During a forty-six-day raid north of the Ohio River, General John Hunt Morgan of Kentucky led Confederate cavalrymen into Meigs County. On July 18, 1863, advance forces in Chester burned Benjamin Knight's carding mill and sawmill, burned the Shade River Bridge, and pillaged local businesses while waiting two hours for the rest of the column to catch up. That delay postponed Morgan's arrival at the ford at Buffington Island until after dark, allowing Union troops to arrive before he could escape. Morgan surrendered eight days later near West Point in Columbiana County, the northernmost point ever reached by Confederate forces during the Civil War. Overlooking the commons in Chester is Meigs County's first courthouse, built in 1823 and one of only three extant Federal-style courthouse structures in Ohio. The courthouse was vacated in 1841 when the county seat moved to Pomeroy. Next to the former courthouse stands the three-story Meigs County High School and Teachers Institute, built in 1839 with a bell and cupola as a school of higher learning for all Meigs Countians on public land beside the courthouse. Both buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.