THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. T HE Ordinance was adopted by the Congress, July 13, 1787, and the first officers for the territory northwest of the River Ohio were elected by the same body in October. They were: Governor, Major General Arthur St. Clair, elected October 5 (Pennsylvania); Secretary, Major Winthrop Sargent, elected October 5; Judges, General Samuel Holden Parsons, elected October 17 (Connecticut); General James Mitchell Varnum, elected October 17 (Rhode Island); Colonel John Armstrong, elected October 17 (Pennsylvania); Lieutenant Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., elected February 19, 1788. Colonel Armstrong declined the post tendered to him by the Congress and did not come to Ohio. Judge Meigs was elected to fill the vacancy. Although these officers were appointed in the fall and winter of 1787-8, there was no settlement of the new country until the arrival of the Mayflower with a party of forty-six New England emigrants, at the mouth of the Muskingum river, on the seventh day of April, 1788. In the absence of the constituted authority, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, father of the judge of that name, drew up a code of rules on a sheet of ordinary foolscap, which he published by tacking them to the trunk of a large oak tree on the site of the infant settlement. This was the first legislation in the territory, and it is said that the code was rigidly adhered to by the pioneers of that country. The late General Manning F. Force, in an historical sketch in "Bench and Bar of Ohio" (1897), is authority for the statement that "history has recorded no infraction of these regulations which were read and approved by all." Governor St. Clair, who had been occupied since his appointment in continuous efforts to conciliate the Indians of the territory, and in preparing for the needs of the infant settlement, arrived at Marietta with his official family on Wednesday, July 9, and on Tuesday, July 15, in public ceremonies held in the three-months-old town of Marietta, entered upon the discharge of his official duties. The Ordinance of 1787 was read to the settlers by Secretary Winthrop Sargent, after which the commissions of the Governor, Secretary and the Judges were publicly read, and the Governor addressed the people briefly. The territorial government thus set up consisted of the following officers who were present and participated in the ceremony: Governor, Arthur St. Clair; Secretary, Winthrop Sargent; Judges, Parsons and The First Legislative Council of the Northwest Territory (1788). This group of officers comprised the First Legislative Council of the Northwest Territory, and during the summer and fall of the year published at Marietta laws on the following subjects: (1788), July 25—Regulating and establishing the Militia. (1788), August 23-Establishing General Courts of Quarter Sessions, Common Pleas, and for the appointment of Sheriffs. (1788), August 30-Establishing a Court of Probate. (1788), August 30-Fixing the terms of the General Court. (1788), November 23-Regulating marriages (age for male 17, female 14, with consent of fathers of parties). (1788), November 23-Fixing monthly fines for failure of recruit in militia to provide himself with the proper equipment. (1788), December 21-Creating the office of Coroner. (1788), December 28-Limiting the times of civil actions and for instituting criminal prosecutions. Each of the above laws was undersigned by Messrs. St. Clair, Parsons, and Varnum, on the dates given, the signature of Judge John Cleves Symmes appearing on the law of August 30,-establishing a Court of Probate but on no other. His arrival in the colony is thus fixed at a much earlier day than that given in most authorities.-(Territorial Laws.) Governor St. Clair withheld his approval to a proposed law relating to estates held in common; he also, on July 30, called the attention of the judges to the provision of the ordinance which empowered them to "adopt" the laws of the older states, and expressed it as his opinion that they were overstepping their authority in forming new laws in any case; "And when we do," he adds, "the necessity of the case only can be our justification." This opinion of the Governor was fully borne out, when, at a later period, the council found it wise to repeal by wholesale laws of their own making which had no foundation in the code of the older states, and adopt others which conformed to this requirement in their stead. (St. Clair Papers.) Judge Varnum died in 1789. T THE SECOND LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. (1789.) ' HE ratification of the Constitution of the United States by a sufficient number of states having occurred during the latter part of the year 1784, and President Washington having assumed the reins of government thereunder, it was construed to be the duty of the Executive to appoint such officers whose commissions, having been issued by the Congress under the old form of government, were held to have expired with that government. In pursuance of this conception of his duty, the President, in a letter dated New York, August 18, 1789, nominated for the officers of the Northwest Territory: Arthur St. Clair, for Governor, and Messrs. Samuel Holden Parsons, John Cleves Symmes, and William Barton (vice Varnum, deceased), Judges. The nominations were confirmed by the Senate of the United States, but Mr. Barton declining the appointment, the President nominated Mr. George Turner, who was confirmed on the eighth day of September. There is no public record of the acts of the council during the year 1789. In November of this year, Judge Parsons, who was the Chief Justice of the court, was drowned in a ford in the Muskingum valley, while returning to the seat of government from a treaty council with the Indians of the Western Reserve. T THE THIRD LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. (1790.) HE year 1790 was marked by the sitting of the Council in the 'farther west, at the town of Vincennes (more generally known at that day by the name of "au Post"). Winthrop Sargent, Secretary and acting Governor, sat with Messrs. Symmes and Turner, Governor St. Clair being absent in the eastern states, and no successor sitting in the room of Judge Parsons, who had been succeeded by General Rufus Putnam, Jr., of Marietta. This council, in its meeting at Vincennes, published the following laws, which were afterwards disapproved and ordered to be repealed by the Congress, as having no foundation in the older laws to which the territorial council was confined by the Ordinance of 1787. July 19-An act prohibiting the giving or selling of intoxicating liquors to Indians. July 26-An act restricting the sale of intoxicating liquors to soldiers, and to prevent the pawning or selling of arms, ammunition, clothing and accoutrements. August 4-An act suppressing gambling and making void all contracts and payments made in consequence thereof. Removing to the town of Cincinnati, the council passed, in November-Governor St. Clair having resumed his attendance with the body, and Secretary Winthrop Sargent retiring-the following laws: November 4-An act to alter the terms of the General Court. November 5—An act to augment the terms of the County Courts. November 6-An act to authorize the Courts of Quarter Sessions to divide the counties into townships, and to appoint constables, overseers of the poor, and township clerks. T THE LAWS OF 1791. HE body to which has been given in this volume the designation of the Third Legislative Council, was permitted to serve until no change in its official membership, except that in the absence of the Governor his seat was occupied by the Secretary as Acting Governor, from the appointment of Judge Putnam in the winter of 1790 to 1796, when Judge Putnam resigned his seat on the bench and in the council to accept the office of Surveyor General of the United States, to which he had been appointed by President Washington. Messrs. St. Clair, Symmes and Turner affixed their signatures to the following laws in the year 1791, and caused the same to be published at Cincinnati: June 22-An act supplementary to the act of September 6, 1798, respecting crimes. June 22-An act for the punishment of persons who deface publications set up by authority. June 22-An act creating the office of clerk of the legislature. June 22-An act making the records of the courts of the United States evidence in the courts of this territory. June 22-An act abolishing the distinction between murder and petit treason. June 29-An act regulating the enclosures of ground; and on July 2-An act to amend the militia laws of 1788 as to days of muster, and fines for disobedience. |