History of the Office of Clerk of Court

The office of the Clerk of Court was established in 1821 by the territorial governor, none other than Andrew Jackson. Within two days of Jackson accepting possession of Florida, the governor appointed a clerk of court and assigned duties to him, not the least of which was to aggressively obtain the land records from the Spanish officials who had those records.

The Clerk and Governor had such resistance to obtaining the land records that they had the former Spanish governor arrested and every since then, the Clerks' job has been challenging!

In those early days, as new counties were created and clerks appointed, many times the court had to use the clerk's house to hold court until the county could build a courthouse! The funding mechanism for the early territorial Florida Clerks was the fee system, where users of the courts pay filing fees, copy fees, etc. to fund the office. This system is still the major office funding source today.

In the first state constitution, the office of the clerk of court was established and the duties defined, and this has been combined with other statutory functions set out in Florida Statutes.