Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/229

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 169 Hawkins, Martin Ruggles and John Andrews to select the permanent seat of justice. They held a meeting in the fall of 1813 and selected Jline a Breton as a temporary meeting place for the court. The first judges of the court of common pleas were Martin Ruggles, William Sloan and John Stanton, who met on the first Monday in January, 1814, in the house of Benjamin Elliott, with John Brickey as clerk. The first sheriff was Lemuel Brown. Brown was a nephew of Colonel Burr and was after- ward killed in a duel by John Smith T. The first business transacted by this court was the appointment of an administrator for the estate of William Blanford ; John Perry was appointed. At a meeting on the 13th of Jan- uary, 1814, Charles Lucas was granted per- mission to practice law before the courts of the county; he" was the first lawyer admitted to the bar. For two years there was no court except the court of common pleas, but in 181.5 the county court was organized and also- the circuit court. At the time of the organiza- tion of these new courts a log jail was erected on the public sc^uare in the original town of Potosi. This town was laid out on a tract of land northeast of the old town of Mine a Breton and donated by Moses Austin and John Rice Jones. Lots were sold in this new town and the money from their sale was used for the building of a court house, the total cost of which was $5,595. The citizens of Potosi at this time wished to make the town the capital of the state and the court hoiLse was designed to be used as a capitol building. The contractor for the court house was unable to finish the work and the upper story was never completed. In 1849 a contract was let for the building of the present structure at a cost of $10,000. The first term of the court was held at Mine a Breton in April, 1815, by David Bar- ton, judge of the northern circuit, and Rich- ard S. Thomas of the southern circuit. The lawyers who practiced before the courts of Washington county were, many of them, very able men ; among them were Israel McGready, Daniel Dunklin, David E. Perryman, John S. Brickey, Phillip Cole and Henry Shurlds. The county was divided into eleven to'n- ships: Belgrade, Bellevue, Breton, Concord, Harmony, Johnson, Kingston, Liberty, Rich- woods, Union and Walton. Potosi was made the coimty seat. It was originally a mining camp near Mine a Breton. Potosi was separated from the old village of Mine a Breton by a fork of Breton creek. It was a typical mining village in the early days and contained several rather pretentious dwellings and was rather better built and a more pleasant town than other towns of the district. There were three stores, two distilleries, a flour mill, some lead furnaces, one saw mill and post office. The mail was brought from St. Louis and also from Ste. Genevieve once each week. There was also a monthly mail from Arkansas. The most pretentious and commodious residence in town was Durham Hall, which we have previously described as the home of Moses Austin. Austin and his son, Samuel Perry, John Rice Jones, Elijah Bates, and Brickey, were among the principal residents of the town in the early times. The town grew slowly and was supported almost entirely by the lead mines. These mines in the immediate vicin- ity of Potosi produced in the period from 1798 to 1818 nearly ten million pounds of lead. Perry coimty was created by the legislature by a law passed November 16, 1820, but the coimty court was not organized luitil May 21, 1821. The meeting was held at the house of Bede Moore, who lived about two and one-