In 1849, the county seat of Middlesex was moved from Urbanna to Saluda. Engineer John P. Hill completed the present courthouse in 1852. During the Civil War, Federal cavalrymen stationed in Yorktown made several excursions through the county. Court clerk Philemon T. Woodward (1852-1892) concealed the county’s colonial records nearby in Dragon Swamp, thereby saving a rich source of local history from potential Union souvenir hunters. Virginia’s first county museum was established in the old clerk’s office in 1935, and Works Progress Administration workers constructed the brick wall enclosing the complex during the same decade.