After a number of laws had been enacted by this territorial legislature and had been published by Congress in two small volumes called “Laws of the Governor and Judges,” the House passed a bill declaring all the laws of the territory thus enacted null and void. While the bill did not pass the Senate, it was stated that the members of that body were in agreement with the House, but that they did not pass the bill because they felt that these laws of the territory were null without any action by Congress. The governor and judges found themselves without laws with which to govern. The legal structure which they had been industriously building was about to tumble down to ruin. The last of these worthless laws that they enacted bore the date of August 1, 1792.
St. Clair wished to assemble the legislature, which it will be remembered, was composed of himself and the three judges, to adopt laws in accordance with the requirements of the ordinance, in order that the territorial government might be administered by constitutional authority.
On July 25, 1793, he called the legislature of the territory to convene in Cincinnati on September 1 of the same year. Due to the difficulties of communication and transportation it was found impossible, however, to meet on September 1, 1793, and it was not until the twenty-ninth day of May, 1795, that a majority of the members of the legislature were able to assemble in Cincinnati. In other words, it took about 20 months to assemble to meet this emergency and adopt a new code of laws to take the place of those which had been nullified by Congress.
Finally, St. Clair, Symmes and George Turner, who had been appointed to take the place of Varnum, deceased, met in Cincinnati on May 29, 1795, to adopt a code of laws. The remaining judge, Rufus Putnam, was not in attendance.
This is the first recorded meeting of a legislative body within the present limits of Ohio and the territory northwest of the Ohio River. This legislature chose its officers and assembled in regular session until it concluded its labors and provided for the publication, in the Maxwell code, of the laws it adopted, the very first published in the Northwest Territory.
Governor Arthur St. Clair presided. Judges John Cleves Symmes and George Turner were the floor members. Accordingly, there were just enough members present to conduct the legislative proceedings—one member to make a motion, another to second it, the presiding governor to put it to a vote. Armstead Churchill was chosen and commissioned clerk of the legislature. He appears not only to have kept a record of the proceedings, but to have prepared drafts of bills for consideration. He received eight cents for every one hundred words that he wrote.
St. Clair read a lengthy address to the two judges. In the opening sentences one can gather some knowledge of the difficulties with which these pioneer legislators had to contend. There were no roads, no steamboats, no coaches, no telegraph. The mails were uncertain, few and far between. Prowling Indians had not ceased to be a menace. Rivers often could not be forded and there were few ferries. The “highways” of travel were the “low ways”—the rivers winding through the unbroken solitudes of the primeval forests.
The Ohio was often difficult to navigate. In February, 1795, Judge Symmes made an effort to meet St. Clair at Marietta. We quote the result from one of his letters:
“On the 20th of February, therefore, I set out from Cincinnati on my passage up the river, and was buffeted by high waters, drifting ice, heavy storms of wind and rain, frost and snow for twenty-three days and nights, without sleeping once in all that time in any house after leaving Columbia. I waited in vain twelve days at Marietta for the coming of the Governor, and, he not appearing, I returned home.”
Travel in these times was not only inconvenient and difficult, but dangerous. Parsons, one of the first judges of the Northwest Territory, lost his life by drowning, on his return journey from the Western Reserve in 1789 down the Big Beaver.