It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original states and the people and states in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit:

ARTICLE I. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in the said territory.

ART. 2.

The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus and of trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident, or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and, should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any person's property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. And, in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud, previously formed.

ART. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall, from time to time, be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

ART. 4. The said territory, and the states which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the articles of confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made, and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts, contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportion ments thereof shall be made on the other states; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the district or districts, or new states, as in the original states, within the time. agreed upon by the United States in congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts, or new states, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil

by the United States in congress assembled, nor with any regulations congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor.

ART. 5. There shall be formed in the said territory not less than three nor more than five states; and the boundaries of the states, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western state in the said territory shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and Wabash rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Port Vincents due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada; and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle state shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Port Vincents to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern state shall be bounded by the last-mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line: provided, however, and it is fnrther understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three states shall be subject so far to be altered that, if congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such state shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the congress of the United States on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and state government: provided, the constitution and government so to be formed shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when their may be a less number of free inhabitants in the state than sixty thousand.

ART. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided, always, that any person escaping into the same from whom labor and service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.

PROBABLE POPULATION IN 1787, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF.

It is estimated that at the date of the passage of the Ordinance of '87 the entire and aggregate population of all the villages and settlements of the territory did not exceed three thousand. These settlements were chiefly located in the north-west and western portions of it. The paucity of the inhabitants may partially be explained, that for the ends of peace, the government had by the strength of its military arm forestalled and interdicted any disposition of the whites to possess or encroach upon lands occupied by the aborigines. The French were the occupants of the villages and environments, chief among which was Detroit, on the river of that name; St. Vincents, on the Wabash ; Cahokia, the site of the giant tumuli, a few miles below St. Louis; St. Philip, forty-five miles below St. Louis, on the Mississippi river; Kaskaskia, on Kaskaskia river, six miles above its mouth, which empties into the Mississippi seventy-five miles below St. Louis; Prairie-du-Rocher, near Fort Chartres; and Fort Chartres fifteen, miles north-west from Kaskaskia.

Concerning these original prairie-squatters and wilderness insinuators somebody writes as follows in regard to their peculiar character:

"Their intercourse with the Indians, and their seclusion from the world, developed among them peculiar characteristics. They assimilated themselves with the Indians, adopted their habits, and almost uniformly lived in harmony with them. They were illiterate, careless, contented, but without much industry, energy or foresight. Some were hunters, trappers and anglers, while others run birch-bark canoes by way of carrying on a small internal trade, and still others cultivated the soil. The traders or voyageurs were men fond of adventures, and of a wild, unrestrained, Indian sort of life, and would ascend many of the long rivers of the West, almost to their sources, in their birch-bark canoes, and load them with furs bought of the Indians. The canoes were light, and could be easily carried across the portages between the streams."

There was attached to these French villages a common field" for the free use of the villagers, every family, in proportion to the number of its members, being entitled to share in it. It was a large enclosed tract for farming purposes. There was also at

each village a "common, common," or large inclosed tract, for pasturage and feed purposes, and timber for building. If a head of a family was sick, or by any casualty was unable to labor, his portion of the " common field" was cultivated by his neighbors and the crop gathered for the use of his family.

The author of the Western Annals says of the inhabitants: They were devout Catholics, who, under the guidance of their priests, attended punctually upon all the holidays and festivals, and performed faithfully all the outward duties and ceremonies of the church. Aside from this, their religion was blended with their social feelings. Sundays after mass, was their especial occasion for their games and assemblies. The dance was the popular amusement with them, and all classes, ages, sexes, and conditions, united by a common love of enjoyment, met together to participate in the exciting pleasure. They were indifferent about the acquisition of property for themselves or their children. Liv ing in a fruitful country, which, moreover, abounded in fish and game, and where the necessaries of life could be procured with little labor, they were content to live in unambitious peace and comfortable poverty. Their agriculture was rude, their houses were humble, and they cultivated grain, also fruits and flowers; but they lived on, from generation to generation, without much change or improvement. In some instances they intermarried with the surrounding Indian tribes.”

These remote villages and settlements were usually protected by military posts-Detroit especially, which, in 1763, when held by the English, had resisted the assaults of the great Pontiacand had witnessed the "wrinkled front of grim-visaged war" a century before the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787.

ORGANIZATION OF THE OHIO LAND COMPANY.

Although our data was ample in this direction, we surrender it to the fuller description of Hon. Isaac Smucker, of Newark, Licking county, Ohio, as furnished to the Secretary of State, and

published in statistics of 1876, whose researches in this field are both thorough and exhaustive, which we here reproduce:

While Congress had under consideration the measure for the organization of a territorial goverment north-west of the Ohio river, the preliminary steps were taken in Massachusetts towards the formation of the Ohio Land Company, for the purpose of making a purchase of a large tract of land in said territory, and settling upon it. Upon the passage of the ordinance by Congress, the aforesaid land company perfected its organization, and by its agents, Rev. Manasseh Cutler and Major Winthrop Sargent, made application to the Board of Treasury July 27, 1787, to become purchasers, said board having been authorized four days before to make sales. The purchase, which was perfected October 27, 1787, embraced a tract of land containing about a million and a half acres, situated within the present counties of Washington, Athens, Meigs and Gallia, subject to the reservation of two townships of land six miles square, for the endowment of a college, since known. as Ohio University, at Athens; also every sixteenth section, set apart for the use of schools, as well as every twenty-ninth section, dedicated to the support of religious institutions; also sections. eight, eleven and twenty-six, which were reserved for the United States for future sale. After these deductions were made, and that for donation lands, there remained only nine hundred and sixty-four thousand, two hundred and eighty-five acres to be paid for by the Ohio Land Company, and for which patents were issued.

At a meeting of the directors of the company, held November 23, 1787, General Rufus Putnam was chosen superintendent of the company, and he accepted the position. Early in December six boat-builders and a number of other mechanics were sent forward to Simrall's Ferry (now West Newton), on the Youghiogheny river, under the command of Major Haffield White, where they arrived in January, and at once proceeded to build a boat for the use of the company. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, of Rhode Island, Anselm Tupper and John Matthews, of Massachusetts, and Colonel Return J. Meigs, of Connecticut, were appointed surveyors.