The new order of things was an innovation on the former simple, direct and expeditious way of administering justice; but the five “committeemen” were also members of the new court, and methods were not very materially changed, as the records of the clerk’s office at Jonesboro will show. They took jurisdiction of all matters relating to the public good, and disposed of all questions summarily, as will be more fully and particularly shown in another chapter. Whenever a stranger appeared in the settlements, and gave his name as William Morningstar, Samuel Sunshine or Walter Rainbow, he would not be there long before he would be waited upon by a committee, one of whom would say to him: “Look here, stranger, we have examined the book of Genesis from end to end since you came here, and we can’t find the name of your ancestors. We think that you have got another name, and that you stole a horse somewhere and have run off. You must leave this settlement before night, or we’ll hang you!” Such frank treatment was invariably effective: its object was sure to heed the warning and to disappear before sunrise the next morning. About this time a vigorous and ambitious young man left the city of Philadelphia for the wilds of the southwest. His mind was stored with the rich intellectual treasures of old Princeton, then under the presidency of the father of Aaron Burr. He walked, driving before him through Delaware and Maryland, over the Alleghanies and across Virginia, his “flea-bitten grey,” burdened to the utmost capacity with a huge sack of books. These classics were the nucleus of the library of an institution of learning yet unborn. After a fatiguing journey through a large portion of territory, with only obscure paths through gloomy forests for a highway, this devout and dauntless adventurer halted among the settlers whom I have been describing. Soon thereafter, the first church--a Presbyterian--and the first institution of learning that were established west of the Alleghanies were founded. These were “Salem Church” and “Washington College,” both established in the year 1780, eight miles southwest of the seat of the present town of Jonesboro--the college being the first one in the United States that honored itself by assuming the name of the Father of his Country. It is stated as a fact that, long prior to the late war, twenty-two members of the Congress of the United States had received or completed their education at Washington College, under this pioneer in letters and religious training, whose achievements constitute the jewels of our early literary and moral history. This man was Rev. Samuel Doak, D.D. Though he left a deep and indelible impress on the civilization and the literature of the Southwest, he sleeps today, amid the scenes of his successful earthly labors, with only a simple and fast crumbling memorial to mark the hallowed sepulchre of his silent dust.