It was windy and bitterly cold in Monticello on January 13, 1844, and Giles M. Benedict, a farmer and merchant in the village, was lighting a fire in the kitchen of his home on the north side of Main Street. Benedict's kitchen was in a small addition at the rear of the house, and its roof was considerably lower than the eves of the main portion of the structure.  A pipe, serving as the chimney for the kitchen stove, protruded through the kitchen roof.

As the kindling in the stove caught fire, a strong gust of wind sucked the sputtering flames up through the pipe and slapped them against the neighboring cornice. The Benedict residence was ablaze within minutes. Aided by the swirling winds, the fire quickly engulfed the building, burning it to the ground.

The village of Monticello would not organize a fire department for another 30 years, but an alarm was sounded nonetheless. As recounted in James Eldridge Quinlan's “History of Sullivan County,” Benedict's neighbors responded immediately.

“A few persons, seeing that Benedict's house could not be saved, ran to the courthouse to protect it, if possible,” Quinlan wrote. "Little danger was apprehended to the house itself unless a small barn close to it caught fire. Hence the combustible material in and around the barn was at once drenched with water. Two men were sent up the belfry to watch the roof.

“They began to congratulate themselves that the public buildings were safe, when it was discovered that the courthouse was on fire in an unexpected quarter. It was burning on the west side, between the dry pine siding and the equally dry ceiling, where it was impossible to get at in time to check it. At once there was a roaring column of flame from the foundation to the roof. So rapid was the progress of the fire that one of the persons in the belfry escaped with difficulty.”

The courthouse was soon destroyed, and though the neighboring county clerk's office was brick, it had a wooden roof, and soon it was on fire as well. The Presbyterian Church also quickly succumbed.

“A fiery blast seemed to sweep over these buildings, obliterating all that was combustible from the face of the earth,” Quinlan recounted. “The lower part of the village from the Mansion House seemed doomed. The air was full of burning coals, and cinders, while blazing shingles and fragments of siding were driven by the gale rapidly over the smooth crust of the snow for at least a mile. Piles of household goods, which had been removed from exposed buildings, barns, etc., were momentarily catching fire, while the citizens were exhausted by their efforts.”

When the fire finally burned itself out, a dozen buildings, including the courthouse, clerk's office, and Presbyterian Church, had been damaged or destroyed, causing an estimated $16,000 loss. But, as Quinlan noted, the aftermath of the blaze was even more far-reaching and historic.

“Before the ashes of the county buildings were cold, it was apparent that there would be a formidable attempt to change the site of the courthouse and the clerk's office. In some of the towns, there was an obstinate prejudice against Monticello and its prominent inhabitants. This prejudice originated on social, business, and political grounds, and at that epoch of our history was natural.”

“It was charged that, while the people of Monticello were in no respect better than their neighbors, they assumed social superiority, and that, with the exception of a few families of other towns, who were as exclusive as themselves, they did not associate with those who were outside the narrow circle of the village.” Of course, the fact that there was still the memory of what some considered the duplicity of Samuel F. Jones in securing the designation of County Seat for Monticello in the first place some 35 years before made some officials even more determined to right what they considered an injustice.

“Application was made to the Legislature of the state for a law to remove the site of the county buildings to Halfway Brook or Barryville, where the people pledged 10 acres of land and $3,000 toward the cost of the necessary edifices; to the lands of John Holley, in West Settlement, who promised a site and $1,000; to the Neversink Falls in the town of Fallsburgh, where the people pledged nothing, but asked for the annexation of the town of Wawarsing into Sullivan, probably to make the Falls nearer the geographical center of the county; to the village of Liberty, where the applicants pledged that they would erect the courthouse and jail free of expense to the county; to Wurtsborough and to Forestburgh, on the same conditions.”

The Republican Watchman newspaper, based in Monticello, broached the idea that at some point, perhaps the County might need two Seats, and Liberty would be the most logical choice to share the designation. “The people of Liberty are full of enterprise, and if the northern towns increase in the ratio they pretend to anticipate, and the roads be correspondingly improved, it would be worthy of consideration whether they should not have that town a half-shire town,” the Watchman suggested without effect.

After much debate and deliberation, the state Legislature finally ordered that the county buildings be rebuilt in Monticello, but the decree did little to heal the rift the issue had created in Sullivan County and on the county's Board of Supervisors.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. His e-mail address is jconway52@hotmail.com.