Dabney Cosby took the contract for the Pitt County Courthouse, but after disputes with the commissioners over the design and the cost, he left the project, and the building was redesigned and given to another contractor. See Catherine W. Bishir, Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III, Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building (1990) for an account of the dispute.