Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. 20 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1886.
From the record
“The Old County Courthouse is an historic court house on Leyden Street and Market Street in the Town Square of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Built in 1749, the two-story wood-frame building is believed to be the oldest wooden courthouse in the United States; it stands on the site of the first courthouse built by Plymouth Colony settlers, and may incorporate elements of a 1670 building.”
Wikipedia article Old County Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 138 National Register listings published here for Plymouth County · listed in 1972 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.72001297- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Then and now
1886 to 1994
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
108 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
18861994
Fires near this property
308 since 2006
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 308 fires within 5 miles of Old County Courthouse
between 2006 and 2020, burning about 92 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
206
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
57
Misuse of fire by a minor
28
Arson/incendiarism
4
Recreation and ceremony
4
Natural
3
Smoking
3
Fireworks
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 2,442 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Old County Courthouse between 1816 and 1975: 1,782 Animalia, 398 Plantae, 186 Fungi, 59 Chromista, 14 Protozoa, 3 Unrecorded.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by -- Russell, A., A. C. Mathieson and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Old County Courthouse: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Plymouth, the town this property stands in, in 43 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 13 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 7 heavy rain, 4 flood.
The reports record 1 death. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Police reported a road flooded, with water half-way up the doors of a car. Street unspecified. Report relayed by amateur radio. The public reported 2.07 of rain with this localized storm.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Old County Court House stands on Town Square in Plymouth at the intersection of Leyden and Market Streets. The present building was con- structed in 1749, replacing a Court House built in 1670 as an addition to a still earlier "country house." Evidence indicates that the 1670 Court House one room, 30 by 40 feet, with a vaulted ceiling. Local historians theorize that this vaulted ceiling and the roof of the Court House were incorporated into the 1749 structure. Extenisve work has been done to restore the Old County Court House to its 1749 appearance. As it now stands, the building is a two-story frame structure. The east side of the building has a high brick foundation while the south side and part of the west side have a low foundation of granite.
The front (north) facade of the Old Court House, which faces Town Square, is a common five bay type. Ihe fenestration is regular, with four windows in the first story and five in the second. The windows are twelve over twelve restorations, with simple lintels and sills. The doorway, placed in the center of the main facade, is topped by a six pane rectangular light, and a simple shelf entablature. The gable ends of the Old County Court House are identical. Each story has three windows, treated in the same manner as those of the front facade. These gable ends, like the north elevation, are clapboarded, and are ; finished with end boards and a boxed cornice. 4 simple raking cornice rises to the ridgepole on either gable. 4 chimney interrupts the pitched roof at the east end.
The roof at present is paper shingled; it is hoped that these shingles will be replaced by cedar shakes. Was - Z - C Z
Statement of significance
The Old County Court House, built in Plymouth in 1749, is one of the oldest local government buildings extant in the United States. The Court House stands on a site which has been publicly owned since 1620 and which has served as a colonial capitol, county court house, probate court, The first "country house" on this site may have been built as early as 1637 and was at one time occupied by Captain Thomas Willet, the first mayor of New York City under British rule. In 1670, the General Court of Plymouth Colony ordered an addition to the "country house" for the use of the magistrates of the Court. One of the last actions of the General Court (1686) was to provide for the use of the lower rooms of the "country house" by the court of the newly formed Plymouth County.
The Town of Plymouth arranged for the use of the Court House between court sessions and, in 1698, local farmers opened a market at the eastern end of the building. Though the Willet house was dismantled in 1698, the Court House addition remained in use until 1749 when the present building on the site was con- structed. This building was designed by Peter Oliver of Middleboro, who was then a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Coueto dommen Local historians theorize that the vaulted ceiling and roof of the 1670 structure were incorporated into the new Court House. Again the county and town shared the building, with the courtroom on the second floor, tøwn offices on the first floor and the market in the basement and at the eastern end of the building.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 72001297, 15 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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