The Mississippi Territory was created by Act approved April 7, 1798.[97] This Act, limited in its provisions, authorized the President "to establish therein a government in all respects similar to that now exercised in the territory northwest of the river Ohio," excepting expressly the prohibitive provision respecting slavery. TERRITORIAL COURTS. The Ordinance of July 13, 1787, regulating the government of the Northwest Territory, authorized the appointment by the President of "a court to consist of three judges," "who shall have a common law jurisdiction," their commission to continue in force during good behavior. The governor and the judges were given a limited law making power. On May 7, 1798, just one month after the act of formation, the President commissioned the Governor and Secretary, and two judges--Daniel Tilton and Peter Bryan Bruin. On June 28, 1798, the third, Wm. McGuire, was commissioned as Chief Justice. Their law making labors ended disastrously, the enactments being generally condemned by the people as "repugnant to the established principles of jurisprudence derived from the common law of England." So great was the clamor against them that Congress advanced the Territory into the second grade of government, May 10, 1800. These obnoxious laws were in a few years repealed.[98] The settled portions of the Eastern section of the Territory (now Alabama) were so remote from the Mississippi settlements proper as to make the duty of holding courts there very burdensome, and often courts were not held at all. Superior Courts were held in the District of Washington (now Washington County, Ala.,) on the 4th Monday in Sept., 1802, by Seth Lewis, Chief Justice, and on the first Monday in May, 1804, by Judge David Ker, making two only in four years. Congress, therefore, on March 27, 1804, passed a law providing an additional judge for the Territory, to have jurisdiction in Washington District, and to this position Harry Toulmin was appointed. The "Great Bend of the Tennessee" having been thickly settled, and formed into Madison County (now in North Alabama,) Congress provided, March 2, 1810, a judge to have jurisdiction therein, and to this position Obadiah Jones was appointed. Both Toulmin and Jones served during existence of the territory.[99] During the whole territorial period, 1798-1817 the _nisi prius_ courts, and the appellate courts were held by these judges, three in what is now Mississippi, and two in what is now Alabama.[100] For the three groups of judges in the Mississippi section, the following is the _probable_ order of succession: 1. McGuire, Lewis, Rodney, Martin, Campbell, Poindexter. 2. Tilton, Ker, Jones, Mathews, Leake. 3. Bruin, Fitts, Simpson, Archer. TERRITORIAL ATTORNEYS AND MARSHALS.