On February 19, 1803, Congress passed an act "to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States within the State of Ohio" and organized Ohio as a judicial district with one judgeship for the U.S. district court. Not being assigned to a judicial circuit, the district court in Ohio was granted the same jurisdiction as U.S. circuit courts, except in appeals and writs of error, which were the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Act also required that court sessions be held at Chillicothe.3
The date of March 1, 1803, is considered the date on which Ohio became a state of the Union,4 because that was the earliest date that the Ohio Legislature could assembly and take over from the territoral government. The first Ohio Constitution expressly provided in the third section of the schedule that "the Governor, Secretary and Judges, and all other officers under the territorial government shall continue in the exercise of the duties of their respective departments, until said officers are superseded under the authority of the Constitution."5
On March 3, 1803, Charles Willing Byrd was appointed the first judge of the Ohio District. The first court, organized as the U. S. District Court of Ohio, sat in the above pictured two-story stone structure in Chillicothe. The Ohio Common Pleas Court and the Ohio Supreme Court were also held there. The second district court building was constructed on Broad Street in Columbus around 1820 and court was held there until the district divided in 1855.
