214 The Winning of the West 



The court or committee held their sessions at 

 stated and regular times, and took the law of Vir- 

 ginia as their standard for decisions. They saw 

 to the recording of deeds and wills, settled all ques- 

 tions of debate, issued marriage licenses, and car- 

 ried on a most vigorous warfare against law-break- 

 ers, especially horse-thieves. 27 For six years their 

 government continued in full vigor; then, in Feb- 

 ruary, 1778, North Carolina having organized 

 Washington County, which included all of what is 

 now Tennessee, the governor of that State ap- 

 pointed justices of the peace and militia officers for 

 the new county, and the old system came to an end. 

 But Sevier, Robertson, and their fellow-committee- 

 men were all members of the new court, and con- 

 tinued almost without change their former simple 

 system of procedure and direct and expeditious 

 methods of administering justice ; as justices of the 

 peace they merely continued to act as they acted 

 while arbitrators of the Watauga Association, and 

 in their summary mode of dealing with evil-doers 

 paid a good deal more heed to the essence than to 

 the forms of law. One record shows that a horse- 

 thief was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, 

 and hanged on Friday of the same week. Another 

 deals with a claimant who, by his attorney, moved 



as much as Kentucky does to Marshall, Butler, and Collins. 

 Ramsey, by the way, chooses rather inappropriate adjectives 

 when he calls the government "paternal and patriarchal." 



27 A very good account of this government is given in Al- 

 lison's Address, pp. 5-8, and from it the following examples 

 are taken. 



