Hermitage: courthouse square and a jail that learned the hard way
Named for Jackson's Tennessee home and planted as county seat after a good deal of arguing, Hermitage still wears its public square like a Sunday coat—courthouse in the middle, old jail on the corner, and enough buggy ghosts in the old photographs to make you count the hitching posts.
The present courthouse tradition on the square has seen fire, subscription rebuilds, and later additions, but the postcard still tells the essential truth: this is where the county's business gathered. A later photograph (Linda Crawford) shows the building with a rear addition—still handsome, still working.
At the northwest corner stands the stone jail Wilson described with a dry honesty historians appreciate: built 1870–71 by Philip Schleifer of Polk County with James A. Brakebill supervising, about $4,500; unroofed by the 1879 cyclone; joists and roof burned in 1899; then repaired with cement and steel cells— because it had never had cells, and prisoners had a habit of leaving early.
Highway signs still point travelers toward Museum Street and the John Siddles Williams House— the Society's museum and research room—where artifacts and family papers keep the square's quieter stories.
Sources: Hermitage photo captions in the Society collection (Fran Childers; Linda Crawford); Wilson's History of Hickory County, p. 3 (jail); county timeline (Society publication).