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The Supreme Court of Indiana.

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were as much in force in the one part as March, in the year one thousand eight hundred in the other, and therefore that there was and one. The commissions of the Judges of the no need of re-enacting or re-adopting them. General Court being read in Open Court, they In fact, hy a decision of the territorial court took their seats, and present William Clarke, Henry Vanderburgh, and John Griffin, Judges. in 1803, a law passed in the Northwest Henry Hurst, Clerk of the General Court, having Territory after 1800 was held to be still in produced his commission from the Governor and force in Wayne County, which was added to a certificate of his- having taken the oath of alle Indiana Territory in 1802; and that, too, giance and oath of office, took his place. [He notwithstanding the fact that an entirely was afterwards Clerk of the United States Court

for the District of Indi different law was in ana.] John Rice Jones, force in the remainder Attorney-General, pro of Indiana. This con duced his commission, struction of the laws and a certificate of his of the Northwest Ter having taken the oath of ritory was of great allegiance and oath of importance to Indi office." ana; for it had been Then follows the clearly demonstrated return of the sheriff that laws adopted from the original States (but who he is, is were unfitted to the not said), of " a panel new country and in of the Grand Jury," adequate. This was "nineteen good and one of the factors lawful men." which had brought After the impanel about a change in the ling of the grand jury, government of the an order is entered for Northwest Territory, the examination of previous to itsdivision, Robert Hamilton and Gen. Washington by advancing it to the second stage of terri Johnston, on "the first torial government, and Monday in Septem ber," "for counsellor's the election of a leg ISAAC BLACKFORD. degree agreeably to a islature which had the law of the Territory;" power to enact new laws fitted to the place, time, and people. and another order for the examination, on These laws, thus adopted by the legislature the same day, for the same degree, of John previous to the division, were then, by the Rice Jones. decisions of the courts, in force in the Indi The court then entered an order fixing ana Territory. rule days in tho two vacations; prescribing But we are more interested in the first the sheriff's duty in making returns to writs, court of Indiana Territory than we are in and the clerk's in cases of appeal and writs of the council of the Governor and judges. error. On request of the grand jury a stub The first session of the territorial court born witness was ordered to appear before opened at Vincennes, March 3, 1801. them; and the coroner, Abraham Westfall, Thus runs the record : "returned the inquisition taken before him "At a General Court of the Indiana Territory, on the body of George Allen, deceased." called and held at St. Vincennes the third day of James Johnson returned the examination of 27