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Brent Carson has returned to the Myers Inn Museum to film the March
2022 program for the Big Walnut Area Historical Society. Carson is
considered Mr. History of Delaware County. Since the Delaware
County Historical Society bought the former Delaware County Jail and
Sheriff’s Residence at 20 W. Central Avenue in Delaware in October
2021Carson has been researching crimes and jails in our county.
There were robberies and murders even in the Big Walnut area but
hard criminals were taken to Delaware Jail. Sunbury Jail on the
east side of the first floor of the Town Hall in the center of the
Village Green was used for drunks to sleep off their celebrations.
Polly Horn recalls, “While I do not remember the jail in the Sunbury
Town Hall, I do remember seeing it in the lower level of the old
house which sat where the Sunbury Municipal Building was built in
1982.
However as a child of 6 or 7, my father took me and my younger
sister to Delaware when he went to pick up news items for the
Sunbury News. He had arranged for the Sheriff to show the two of us
the newly painted jail. All was fine until the door was closed and
we were each locked in a cell with a bed without a mattress, and a
toilet stool without a seat. I was old enough to know my father
would be back but Peg cried the entire time. We were let out with,
“This is where you live when you do not obey the laws,” from our
father. Needless to say, neither of us were ever tempted to break
the law.”
There were robberies and murders even in the Big Walnut area but
hard criminals were taken to Delaware Jail. Sunbury Jail on the
first floor of the Town Hall in the center of the Village Green was
used for drunks to sleep off their celebrations.
Many may remember the jail built for the Sunbury Sesquicentennial in
1966 to house clean shaven men and painted ladies. This was used
again during in the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. Community
Library was in the Town Hall and too much of a temptation for pranks
so some of the Library employees found themselves among those locked
behind bars until families paid their fines.
Carson will clue us all in on the crimes and jails in Delaware
County during his program. The YouTube link will be posted on
http://BigWalnutHistory.org and will be showing through March.
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