Old Salem County Courthouse

The Old Salem County Courthouse, standing at Market Street and East Broadway in Salem, is New Jersey’s oldest active courthouse, first built in 1735 of locally made brick and later expanded in the 1800s. Before open war began, local leaders met here in 1774 to draft a petition to King George III protesting British policies and to organize relief for the besieged people of Boston after the Tea Party, signaling Salem’s early support for resistance. Judge William Hancock of the king’s court presided in this building; he was later mortally wounded by British troops during the 1778 Hancock House attack, part of Colonel Charles Mawhood’s Salem Raid. After the British occupation of Salem in March 1778, the courthouse hosted the famed “Long Court” treason trials, where suspected Loyalists were tried for aiding the enemy, with several men condemned before ultimately being pardoned and exiled. Today, the Old Salem County Courthouse embodies both colonial justice and the community’s wrenching Revolutionary-era divisions.