Williams and Wood Counties.

WILLIAMS COUNTY.

WILLIAMS is situated in the northwest corner of the state, and contains six hundred square miles. It was formed from old Indian territory, in 1820, and organized in 1824. It was named in honor of David Williams, of Westchester county, New York, one of the three captors of Major André. Defiance county was formed from it, and Henry and Paulding in 1845. The surface is rolling and the soil very fertile in almost every portion of the county. It is watered by Maumee, Tiffin, Auglaize, and Little Joseph's rivers. The principal agricultural productions are corn, wheat, oats, and potatoes. It has an excellant mineral spring, half a mile east of Defiance. The population is a mixture from the middle and eastern states and from Germany. Its towns and their population, in 1840, were:—

Capital.-DEFIANCE. It is situated at the junction of Maumee and Auglaize rivers. It is well located for commerce, being situated on the Wabash and Erie canal, and at the junction of the Miami and Wabash canals, and the union of several navigable rivers. It had in 1840, a courthouse, jail, nine hundred and forty-four inhabitants; eight stores, capital thirty-one thousand three hundred dollars; one tannery, one printing-office, one weekly newspaper, two gristmills, two sawmills, capital in manufactures, ten thousand six hundred dollars. Four schools, one hundred and sixty scholars. It was an important military post in the Indian wars.

WOOD COUNTY.

WOOD is situated toward the northwest part of the state, and contains five hundred and ninety square miles. It was formed from old Indian territory, in 1820, and so named in honor of Colonel Wood, a brave officer attached to the engineer corps in the war of 1812. The surface, which is covered by the Black swamp, is level, having a gentle descent toward Lake Erie, upon which the northeast corner of the county bounds. When cleared and drained, it will be an exceedingly rich agricultural county. It is watered by the Maumee river, which bounds it on the northwest, and by the Portage river. The principal crops are wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, and hay. It is a fine grazing county. Population chiefly descendants of New-Englanders and Germans. Its towns and their population, in 1840, were :

Wyandot County.

Freedom.
Henry.
Jackson

248

Milton and Weston 537

213

Montgomery . 609 25 Perry.

199

383

Portage. Troy. 559 Washington 241 Capital.- PERRYSBURGH. It is situated at the head of steamboat navigation on Maumee river, eighteen miles from the lighthouse on the lake. It had, in 1840, a courthouse, jail, three churches-one presbyterian, one methodist, and one universalist-twenty stores, of differkinds, numerous machine-shops, two steam sawmills, one tannery, one printing-office, and about three hundred and fifty dwellings. It had one thousand feet of wharf, three large warehouses, and a shipyard. It is situated on the southeast bank of the river, sixty feet above its surface, on a rising ground, which commands a fine prospect. It was laid out in 1817, and enlarged in 1825. There are in the township one store, capital one thousand dollars; three sawmills. Capital in manufactures, ten thousand five hundred dollars. Population, one thousand and sixtyfive.

WYANDOT COUNTY.

WYANDOT is situated northwest of the centre of the state, and contains about six hundred square miles. It was formed in 1845, from Crawford, Hancock, Marion, and Hardin. It derives its name from the great tribe of Indians who inhabited that region when it first became known to the whites. It is still quite a wild, uncultivated region, mostly level, with a fertile soil, producing grass and timber luxuriantly. Watered by the Sandusky river. It is very thinly settled, and as no census has been taken since its organization, we give the population of its towns in 1840, as far as can be ascertained:—

Capital.-UPPER SANDUSKY. It is situated on the west bank of the Sandusky river, sixty-three miles north of Columbus. It was laid out in 1843, and contained, in 1847, a courthouse, one methodist church, six mercantile stores, one newspaper printing-office, and about five hundred inhabitants. Upon a bluff, about fifty rods northeast of the courthouse, General Harrison built a fort, in 1812. It was a stockade, covering about two acres, and having blockhouses at the corners. Governor Meigs encamped about a mile north of this fort, in August, 1813, with the Ohio militia, and the place was called the Great Encampment. On the outskirts of the town is the Wyandot mission church, built of blue limestone. It was erected in 1824, at the expense of the government,

*Ashland, Defiance, Mahoning, and Wyandot counties, have been erected since the census of 1840; their population is embraced above in that of the counties from which they were taken.

GOVERNMENT AND CONSTITUTION.

By the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, signed at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783, the English monarch relinquished all claim to the northwestern territory, which then in cluded the whole vast region north of the Ohio river, and west of the Allegany mountains. In the provisional articles of the treaty of 1782 the British commissioner, Mr. Oswald, proposed the Ohio river as the western boundary of the United States. John Adams, one of the commissioners for the United States, insisted upon making the Missis sippi the western boundary, and by his perseverance he succeeded. That vast and rich domain, the northwestern territory was thus secured to our republic.

It was not until 1788, that a regular government existed in the northwestern territory. General Arthur St. Clair was that year elected governor, Winthrop Sargeant, secretary, and the Hon. Samuel Holder Parsons, James Mitchel Varnum, and John Cleves Symmes, judges in and over the territory. The government was organized, and Washington county, including about one half of the present state of Ohio was created by proclamation of Governor St. Clair. In the settlement of boundaries, a great deal of trouble with the Indians ensued, and finally, so decidly hostile did the savages become, that President Washington, in 1794, sent General Wayne, at the head of an army, to reduce them to submission and for the protection of the territory.

Up to that period (1794), there was no fixed seat of government. When laws were needed, they were passed, and wherever the territorial legislators happened to be, there the laws were promulgated. In 1795, Governor St. Clair and the judges before named, attempted to revise

First Territorial Legislature.-Members of the Constitutional Convention.

the territorial laws, and to establish a system of jurisprudence based upon statute enactment. They assembled at Cincinnati for that purpose, in June, 1795, and continued in session until the latter part of August. They fixed the general court at Cincinnati and Marietta alternately; and inferior courts were established, wherever a necessity for them clearly existed.

By the ordinance of Congress of 1787, creating a territorial government, it was agreed that whenever there were five thousand free males of full age, in the territory, the people should be entitled to the benefits of the representative system, by electing delegates to the territorial legislature. These representatives were to nominate ten freeholders, owning five hundred acres each, of whom the president was to appoint five, who were to constitute the legislative council. Representatives were chosen to serve two years, the members of the council five years. The first territorial legislature assembled on the 24th of September, 1799, and when the two houses were organized for business, Governor St. Clair delivered a verbal message which elicited much praise for its sound common sense and patriotism. During that session, William Henry Harrison, who was secretary of the territory, was elected a delegate to Congress.

Congress, during its session of 1800, passed an act dividing the northwestern territory into two governments by a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, and thence northward to the line between the territory and the British possessions. The seat of the eastern government was, by this act, placed at Chilicothe.

On the 30th of April, 1802, Congress passed an act authorizing the call of a convention of representatives of the people to form a state constitution. That convention assembled at Chilicothe on the first of November, and was composed of the following members:—

EDWARD TIFFIN, president, and representative from the county of Ross.

ADAMS COUNTY.-Joseph Darlington, Israel Donalson, and Thomas Kirker.

BELMONT COUNTY.-James Caldwell and Elijah Woods. CLERMONT COUNTY.-Philip Gatch and James Sargeant. FAIRFIELD COUNTY.-Henry Abrains, and Emanuel Carpenter. HAMILTON COUNTY.-John W. Browne, Charles Willing Byrd, Francis Dunlavey, William Goforth, John Kitchell, Jeremiah Morrow, John Paul, John Riley, John Smith, and John Wilson.

Jefferson CounNTY.—Rudolph Bair, George Humphrey, John Milligan, Nathan Updegraff, and Bezaleel Wells.

Ross COUNTY.-Michael Baldwin, James Grubb, Nathaniel Massie, and T. Worthington.