Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/215

 PIISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 155 Stephen F. Austin from Washington county; Isidore Moore, David F. Marks, William Shannon, and Jacob Walters from Ste. Gene- vieve eouuty ; Johnson Ranney, Robert Eng- lish, Joseph Sewell, Brastus Ellis, and James Ravenscroft from Cape Girardeau eoimty; Stephen Ross from New Madrid county ; Perry G. Magness, Joseph Harden, and John Davidson from Lawrence coiuity. The follow- ing were members of the comieil : John D. Cook, Ste. Genevieve; Samuel Perry, Wash- ington ; George F. Bollinger, Cape Girardeau ; Robert D. Dawson, New Madrid. This gen- eral assembly created a number of coiuities. Those in the southeast were Jefi'erson. Wayne, and ]Iadison. It also abolished Lawrence county. It was at this meeting of the assem- bly that a memorial was prepared praying for the establishment of a state government. This memorial was afterward presented to Con- gress. The assembly also redistricted the state into three judicial circuits : Ste. Gene- vieve, Madison, Wayne, New Madrid, and Cape Girardeau composed the southern cir- cuit, the other southeast counties became a part of the northern circuit; the third cir- cuit, known as the northwestern, included no Southeast iJissouri territory. The first judge of the southern circuit was Honorable Richard S. Thomas. At the time of his appointment he was a resident of Ste. Genevieve, but afterward moved to Jackson, where he resided until his death. Judge Thomas was a native of Virginia, had lived some years in Ohio, where he married. He came to Ste. Genevieve in 1810, and engaged in the practice of law. In 1811 he appeared as counsel for the defendant in a murder case. Judge Thomas was not a lawj-er of high rank, and he became very vmpopular with the bar. As a consequence of this impopularity, he was impeached and a number of charges were pre- ferred against him in the impeachment pro- ceeding. Most of them seem to have been rather trivial in nature, and to reflect the hos- tility which he aroused, rather than to ex- hibit any very grave errors in his conduct as a judge. One of the charges against him was that he had behaved in an arbitrary, oppress- ive, unjust and partial manner in refusing to recognize John Juden, Jr., as clerk of the cir- cuit court. He took the position that the of-. fice was made vacant by the amendment to the constitution of 1822 and appointed his son, Claiborne S. Thomas, as clerk, and or- dered that the records and papers of this of- fice be delivered up to him. He was further charged with having illegally adjourned the April term of the court in 1823, on the pre- tense that his son, whom he had appointed clerk, had not received the records of the court. It was further charged that he had shown partiality toward his son in a suit be- tween the son and Charles G. Ellis, and that he had entered into an agreement with the counsel for Doctor Ezekiel Fenwick, who had been chai-ged with murder, to admit him to bail, on condition of his surrender to the sheriff. The articles of impeachment were presented to the house of representatives in February, 1825. Judge Thomas denied the charges, but was fomid guilty and removed from office on March 25th. He then resumed the practice of law at Jackson, but was killed within a short time by being thrown from his horse while on his way to attend court at Greenville. The most conspicuous la^'yer in the early days in Southeast Missouri was John Scott. He, too, was a Virginian, and had graduated at Princeton college. He lived for a short time in Vincennes, Indiana, and came to Ste. Genevieve in 1806. Scott was well versed in