Fuller Story Marker: Franklin's Town Square

This marker indicates the location of a two-story brick courthouse that was constructed in 1809 and the role that the nearby market house played in the sale of human beings as slaves. The “market house” where farmers and vendors sold their produce and wares stood “in close proximity” to the courthouse and for half a century human beings were sold and traded within the market house’s walls as well as on the courthouse steps and elsewhere in the square. The original courthouse was demolished in 1855 to make way for the new courthouse on the south side of the square. Soon after, the market house was also torn but the selling of people, however, continued on the new courthouse steps and in the square through the outbreak of the Civil War.