shire-town

The reputed distance of Groton from Cambridge [the shire-town] is

The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884 Various

Our first home in the little shire-town (then "Scottville") was at "Bellevue," a red brick house on a hill overlooking the hamlet.

Marion Harland's autobiography : the story of a long life, 1910

Accordingly, he was transmitted to Great Barrington, then the shire-town of Berkshire, and placed in the hands of General Fellows, High-Sheriff of the County, who immediately confined him in the County jail.

Camps and Firesides of the Revolution 1902

The shire-town was generally a small village and offered no inducements for assemblages of the people, except when twice a year the Circuit Courts were held.

The South in the olden time, Jabez Lamar Monroe 1901

Equity, when its citizens reflected that it was the central town in the county, and yet not the shire-town.

A Modern Instance William Dean Howells 1878

The shire-town of the great agricultural county of Middlesex, it is not disturbed by the feverish throb of factories, nor by any roar of inexorable toil but the few puffs of the locomotive.

Literary and Social Essays George William Curtis 1858

The men, who had been dispatched for the shire-town of the county, had ridden hard all night, reached the place at daylight, drummed up the officers of justice, got them started at an early hour, and urged them on with such speed that, within twenty hours, they had arrived at the scene of action.

Gaut Gurley D. P. Thompson 1831

On this proof they unanimously decided on a prosecution; and accordingly Phillips and Mark Elwood set off the next day for Lancaster, the shire-town on the

Gaut Gurley D. P. Thompson 1831

It is pleasantly seated in a valley, is of no great size, is but meanly built, though extremely neat, has a cathedral and a bishop, and is the shire-town of Hampshire.

Recollections of Europe James Fenimore Cooper 1820