It was agreed among us that Mr. Boise should prepare the act relating to executors and administrators, and also proceedings in the probate courts. To Mr. Bigelow was assigned the duty of preparing the act relating to crimes and misdemeanors, and to regulate criminal proceedings. I undertook to prepare the code of civil procedure in actions at law and suits in equity. These three subjects embraced the greater part of the laws which we undertook to prepare, and, after their completion, the remaining portion of our work was comparatively easy and brief. According to my recollection it was completed in the latter part of the summer or early fall of 1853. We prepared the draft for an entirely new code of statutory laws, with the single exception of the law relating to wills. This had been enacted by the legislative assembly in 1849, at its first session, the main features of it being a transcript from the Missouri statute on the same subject. As this was one of the first acts passed by our own legislation we adopted it in our draft with only a few verbal changes. In the spring of 1853 Joseph G. Wilson, afterwards Judge Wilson of the supreme court, came to Oregon, and about May we employed him as our clerk to transcribe the drafts prepared by us, in order that they could be printed for the use of the legislative assembly at its next session in December. We caused about two hundred copies to be printed by Mr. Asahel Bush, the territorial printer, for that purpose. These were published in an unbound octavo volume, so that they could be readily separated into different bills for legislative use. Soon after we entered upon the discharge of our duties as commissioners many of our political friends suggested the propriety of electing one or all of us members of the next legislative assembly, so that we could explain to the members or give any desired information to them concerning our work. We soon, however, learned that Congress had passed the act to organize the Territory of Washington, and this would necessarily prevent Mr. Bigelow from becoming a member of the Oregon legislative assembly. Mr. Boise was nominated by the Democratic party as a candidate for member of the House of Representatives from Polk County. I was nominated by the same party as member of the Council, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Hon. A. L. Lovejoy, who had recently been appointed Postal Agent for Oregon by President Pierce. Both Mr. Boise and myself were elected on the first Monday in June, 1853.