the memory of Somerset’s General Phillip Henry Sheridan. “Little Phil” was raised in Somerset and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1852. He rendered valuable service to the Federal Army in the Civil War at Stone’s River, Missionary Ridge, Yellow Tavern, Winchester, Cedar Creek, Five Forks, and Appomattox. He later commanded in the West and became General of the Army in 1883, received his fourth star, and died in 1888. The heroic sculpture, created by Carl Heber of New York, portrays “Sheridan’s Ride” to Winchester. Somerset citizens paid for the granite base through a children’s “penny fund.”
Commenced in 1828, this building was Perry County’s first true courthouse. The sandstone jail was completed in 1848 and a common roof connected both structures. Old ’29 commands a largely intact agrarian public square common during the Federal period. The edifice is the oldest continuously in service public building in the Old Northwest Territory (1787). The Federal style, characterized by symmetry, grace, and simple ornamentation, was common throughout the Old Northwest and the upper Midwest during the first generations of public building erection. It has been called a jewel and the finest piece of Federal Heartland Architecture extant. The County Seat was moved from Somerset in 1857 and since then Old ’29 has housed village offices.
