THE FIRST TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT
Reading edition
The organization of the territory was completed by the appointment of Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania as governor, Aaron Goodrich as chief justice, and David Cooper and Bradley B. Meeker as associate justices, C. K. Smith as secretary, Joshua L. Taylor as marshal, and Henry L. Moss as district attorney.
On the 27th of May, 1849, the governor and his family arrived in St. Paul; but there being no suitable accommodations for them, they became the guests of Hon. Henry H. Sibley, at Mendota, whose hospitality, as usual, was never failing, and for several weeks there resided the four men who have been perhaps more prominent in the development of the state than any others,—Henry H. Sibley, Alexander Ramsey, Henry M. Rice and Franklin Steele, all of whom have been honored by having important counties named after them and by being chosen to fill high places of honor and trust.
The governor soon returned to the capital, and on the 1st of June, 1849, issued a proclamation, declaring the territory duly organized. On the 11th of June he issued a second proclamation, dividing the territory into three judicial districts. The county of St. Croix, which was one of the discarded counties of Wisconsin, and embraced the present county of Ramsey, was made the first district. The second was composed of the county of La Pointe (another of the Wisconsin counties), and the region north and west of the Mississippi river, and north of the Minnesota, and of a line running due west from the head waters of the Minnesota to the Missouri. The country west of the Mississippi and south of the Minnesota formed the third district. The chief justice was assigned to the first, Meeker to the second and Cooper to the third, and courts were ordered held in each district as follows: At Stillwater, in the first district, on the second Monday, at the Falls of St. Anthony on the third Monday, and at Mendota on the fourth Monday, in August.
A census was taken of the inhabitants of the territory, in pursuance of the requirements of the organic act, with the following result. I give here the details of the census, as it is interesting to know what inhabited places there were in the territory at this time, as well as the number of inhabitants:
Total Inhabitants.
Stillwater 609
Lake St. Croix 211
Marine Mills 173
St. Paul 840
Little Canada and St. Anthony 571
Crow Wing and Long Prairie 350
Osakis Rapids 133
Falls of St. Croix 16
Snake River 82
La Pointe County 22
Crow Wing 174
Big Stone Lake and Lac qui Parle 68
Little Rock 35
Prairieville 22
Oak Grove 23
Black Dog Village 18
Crow Wing (east side) 70
Mendota 122
Red Wing Village 33
Wabasha and Root River 114
Fort Snelling 38
Soldiers, women and children in forts 317
Pembina 637
Missouri River 85
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Total 4,764
On the seventh day of July the governor issued a proclamation, dividing the territory into seven council districts, and ordering an election for a delegate to congress, nine councillors, and eighteen representatives, to constitute the first territorial legislature, to be held on the first day of August. At this election Henry H. Sibley was again chosen delegate to congress.
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