Surveyor William Parsons laid out the City of Easton in a grid radiating from the Great Square, where the original Northampton County courthouse was erected in 1765. On July 8, 1776, Robert Levers stood on the courthouse steps to read the Declaration of Independence to the gathered public in one of only three public readings of the document throughout the colonies. Since about 1752, the Great Square has also been the site of the oldest continuously operating open-air farmer’s market in the United States, and it remains one of Easton’s primary gathering places. The old courthouse site is now occupied by the 75-foot-tall Civil War Monument, formally named the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, an obelisk topped by the Bugler that was dedicated to local veterans in 1900 and designed to honor all members of the armed forces who fought in the Civil War. The first Northampton County Courthouse was built on this site in 1756 beside the jailhouse, Easton’s first public building, and served until 1861, when the current county courthouse was constructed on Walnut Street.
