Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/172

 government.

On August i6th, a bill was reported "to prevent litigation." If such a meas- ure was proposed to the legislature of the present day, the lawyers and judges would be paralyzed.

On August i8th, the house went into secret session to fill the office of su- preme judge of Oregon, which resulted in choosing Peter H. Burnett for that position.

Mr. Burnett accepted the office, and so far as is known, discharged its duties to the satisfaction of the people and credit of himself. After the United States assumed control, and organized the territorial government, Mr. Burnett removed to California and became governor of that state.

The following are the proceedings for the ensuing session of the legislature for August 19, 1845:

"On motion of Mr. B. Lee,

Resolved: That when this house adjourns tomorrow night, it adjourn sine die.

On motion of Mr. Hill,

Resolved: That all resolutions and other proceedings of this house calculated to cast censure upon the speaker, be expunged from the journals, and the clerk is hereby authorized to erase the same; which, after some discussion, was laid upon the table.

The house proceeded to the election of district judges, for the Clackamas district, which resulted in the choice of P. G. Stewart for district judge for three years ; Fred Prigg for two years, and F. VV. Pettigrove for one year ; and William Holmes was elected sheriff for Clackamas county.

The house then proceeded to the election of district judges for Clatsop dis- trict, which resulted in the choice of W. T. Perry for three years; Robert Short- ess for two years, and Calvin Tibbits for one year; and Thomas Owens was duly elected sheriff for Clatsop county.

The house proceeded to the election of district judges for the district of Vancouver, which resulted in the choice of James Douglas for three years ; M. T. Simmons for two years, and Charles Forrest for one year. John R. Jackson was elected sheriff for Vancouver district. The house adjourned to 9 o'clock tomorrow morning."

Governor Abernethy sent in his annual message, but it has been lost, as well as his first message. So far in this history of the legislature, bills on all sorts of subjects had been proposed but very few of them adopted ; and very few of these old provisional laws can now be found. To determine the character of the legislation, we have to depend on the journal of the legislature printed in the "archives."

It is to the honor of W. H. Gray, whose daughter, Mrs. Jacob Kamm, resides in this city, and other descendants at Astoria, that he prepared and in- troduced, December 13, 1845, into the first legislative body west of the Rocky mountains, the first law to provide for the education of all children by common public schools.

On December i6th, Mr. McClure introduced a bill to provide for postoffices and post roads. On the same day the committee of the whole reported a bill to authorize Sam K. Barlow to construct the wagon road over the mountains south of Mt. Hood, and which is the same road the Portland automobilists are now using for "joy rides" to the mountains. A large part of the immigration to Oregon passed over that road to reach Portland and Oregon City.

On Friday, December 19, W. G. T' Vault was elected postmaster-general of Oregon. T'Vault, "old T" as everybody called him, v.^as a rare gem. Coming from Arkansas, he had all the vernacular of the colored population, with an odd cargo of miscellaneous information and a limited amount of book educa- tion. Dryden might have had "old T" in mind when he wrote: