Yamhill. On September 1, 1864, the assessed value of the property in the state was $22,188,513. Estimated population, ninety thousand; and the assessment of Multnomah slightly exceeded $4,000,000.
On March 4, 1865, George H. Williams succeeded Benjamin F. Harding as United States senator, Williams having been elected at the third legislative session, which convened at Salem, September 12, 1864, and adjourned October 22, 1864. Judge Williams was at that time forty-one years of age; a man of careful training, well equipped by education and experience to perform the great duties then pressing upon him. He had been admitted to the bar in his native state, New York, in 1844; and going that year to Iowa was elected in 1847 judge of the first judicial district of that state; was chosen a presidential elector for Franklin Pierce as a democrat in 1852, and by President Pierce in 1853 was appointed chief justice of the Territory of Oregon, which office he filled with great ability. He was reappointed by President Buchanan, but resigned in 1858. His associates on the bench was Cyrus Olney and Matthew P. Deady, and for a short time O. B. McFadden was an associate justice. Joseph G. Wilson was clerk of this court, and its official reporter, then a young man when first appointed of twenty-six years of age. Judge Williams, when appointed chief justice, was only thirty -four years old. He was elected and served as a member of the constitutional convention, representing Marion County, and is one of the framers of the existing state constitution. His term as United States senator expired March 3, 1871, and while in the senate he served on the committee on judiciary, claims and private land claims, finance and reconstruction. He helped to frame and pass the resolution proposing the Fourteenth Amendment; was a member of the Joint High Commission for the settlement
