Author: O. H. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-14

Total Pages: 646

ISBN-13: 9781331388005

Excerpt from Early Indiana Trials: And Sketches; Reminiscences The writer proposes to consume a leisure hour by calling upon bis recollections of the early trials of important cases in Indiana, which may be interesting, at least to some of our pioneer settlers who are yet living witnesses of the truth of his reminiscences. He proposes to confine himself to the Third Judicial Circuit of the State, and to the time when the Hon. Miles C. Egglestou was Presiding Judge of the circuit. The Third Judicial Circuit included what was then known as the Whitewater country, and extended from the county of Jefferson north to the State of Michigan, some two hundred miles in length, and from the Ohio line on the east, to White River, some seventy-five miles west. The country was new, sparsely settled, and being on the western frontier, the towns and villages were filled with Indians, trading their peltries, wild game and moccasins ornamented with the quills of the porcupine, with the settlers, for calicoes, whisky, powder, lead, beads, and such other articles as met their fancy. The population of the country embraced by the circuit, was a hardy, fearless and generally honest, but more or less reckless people, such as are usually to be found advancing upon the frontiers from more civilized life, and consequently there were more collisions among them, more crimes, committed calling for the action of the criminal courts, than is common in older settled and more civilized parts of the older States. The judiciary system at the time referred to was, like the country, in its infancy. The Circuit Court was composed of a president judge, elected by the Legislature, who presided in all the courts in the circuit, and two associate judges, elected in each county by the people. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.