In Search Of Local Legal Records

Abstract

Upper Mississippi River, between St. Paul, Minn., and St. Louis, Mo., flows a long course, meandering in leisurely manner, skirting sandbars, and scouting channels between islands, which to an astonishing degree, appear today as they were in bygone decades. About a century and a half ago, the shores of the Upper Mississippi sprang to life with hamlets and settlements which, sooner than even optimists felt possible, blossomed into full-fledged towns and cities. Pioneer communities, some stimulated by lumbering, others by crops of wheat and corn, and many by merchandizing, soon realized that little satisfactory progress was possible without local law and regulations. Incorporation of communities, by Territorial or State statutes, was an early step toward self-government, and then came the exciting task of electing trustees or selectmen, followed by the tedious chore of formulating, passing, and enforcing municipal ordinances. In places whose names sounded peculiar to EasternersLa Crosse, Winona, Oquawka, Keokuk, Cape Giradeauthe pragmatic, but delicate, process continued. Minute books, ordinance books, arrest books of marshals, records of proceedings in courts of justices of the peace, the verdicts of coronersall these and more comprised a sort of town diary in which officials entered, some in flowing script and others with crabbed hands, village triumphs and successes, foibles and frustrations.

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