This is especially interesting, inasmuch as there has been a great deal of discussion of late regarding the number of supervisors in Linn county. The districts as laid out at that time remain today. By an act of the same Assembly, approved June 13, 1841, Marion was established as a seat of justice of Linn county, and the commissioners of Linn county were authorized to employ agents to sell lots. The office of the superintendent of public instruction seemed to have been short-lived, for on February 17, 1842, an act was passed by the territorial legislature which repealed the act of creating the office of superintendent of public instruction. In 1846 an act was passed January 15th, which in some respects amended an act "To Establish a System of Common Schools," which was passed in 1840. This bill (the one of 1845) really made what is now known as the county auditor, the educational head of the schools, and provided a tax for their support. In chapter 99, page 127, of the Territorial Statutes of 1847, there is an act relating to the common schools. In section 36, page 134, it provides that at the next annual township election (which evidently must have been held in the spring) there was to be elected a school fund commissioner. This commissioner is what is now known as the county superintendent of schools, and his duties were many and varied. In the election book it is shown that in April, 1852, out of the six hundred and ninety-one votes cast, Alpheus Brown received five hundred and seventy-three, and was declared elected. In the formation and alteration of school districts, the records of the county go back as far as 1849, in which records Mr. Brown signed as school fund commissioner. However, this may be attributed to the fact that previous to 1852, Mr. Brown was clerk of the county board of commissioners, and the duties of the school fund commissioner devolved upon that office at that time; consequently the presumption is that when he entered upon his duties as school fund commissioner, and began to make up his records, he naturally took from the records of the clerk of the board of county commissioners the things which belonged to the office.