The boundaries of the territory had just been defined by the National Congress, with the provision that the territorial legislature of the new region should be those who were members of the Mississippi legislative council and house of representatives who resided within the confines of the newly created Alabama territory. Of that number, it so happened that only one member of the legislative council, or senate, fell within the new territory. James Titus, of Madison, was the only member of the upper house, and during the first session of the legislative assembly he sat in a chamber alone as the senate of Alabama. He was president, clerk and the senate--all in one. He met, considered the measures of the lower house, adjourned and convened with ludicrous formality. In the lower house there were about a dozen members. The initial message of the first governor showed a ready grasp of the raw conditions and an ability to grapple with formidable difficulties. A wilderness had to be shaped and molded into a commonwealth by the creation of the necessary adjuncts, all of which the young governor recommended in his first message. The promotion of education, the establishment of highways, the construction of bridges and ferries, the definition of the boundaries of counties and the creation of new ones, in order to fuse the dispersed population into oneness were among his recommendations. Perhaps the most notable service rendered by Governor Bibb was that of thwarting the effort of the Mississippi constitutional convention, in which convention was organized that state, in seeking so to change the original boundary between the Alabama and Mississippi territories as to include into the new state of Mississippi all that part of Alabama which lies west of the Tombigbee River, or, in other words, to make the Tombigbee the boundary line between the two proposed states. This imposed on the young governor an important and arduous task, but with cool aggressiveness, coupled with influential statesmanship, he succeeded in preventing the proposed change. Had the change been made there would have been lost to Alabama that valuable portion now embraced in the counties of Sumter, Choctaw, Washington and Mobile Counties. To the active agency and energy of this original commonwealth builder is Alabama indebted for the retention of this valuable strip of territory. Commercial and educational systems were organized by the incorporation of banks and schools, and the first location of the seat of government of the new state provided for by the selection of a site at the junction of the Cahaba and Alabama Rivers, which new town was called Cahaba. Governor Bibb was charged with the work of laying out the plans of the town and for providing for the erection of a capitol building. Meanwhile the seat of government was removed to Huntsville in order to await the completion of the capitol at Cahaba.