tWestem  Annals,


NORTHWESTEBN  TERRITOBY.  227


fire  tbe  butt  of  a  good  sized  short  log,  up-ended,  sufficiently  deep
to  hold  a  peck  or  raore  of  corn.  Over  this  was  erected  a  sweep
to  lift,  by  counter-traction,  a  piston  with  a  firm,  blunt  end,
which  served  to  pound  the  com  into  meal.  To  these  primitive  and
laborious  processes,  succeeded,  in  the  order  of  their  simplicitj'  and
in  due  time,  hand  mills,  band  mills,  horse  mills,  and  last  water
mills.t

From  1788  to  1705,  Gov.  St.  Clair  and  the  Judges  of  the  north-
western territory,  in  their  legislative  capacity,  adopted  64  stat-
utes, 38  at  Cincinnati  in  the  last  named  year.  In  April,  1798, 11
more  were  adopted.*  Four-fifths  of  these  laws  were  imported
from  Pennslvania,  and  a  few  from  Massachusetts  and  Virgmia,
This  gave  to  the  country  a  complete  system  of  statute  law,  which
was  perhaps  but  little  inferior  to  that  of  any  of  the  States  at  that
early  i)eriod.  Among  them  was  the  common  law  of  England  and
statutes  of  Parliament  in  aid  thereof,of  a  general  nature  and  not  local
to  that  Kingdom,down  to  the  4th  year  bf  the  reign  of  James  I;  which
is  the  law  in  Illinois  to  this  day,  except  as  varied  by  statute.  From
it  we  derive  all  those  fundamental  principles  of  the  British  Consti-
tution which  secure  to  the  citizen  personal  liberty  and  protection
to  life  and  proi>erty — the  habeas  corpus,  trial  by  jury,  &c.  Tliis
was  imported  from  Virginia;  but  the  bill  of  rights  is  also  in  the
ordinance  of  1787.  In  1795  the  Govenior  also  divided  St.  Clair
county  in  Illinois  by  running  aline  through  tbeNew  Design  settle-
ment in  the  present  Monroe  county,  dne  east  to  the  Wabash — all
that  country  lying  south  of  it  being  establisheil  into  the  county  of
Randolph,  named  in  honor  of  Edmund  Randolph,  of  Virginia.
