The Perry County Courthouse is a historic government building in the village of New Lexington, Ohio, United States. Built near the end of the nineteenth century after the end of a county seat war, it is the fifth courthouse to serve the citizens of Perry County, and it has been named a historic site because of its imposing architecture.HistoryAfter Perry County was established in 1817, the county commissioners and courts met for their first two years at John Fink's tavern on the eastern side of Somerset at the corner of Main Street (the Zane Trace) and High Street. At the end of the two years, county officials began using their newly completed jail as a courthouse; it was a jail more than anything else, and the commissioners and other people did not like to call it a courthouse, but a courtroom was provided in the second story, as well as room for other county officers. It functioned as a courthouse from 1819 until 1829. In 1826, bids were let for the construction of a purpose-built courthouse on Somerset's public square; it was occupied three years later, and the old "courthouse" jail soon succumbed to fire. Ever since the creation of the county, the village of New Lexington had been agitating to become the county seat, and a county seat war ensued in the 1850s; after three new state laws, three elections, and two decisions by the Supreme Court, the county offices departed Somerset for the upstart community in early 1857, leaving the old courthouse to be used by Somerset as its village hall.
