George Peers

George Peers

Quick Facts

Significance:

Resident of Appomattox Court House and Appomattox County Clerk and for nearly 40 years.

Date of Birth:

1830

Date of Death:

1908

George Peers provided a lifetime of public service to the Appomattox community. Born in 1830 in the section of Campbell County that would later be apportioned to Appomattox County, Peers became a deputy sheriff for Appomattox County in 1850. Ten years later he was elected Clerk of Court, a post he retained for nearly 40 years, working at the courthouse in the heart of Appomattox Court House.

When Federal law prohibited former Confederates, including civil-servants, from participating in roles of government authority, Peers took the informal position of deputy clerk to ensure smooth operations at the courthouse. He also did a brief stint as Appomattox Court House’s postmaster. Peers died in 1908, two years after serving his final term as clerk.

Despite having served his county through the dark trials of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Peers most difficult day was likely February 2, 1892. That day, while Peers was elsewhere in the village a fire consumed the courthouse. The conflagration left nothing but a brick shell in its wake. Forty years of work by Peers recording deeds, marriages, outcomes of trials criminal and civil were reduced to ashes. As the result of the fire, a new courthouse was built in the present town of Appomattox, leaving Appomattox Court House largely a ghost town.