January 2007     

Liberty & Justice

By Douglas E. Carlson

Being 230 years old, our nation has been symbolized by a variety of depictions illustrating the ideals under which America was formed. Liberty and Justice are certainly near the top of the list of those symbols, upstaged only by the United States Flag. Certainly Lady Liberty (not the Statue of Liberty) has graced many pictures, coins, and statues, but Lady (or Goddess) Justice has also been a commonly held symbol as well. This article, however, is not about the history of all the depictions of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice, but about one set of those depictions found in a small, rural, Western Pennsylvania Courtroom.

The story begins in 1869 in the town of Tionesta. Tionesta is the county seat of Forest County, established in 1848 and expanded in the late 1850s. Timber and oil dominated the economy, population increased as commerce grew, and by the end of the Civil War, there was talk of building a County Courthouse. The building commenced in 1869, and construction was finished in 1870. The building was utilitarian and quite stark, with the interior walls being plastered on wooden lath and left unadorned or painted. That changed in August of 1884, when a neighboring town painting contractor met with the Forest County Commissioners, proposing to paint the Courtroom walls, as well as decorate the walls with frescos of columns and decorative squares adorned at the corners with large fleur-de-lis. That work was completed in a few weeks, as described in the Commissioners' Minute Book for the time period.

The painting contractor then proposed the painting of two fresco murals on the Courtroom walls, as the Minute Book records, "Commissioners Ledebur, Henderson and Zuendell present, approved of some bills and signed contract with Henry Steiff the contract of frescoing the halls and stairways and frescoing in two life size figures in the Court Room - viz- Justice and Goddess of Liberty, for the sum of $300." A painter named W. Metzkes then painted the two murals on the courtroom walls. There the ladies stood, presiding over many sessions of Court for several decades, but by the 1940s, the murals are not remembered on the walls by people who had attended school classes in the Courthouse, after the Tionesta School burned down.

A Forest County history, written in 1989, using newspaper articles, stated that the murals had been on the walls, but "were lost to time" when they had been painted over. During January of 2006, however, renovation of the Courtroom had commenced. This author was given permission to salvage wooden piece of architecture that were going to be discarded. One Saturday, while hauling old doors, false wooden columns, and door way frames, I noticed wallpaper peeling from the walls. Beneath the paper colors showed, not just wall paint, but painting. Stripping the old wall covering (held to the wall by rudimentary wheat paste), multi-colored columns and decorative squares were revealed. Curious about how the original room looked, wallpaper continued to be stripped, until Lady Justice was uncovered. She had been damaged through the settling of the building, electrical outlets, and patching done to smooth the wall for the wallpaper. Lady Justice stood on the right side of the Judge's bench in the room. Presuming that there must being something on the left side, wallpaper continued being stripped from the walls, only to reveal Lady Liberty in far better condition than the mural of Lady Justice. The ladies stood over ten feet tall, dominating the room with their grandeur, size, and symbolism.

Lady Justice reminds all that there will be equal justice for all citizens.

The symbolism in the Lady Justice mural conveys several messages to the viewer. The obvious symbolism of the blind-folded Lady is that justice is blind, any person coming before the Judge's bench would be considered with equality, regardless of race, color, creed, or station in life; equal justice for all citizens was available, and expected.

The scales held in her left hand show that the facts would be considered without prejudice, the pros and the cons considered fairly in order to determine the justice of cases before the Bench. Lady Justice wears a tiara in her hair, a symbol of the official nature of her endeavor. She wears a serious, sober look upon her face, again connoting the seriousness of matters before her. In her right hand, Lady Justice lightly holds a sword, symbolism being that she stood ready to execute justice, and had the tools with which to do it. She wears a mantle over her shoulders, again a symbol of authority. Her bare toes show beneath her gown, standing on the pedestal, a symbolic message that nothing came between justice and the land (the "land" here can be interpreted as the "people"). Taken as a whole, the mural projects a message that citizens can expect true justice in this room, and that the citizen would be judged fairly by their peers, as well as the Court, and that justice would be served, reward or punishment, depending on the facts of each case.

The symbolism of Lady Liberty is a bit different, and extends to conveying a message intended for the post-Civil War/Reconstruction American citizen. Liberty shows her loyalty by the letters "US" in her belt. This obviously means the United States, a fact that meant far more in the shadow of the Civil War, the War Between the States.

A majestic Lady Liberty again adorns the rural Pennsylvania Courthouse

Her face is sober, with eyes looking into a distant future, as well as a distant past. In her hair are stars, which symbolically connote an eternal character or timelessness. In her left hand, Liberty holds a laurel wreath, typically understood to be a victory wreath. Beneath her left hand, resting upon her left leg, is a shield decorated with stars and bands (or strips). If the whole shield could be seen, it would contain thirteen stars and thirteen strips, a symbolic depiction of the original thirteen colonies out of which a nation (America) was built. The wreath held over the shield conveys a message that the victory wreath could be quickly dropped, and the shield picked up, to defend the nation once again. In Liberty's right hand, is a staff, or rod, an ancient symbol of power and authority. This symbol was commonly used in the Bible, as well as by ancient nations to illustrate authority.

At the top of the staff is a cap. The cap has been identified as being a Phrygian cap. The Phrygian cap was given to emancipated slaves in ancient Rome to identify the slave as being free. The cap was later adopted by the French Revolutionaries during the French Revolution, to symbolize their struggle against the monarchy, and to symbolize their liberty. So with the cap of liberty atop the staff of power and authority, the message was that the power and authority of the government was in the hands of a free people.

As with Lady Justice, Lady Liberty also shows bare feet beneath her gown standing on the pedestal. The symbolism being that nothing was to come between liberty and the land (the people). Taken as a whole, citizens sitting in that Courtroom looking at Lady Liberty would have cause to believe their government was intact, that it was based on the principals of freedom (liberty), and that it was worthy of being defended, regardless of cost.

Isn't it interesting that Lady Liberty and Lady Justice were chosen to sit behind the Judge's Bench. Consider our Pledge of Allegiance, that ends with the words "...one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." So there is the answer why they show up together in a little rural courthouse courtroom in Northwestern Pennsylvania.

While we deal with a move to take God out of all our society and government, claiming a separation of church and state, our Forefathers, at least in 1878, knew the connection to freedom for people, and a belief in God. They did not have problems with the connections. We, as a nation, may be facing a revision of our history, to delete God from the history, but perhaps our symbols cry out in protest, reminding us of where we really did come from, and what our Forefathers really did believe. Calculated or unintentional, these messages would have been called to the mind of Forest County residents sitting in Court.

Today, many citizens may not remember the importance of symbolic public images; we may forget the history lessons of our youth. We may not even be teaching these truths of our Nation to our children. In these two murals, we are reminded, however, that our nation's government, and system of justice, are based on a firm foundation of ideas, philosophies, history, and liberty. They remind us that there is a price for freedom, and a cost to justice, both responsibilities that were shouldered by our ancestors, our Forefathers, the dreamers who thought America into existence, and the men and women who defended our nation during times of crisis and conflict. Today, we might do well to look upon these murals and learn the lesson once again, recalling the price and taking upon ourselves the responsibility that should rest in each citizen.

These murals remain a testament to our national system of justice and liberty. Located in Forest County, a small rural county in northwest Pennsylvania, these murals still invoke patriotism, and feelings of national pride, if one takes the time to study them.

The murals also remain as a testament to the people of Forest County, and to the Nation, first funded by money from the general treasury of the County, and then restored through the efforts of the current County government. The murals are the legacy of all the citizens of Forest County, and the Nation, to our history, and to our future. We can all hope that as people sit in the Courtroom of 2006, that they reflect, just as their predecessors did in 1884, as to what the murals are saying, and what our nation stands for. Liberty and Justice for all, indeed!

Douglas E. Carlson is the Executive Director of the Conservation District Planning Department, Forest County, Pennsylvania, and is a founding member of the Allegheny Forest Alliance.