Adam Harpold, Jesse Worthing, Joel Smith, Silas Knight,
James Shields, Jr., George Roush, Jas. Gibson, Calvin Marvin,
John H. Sayre, Alvin Ogden, Joseph Hoit; Major Reed, talis-
man.
Then follows the licensing of different men for various pur-
poses, the trial of persons for various offenses, consisting
largely of "fist-i-cuffs," and probate business is omitted.
State of Ohio, Meigs County, ss.
November Term, A.D. 1819.
Be it remembered, That on Monday, the twenty-second day
of November, in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and
nineteen, the Court of Common Pleas met at the meeting
house in Salisbury township. Present: The Hon. Ezra Os-
born, president judge, and James E. Phelps and Fuller Elliot,
associate judges, this, the last court for the first year in Meigs
county, 1819.
Review of proceedings by S.C. Larkin.
The design of the following resume' is to elucidate facts
that relate to the history of Meigs county, but are not gener-
ally understood.
By a law of Congress, Section 29 in every township of six
miles square in the Ohio Company's purchase should be re-
served for ministerial purposes. The land upon which this
meeting house stood belonged to Salisbury township, and the
Courts of Common Pleas were held in it for two years, when,
unfortunately, it was burned down. Mr. Levi Stedman, of
Chester, invited the judges to hold court in his house. When
the second set of commissioners met, they went where the
court was held, and decided to locate the county seat, as Mr.
Levi Stedman offered to make a good deed of land, enough to
lay out a town. The offer was accepted. The county seat
was located there, the town laid out and named Chester. The
question was asked why the county seat was not located at
