His first official position came to him at about the age of thirty. There were a good many outlaws in the region where he at that time had his cabin and claim, and society began to cohere for self-protection. The settlers convened and appointed Crockett and others to be justices of the peace, and a corps of stalwart young men to be constables. These justices were really provost-marshals in power. There were no statute laws nor courts; but there was authority enough, and Crockett says everybody made laws according to his own notions of right. For shooting and appropriating a hog running at large, for instance, the sentence was to strip the thief, tie him to a tree and give him a flogging, burn down his cabin and drive him out of the country. Soon after, the new territory was organized into counties and Crockett was regularly commissioned a justice by the legislature. His account of his administration is interesting: “I was made a squire according to law; though now the honor rested on me more heavily than before. For, at first, whenever I told my constable, says I, ‘catch that fellow and bring him up for trial!’ away he went, and the fellow must come, dead or alive. For we considered this a good warrant, though it was only in _verbal writing_. But after I was appointed by the Assembly, they told me my warrants must be in _real_ writing and signed; and that I must keep a book and write my proceedings in it. This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over my persimmon. I had a pretty well informed constable however, and I told him when he should happen to be out anywhere and see that a warrant was necessary and would have a good effect, he needn’t take the trouble to come all the way to me to get one, but he could just fill one out, and then on the trial I could correct the whole business if he had committed any error. In this way I got on pretty well, till by care and attention I improved my handwriting in such a manner as to be able to prepare my warrants and keep my record books without much difficulty. My judgments were never appealed from: and if they had been they would have stuck like wax, as I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on law learning, to guide me; for I had never read a page in a law-book in all my life.”