state constitutional convention, for which the ruling party, foreseeing that appropriations for the territory were about exhausted, was now ripe. The three measures here mentioned comprise all of the important work of the session.[1]
An effort was made in the election of 1854 to get some temperance men elected to the legislature, in order to secure a prohibitory liquor law; and for this purpose a third party, called the Maine-law party, had its candidates in the field. None were elected on this issue, but much opposition was aroused.[2]
- ↑ Multnomah county was created at this session out of portions of Washington and Clackamas, making it comprise a narrow strip lying on both sides of the Willamette, including Sauvé Island, and fronting on the Columbia River, with the county-seat at Portland. The first county court was organized Jan. 17, 1855; the board consisting of G. W. Vaughn, Ainslee R. Scott, and James Bybee. The bonds of Shubrick Norris, auditor, of William McMillen, sheriff, and A. D. Fitch, treasurer, were presented and approved. Rooms were rented in the building of Coleman Barrell, on the corner of First and Salmon streets, for a court-house. R. B. Wilson was appointed coroner at the second meeting of the board. The first board elected at the polls was composed of David Powell, Ellis Walker, and Samuel Farman, which met July 2, 1855. The first term of the district court was held April 16th, Olney presiding. The first grand jury drawn consisted of J. S. Dickinson, Clark Hay, Felix Hicklin, K. A. Peterson, Edward Allbright, Thomas H. Stallard, William L. Chittenden, George Hamilton, William Cree, Robert Thompson, William H. Frush, Samuel Farman, William Hall, William Sherlock, W. P. Burke, Jacob Kline, Jackson Powell, John Powell. The first cause entered on the docket was Thomas V. Smith vs William H. Morton, David Logan, and Mark Chinn.
An act of this legislature authorized the location of county seats by a majority of votes at the annual elections. The county seat of Umpqua was thus fixed at Elkton, on the land claim of James F. Levens. An act was passed for the support of indigent insane persons. There were a number of applications made to the legislature to have doubtful marriages legalized; but the judiciary committee, to whom they were referred, refused to entertain the petitions, on the ground that it was not their duty to shelter persons committing crimes against the laws and public sentiment. Notwithstanding, a special act was passed in the case of John Carey, who had a wife and children in the States, to make legitimate the children of a woman whom he had informally taken to wife while crossing the plains. Or. Statesman, April 3, 1855.
- ↑ Notwithstanding the antagonism exhibited at the opening of the session, the Maine-law bill being withdrawn, an act was passed of the nature of a local-option law, requiring retail dealers, or those who wished to sell by any quantity less than a quart, to obtain the signatures of a majority of the legal voters in their respective precincts to petitions praying that licenses should be granted them; if in a city, the signatures of a majority of the legal voters in the ward where it was designed to sell. Before proceeding to obtain the signatures, the applicant was required to post notices for ten days of his intention to apply for a license, in order to afford an opportunity for remonstrances to be signed. There were two many ways of evading a law of this nature to make it serve the purpose of prohibition, even in a temperance community;
