This courthouse was built in 1838 in the Greek Revival style and featured four sandstone columns in front that were quarried from the Spoon River bottom.

In this building, prominent local attorneys such as Abraham Lincoln, Edward Dickinson Baker and James Shields argued cases of law, and Stephen A. Douglas was a presiding judge.

Despite having the same party affiliation, the two men had political differences, and Major Walker in his later years remarked that he used to give Lincoln "Hail Columbia.

"[1] Walker strongly opposed the building of the Illinois Central Railroad, which was a major measure before the state legislature at the time, whereas Lincoln was a staunch supporter of its construction.

[5] Following his death, a number of newspapers throughout the country published his obituary, including The Denver Evening Post[13] and the New York Tribune.

Oak Hill Cemetery is also the location of the "Lincoln pillars:" two sandstone columns that were retrieved from the burnt remains of the old Fulton County courthouse that Major Walker had designed.

This verse is from "The Hill," the introductory section of the work, and it likely refers to Walker having known such men as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Henry Clay when he lived in Virginia.

[6] The burning of the courthouse that Walker designed is also immortalized in Masters' Spoon River Anthology, in the section "Silas Dement:" And the Spoon River ladder company Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water On the glorious bonfire, growing hotter, Higher and brighter, till the walls fell in, And the limestone columns where Lincoln stood Crashed like trees when the woodman fells them ... As has been noted,[6] Masters engaged in poetic license regarding the effects of the fire.

[17] This 1+1⁄2-story brick building with hard maple flooring and cherry wood trim was built on property that Walker had bought from Ossian Ross.