But, despite this, and because of the divided sentiment of the people and the inaction of the Council, the Court did not build a court house, and at a later meeting voted four to four on a motion to rescind their previous order. After various moves and counter moves, the issue was carried into a regular election held in March, 1851, and a Council in favor of a new Court House was chosen. The erection of the present structure in 1852 ended a thirty years disagreement, which built up bitter factions in the town and left animosities, which did not subside until the Civil War came on. For many years, until the new Fire House was built, the old hand-drawn fire apparatus was housed in the south wing of the building. The bell which is now in the tower of the Court House, formerly hung in the second court house, and sounded the call to public meetings, as it does today, and the alarms of fire and war. It was presented to the town by Silas Wood in 1828, and has his name and that date on it, as well as the name of the maker, "Revere, Boston." [Sidenote: _How Debtors Were Treated_] From the earliest times, debtors who could not pay their bills were imprisoned in the jail in Court House square or, more properly, slept in the jail and were imprisoned in the square; for they were allowed the freedom of the whole square and the adjacent streets, but were not allowed to enter any store or building on the opposite sides of the streets. Many men of prominence, it is said, spent short periods in this "Debtors' Prison," awaiting the time when their release could be secured under the "Poor Debtors' Law," which gave them freedom when by a schedule of their property they proved they had no means to meet their obligations. In 1840, the Court extended the bounds of the "Debtors' Prison" to include four blocks in the center of the city, and the "footways adjoining them"; but to go beyond these bounds was contempt of Court. No existing records establish what Courts held session in Fredericksburg prior to the Revolution, and it is probable that successors of Mayor Lawrence Smith were empowered as Governors and Judges until 1727, after which time the Trustees of the town may have chosen magistrates, or the colonial Governors may have done this. [Sidenote: _History of the Courts_]