The First Session of the Second Territorial General Assembly. 22. An act altering the times of holding certain courts in the County of Ross. January 9, 1802. 23. An act appropriating one thousand dollars of the tax levied in Trumbull County to open a road to the south. January 13, 1802. 24. An act providing for the recovery of money secured by mortgage. January 20, 1802. 25. An act allowing compensation to the assembly and to the treas urer and auditor of the territory. January 1, 1802. 26. An act establishing the "American Western University" at Athens (now the Ohio University). January 9, 1802. 27. An act to postpone the sale of land for taxes in the counties of Trumbull, Jefferson and Wayne. December 12, 1801. 28. An act authorizing the town of Marietta to preserve the banks of the rivers in said town. December 23, 1801. 29. An act repealing that part of a former act which allowed the judges of the General Court two dollars per day. January 20, 1802. 30. An act appointing trustees for the town of Manchester, Adams County. January 1, 1802. 31. An act fixing the compensation for attorneys commissioned to practice in the Counties of Washington and Trumbull. January 20, 1802. 32. An act defining and regulating the duties of the Secretary of the territory. January 1, 1802. 33. An act to incorporate the town of Chillicothe. January 4, 1802. January 1, 1802. 35. An act to incorporate the town of Detroit. January 18, 1802. 36. An act authorizing Zacheus Biggs and Zacheus A. Beatty to erect a bridge over Will's creek. (On the road leading from Chillicothe to Wheeling in Washington County.) January 9, 1802. 37. An act authorizing Jonathan Zane and others to erect a toll bridge over the Muskingum river (near the mouth of Licking creek). January 23, 1802. 1802. 38. An act for the relief of Sally Mills. (Divorce.) December 19, 39. An act for the relief of Jean Wilson. (Divorce.) January 9, 1802. 40. An act making appropriations. January 23, 1802. The salaries of the governor and territorial judges were paid by the general government until the adoption of the Constitution of Ohio, but the other expenses of the local government were paid by the Territory. This bill appropriates the sum of twelve thousand dollars for what is called a contingent fund, and then provides for its disbursement in detail. Some of the items are interesting as conveying information as to the nature and amount of the territorial expenses a hundred years ago. The governor is allowed fifty dollars for postage "upon letters of a public nature." The First Session of the Second Territorial General Assembly. The treasurer is allowed ten dollars for stationery for his office and fifty dollars for the purchase of “an iron chest for the territory.” The private secretary to the governor is allowed three dollars per day for time actually employed, but is not allowed more than thirty days' pay in the year. The legislature is allowed a total sum of eight thousand five hundred dollars. From the general fund, the following allowances were ordered: To Arthur St. Clair, Jr., attorney-general, a salary of $400. To the auditor of public accounts, a salary of $750. To the auditor of public accounts, postage for two years, $75.41. To auditor of public accounts, extra clerk hire, $95. To the territorial treasurer, a salary of $400. To Daniel McAllister, fire-wood, $26. To William Rutledge, repairs two houses, $4. To James Phillips, three dozen chairs for the legislature, $72. For repairs to court house for reception of legislature, etc., $16.10. RESOLUTIONS. 1. Requesting the governor to appoint a day of Thanksgiving. December 5, 1801. 2. Appointing two trustees to fill certain vacancies. December 5. 3. Directing the auditor to sell the furniture provided for the present and last session of the legislature. January 23, 1802. 4. Extending the election laws to Clermont, Fairfield and Belmont Counties and to such counties as may hereafter be laid out. January 23, 1802. 5. Directing the disposition of reports on the Cincinnati and Marietta public road. January 23, 1802. 6. Directing certain laws to be reprinted in the appendix to the volume of laws for this session. The above acts and resolutions were attested by Edward Tiffin, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Robert Oliver, President of the Council; and were approved on the dates above given by Arthur St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory. The volume from which the above abstract was made was printed by N. Willis, Chillicothe, 1802, and is in possession of the Supreme oCurt Library, Columbus. THE QUESTION OF THE BOUNDARY OF THE STATE. THE HE question of boundary, though not expressly referred to the con vention (The Constitutional Convention of 1802) was one of greater importance than would appear at first view. It is generally known to those who have consulted the maps of the western country extant at the time the Ordinance of 1887 was passed, that Lake Michigan was represented as being very far north of the position which it has since been ascertained to occupy. On a map in the Department of State (at Washington) which was before the committee of Congress who formed the ordinance for the government of the Territory, the southern boundary of that lake was laid down as being near the forty-second degree of north latitude, and there was a pencil line passing through the southern bend of the lake, to the Canada line, which intersected the strait between the River Raisin and the town of Detroit. The line was manifestly intended by the committee, and by Congress, to be the northern boundary of this state; and that map, and the line marked on it, should have been taken as conclusive evidence of the boundary, without reference to the actual position of the southern extreme of the lake. When the Convention was in session in 1802, it was the prevailing opinion that the old maps were correct; and that the line, as defined in the ordinance, would terminate at some point on the strait far above the Maumee Bay; but, while that subject was under discussion, a man who had hunted many years on Lake Michigan and was well acquainted with its position, happened to be in Chillicothe, and in conversation with some of the members, mentioned to them that the lake extended much farther south than was geenerally supposed; and that a map he had seen placed its southern bend many miles north of its true position. His statement produced some apprehension and excitement on the subject, and induced the convention to change the line prescribed in the act of Congress, so far as to provide that if it should be found to strike Lake Erie below the Maumee River, as the hunter informed them it would, then the boundary of the state should be a line drawn from the point where the prescribed line interesected the west boundary of the state, direct to the most northern cape of the Maumee Bay. That provision saved to the State of Ohio the valuable ports and harbors on the Maumee River and bay, which were the prie contended for in the "Michigan war of Governor Lucas." "Yet some of the members (of the Convention) hesitated in making the provision, lest it might cause delay; but fortunately it was adopted and its object is now secure." (Burnett's "Notes on the Northwestern Territory," 1847, p. 360.) (See also the language of the Acts of Congress, 1800, 1802-1812, quoted in Part I of this publication.-EDITOR. 11-B. A. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. (1803-1902.) T HE third legislative body to come into power in the territory comprised in the present state was the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, which, following the adoption of the State Constitution and the admission of the state into the Union of States, was organized for its first session, on the first day of March, 1803. The legislative body thus inaugurated has been an enormous factor for good in the onward and forward progress of Ohio during the past hundred years. No group of men have served the state with so little personal gain as have her legislators. No body of public men has done so much to encourage morality, industry and aptriotism. The wonder of it is not that legislators have occasionally made personal mistakes-but that in no matter what strait or dilemma, Ohio has always had in her service, practically without compensation, so many men who were not only patriots, but men who exhibited the wisdom and had the courage to handle the affairs of state with honor to themselves, to their constituents and the name of an Ohioan. When the enormous power of a General Assembly is fairly understood, the more honor is found to be due those men who, since the first settler landed on the western bank of the Ohio, in 1788, have never used that power as a body, except to advance the state in dignity and in prosperity, and in evidences of fealty in every hour of danger to the general government. More or less acquaintance with members of recent assemblies, and a quite studious attention to the records of the past century in Ohio, gives point to these observations. |