organic law, which required that every act should embrace but one object.
These preliminaries being settled it was agreed that each commissioner should take one subject and prepare the draft for an act upon that particular branch of the law. During the preparation of these drafts the commissioners held frequent consultations, as often as once or twice a week, to discuss and agree upon the proper phraseology to be adopted, or arrangement of subject-matter in the proposed act.
It was agreed among us that Mr. Boise should prepare the act relating to executors and administrators, and also proceedings in the probate courts.
To Mr. Bigelow was assigned the duty of preparing the act relating to crimes and misdemeanors, and to regulate criminal proceedings. I undertook to prepare the code of civil procedure in actions at law and suits in equity.
These three subjects embraced the greater part of the laws which we undertook to prepare, and, after their completion, the remaining portion of our work was comparatively easy and brief. According to my recollection it was completed in the latter part of the summer or early fall of 1853. We prepared the draft for an entirely new code of statutory laws, with the single exception of the law relating to wills. This had been enacted by the legislative assembly in 1849, at its first session, the main features of it being a transcript from the Missouri statute on the same subject. As this was one of the first acts passed by our own legislation we adopted it in our draft with only a few verbal changes.
In the spring of 1853 Joseph G. Wilson, afterwards Judge Wilson of the supreme court, came to Oregon, and about May we employed him as our clerk to transcribe the drafts prepared by us, in order that they could be printed for the use of the legislative assembly at its
