History & local legend
William Stamford spent more than fifty years around Uniontown’s jail and courthouse, first as a prisoner and later as an unusually permanent presence on the grounds. He arrived at the jail in 1831 after entering Alexander Crow’s house while the family was at church and refusing to let them back in. A judge found him mentally ill and returned him to custody.
While imprisoned, Stamford struck another inmate, John Updegraff, with a piece of firewood, killing him. Years of confinement followed. Under Sheriff Snyder, however, he was allowed to work in the stables and around the public buildings. Eventually he could move about Uniontown freely, but usually chose to remain near the courthouse.
Franklin Ellis’s 1882 county history described Stamford while he was still alive, recalling poetry learned as a boy in England. He died in 1883, and part of an old courthouse column became the base of his gravestone in Oak Grove Cemetery.
Sources
- Franklin Ellis, History of Fayette County (1882), Stamford’s account and life at the courthouse
- Uniontown Historic Walking Tour, death in 1883 and courthouse stone at Oak Grove Cemetery
- Pennsylvania Heritage, successive courthouses on the site
- Sanborn Map Company, the old county jail and courthouse shown side by side in 1886, sheet 4
