St. Clair read a lengthy address to the two judges. In the opening sentences one can gather some knowledge of the difficulties with which these pioneer legislators had to contend. There were no roads, no steamboats, no coaches, no telegraph. The mails were uncertain, few and far between. Prowling Indians had not ceased to be a menace. Rivers often could not be forded and there were few ferries. The “highways” of travel were the “low ways”—the rivers winding through the unbroken solitudes of the primeval forests. The Ohio was often difficult to navigate. In February, 1795, Judge Symmes made an effort to meet St. Clair at Marietta. We quote the result from one of his letters: “On the 20th of February, therefore, I set out from Cincinnati on my passage up the river, and was buffeted by high waters, drifting ice, heavy storms of wind and rain, frost and snow for twenty-three days and nights, without sleeping once in all that time in any house after leaving Columbia. I waited in vain twelve days at Marietta for the coming of the Governor, and, he not appearing, I returned home.” Travel in these times was not only inconvenient and difficult, but dangerous. Parsons, one of the first judges of the Northwest Territory, lost his life by drowning, on his return journey from the Western Reserve in 1789 down the Big Beaver. After St. Clair’s message, a resolution was adopted opening the meetings of the legislature to the public. After inviting the public to the sessions, the legislature adjourned to meet the following day. At the second meeting the two judges wrote a dignified reply to the message from the governor. The record of their proceedings rested securely in an iron box for about 130 years, after which they came into the possession of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. This record shows that the members of this legislature took themselves and their work seriously. What they lacked in numbers they made up in dignity and decorum. This legislature was in session from May 29 to August 25, 1795. It completed the work for which it had been called and gave to the Northwest Territory a code of laws framed in strict accord with the Ordinance of 1787. [Illustration: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON _Drawn by William Olson, Downers Grove, Ill._] While these legislative meetings were in session at Cincinnati, General Anthony Wayne was concluding the treaty with the Indians at Greenville, opening the Northwest to peaceful settlement. The subsequent rapid increase in population soon entitled the territory to the second stage of government provided by the ordinance—a legislature chosen by its people to enact laws as soon as there were 5000 free male inhabitants of full age in the territory. This first elected legislature met in September, 1799, and re-affirmed the earlier laws of the governor and judges.