In 1837 when the state of Michigan moved the county seat from St. Joe to Berrien Springs, the need for a county jail became imminent. In June of 1838, a jail was built at the expense of approximately $3,000. It was located on the grounds of the Courthouse square, built before the Courthouse was constructed a year later. It served as the county jail until 1870 when a new jail was built.
According to the History of Berrien and Van Buren Counties, published in 1880 by D.W. Ensign & Co., the two story wooden structure was 24 x 32 feet in size. It had two cells on the ground floor and several other cells upstairs. It also included a jailer’s dwelling. According to Berrien County historian Robert C. Myers, the prisoners lived in drab conditions that included ragged blankets, a wooden bedstead, a tin washbasin, and a tin bucket to use as a toilet.
If the walls of the jail could talk, they would have a few stories to tell, including a near lynching that happened in 1861. Myers reports this story in his book “Flight of the Graf Zeppelin” in the chapter entitled “The Wandering Jail.” When a black man was accused of poisoning a white family, a lynch mob tried to storm the jail. Sheriff James Graham and others helped to hold them off for two consecutive nights.
Another incident happened on August 14, 1859 when Edward Boyer, accused of killing his father, escaped with another prisoner. The incident was reported in the August 15th issue of the St. Joseph Saturday Herald. The two inmates forced the door open when jailer Mr. Lord was entering the cell. Boyer hit Lord on the back of the ear and made his escape on foot into the street. They were quickly recaptured after the alarm was sounded, but not without a lot of commotion. The jail extended out two feet into the street, and because the inmates had successfully filed their shackles off, it was theorized that someone sneaked in a file to assist them in escaping. Boyer was recaptured yards away from the jail, and the other prisoner was captured a half hour later while hiding in a cornfield about a quarter mile away.
When the board of supervisors voted to have a new jail built (for the sum of $25,000), the old and run down jail went on the sale’s block. The money made from the building was put towards a fence for the courthouse square. The old jail was sold to Dr. Philip Kephart, who had come to Berrien Springs in 1841 from Maryland. He was married to one of the daughters of George Kimmel, Susanna. Dr. Kephart was a merchant who started the Pioneer drug store here in town. You might remember Phillip as the mastermind behind floating the ole Steamboat Hotel up the St. Joe River by raft, and reimagining it as the Hotel Oronoko, the first location for his drug store.
Kephart pulled off something similar with the old county jail. After he bought it in 1870, he moved it to a lot on Ferry Street and rented it to Charles Beshens, who used it as a harness shop until 1874, when the old jail was moved yet again – this time to the southwest corner of Ferry and Main Streets – and converted into the Kephart Drug Store. The old jail was given a facelift, with a vertical facade, and a storage room was attached to the back side. Myers theorizes that this move may have been influenced by the financial panic of 1873, but seeing as how Mr. Kephart was financially well off, it might have been simply because he liked repurposing old buildings.
The jail that became a harness shop and then a drug store stayed on in its capacity as a drug and dry goods store for a couple decades. It became as much of a fixture to the old town as we commonly think of Schug Drug or Krause’s Pharmacy in our era.
When Phillip died in 1880, his son Henry took over the business. Henry was born to Phillip Kephart and Susanna Kimmel in 1847 in Berrien Springs. He had entered into a partnership with his father in 1874, and when the patriarch of their family died in 1880, Henry’s brother Walter became a partner in the drug store for a period of six years. At that point, Henry bought out his brother, and he became sole proprietor of Kephart Drug Store until 1903 when he invited his son, Phillip, to be a part of the business, renaming it Kephart and Son Drug Store.
In 1908 the old jail that became a harness shop that became a drug store was moved yet again, this time closer to the street. Henry Kephart decided that his business needed a new, brick building and while one was being constructed behind it, it was business as usual out of the old jail. When the new building was complete, the old jail was again for sale for the low, low price of $250.
In 1909, according to the St. Joseph Herald, John Vradenburg bought the store from the Kepharts and moved it next to his house on South Harrison Street, later converting it into a private residence. The building was moved after midnight so as not to interfere with the Interurban traffic that existed along Main Street.
Meanwhile in the newer brick building, the Kephart Drug Store declared bankruptcy in 1917 and was re-opened under the new management of William Gersonde. B. A. Herman was running the store for about a year before it closed for good in 1918.
The old jail that became a harness shop that became a drug store had now become a house. This was the last incarnation the old building would have. The Vradenburgs both died in 1922. In 1930, the old jail was condemned as a fire hazard and it was torn down. New houses went up in its place.
Maybe when they tore down part of Berrien Springs history, the lumber was repurposed and might still be lurking around our old and quiet town. Maybe some of the wood from the old jail survived like bones from a skeleton, and it’s just hanging around, waiting to be discovered, bit by bit.
At least, that’s what I like to think happened to it.
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There is a Graham family plot in Rose Hill Cemetary. My mother, Mary Louise Hagen was buried there in 1968. The Graham line goes back to George Kimmel, I believe.
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Yes, I believe you’re right. Have you ever read Adeline and Julia by Robert C. Myers? It’s all about the Graham family.
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