Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/276



B. Conway, the Secretary, when notified of his appointment at his home in Pittsburg, had hurried to the Territory and assumed the duties of Governor, issued a proclamation for an election, signing the document “Acting Governor.” Governor Lucas quietly ignored the presumptuous act of the Secretary and at once entered upon the discharge of his duties.

The first official act of the Governor was to issue a proclamation, dated August 13, 1838, dividing the Territory into eight representative districts and apportioning the members of the Council and House among the nineteen counties then organized. The Legislature elected met at the old Zion Church in Burlington on the 12th day of November, 1838. Jesse B. Browne, of Lee County, was chosen President of the Council and William H. Wallace, of Henry County, Speaker of the House. The Democrats had a large majority in each branch of the Legislature but partisan considerations were ignored in the election of presiding officers, both being members of the Whig Party. The members were largely young men, fourteen of the twenty-six in the House were under thirty-five years of age and ten of the fourteen members of the Council were under forty. Among the youthful members of this First Territorial Legislature of Iowa were several of marked ability, who attained high positions in the State and Nation. James W. Grimes, who was the youngest member of the House, being but twenty-two years of age, became Governor of the State and later a distinguished United States Senator. Stephen Hempstead, a member of the Council, who was but twenty-six years of age, became the second Governor of the State in 1850. S. C. Hastings, a member of the House, twenty-four years old, was afterward elected to Congress and in 1846 was Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court.

Governor Lucas in his message recommended a careful revision of the judicial system from which should be excluded all technical and ambiguous rules of practice, that