The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-07

the oldest towns in the entire state. Madi- son county was created by proclama- ton of Roger Williams, governor of the Mississippi territory, in 1908 and Hunts vile was at that time made the county seat The early history of Huntsville was for those days the history of the state.
 It was doubtless due to Huntsville being the oldest English settled town in the state that the seat of government was removed from old St. Stephens, al- most on the southern, border of the state, to the little English town among the ! mountains, not far distance from the line which devides Alabama and Tennessee. In those early days Huntsville claimed population of but few hundred. The village was surrounded by unexplored for ests where wild beasts roamed. Hunts vile was the only town in the Tennes- see valley then and was about as large as any town in the state at that time. Old St. Stephens, situated on the Tom bigbee river in Washington county, was the first territorial capital. With the exception of the territorial capitol being located at Huntsville but short time before Alabama was admitted into the union, old St. Stephens was the only territorial capital The last session of the territorial legislature which met In old St. Stephens in November, ISIS, located the permanent seat of government at Cahaba, on the Alabama river in Dal- las county, and made Huntsville the r,it nptt1 a state house could be built at Cahaba.
 On October 25, 1873, the last session of thj territorial legislature assembled in the old log court house in Huntsville and enacted the last laws ever spassed by the territorial government.
 On March 9, 1s19, the United States Con- gress passed an act to allow the people of the Alabama territory to form a con stituton preparatory to admission into the union. This act was passed just one day less than two years after the act of Congress creating the territory of Alabama out of the Mississippi terri tory.
 Constitutional Convention.
 The constitutional convention met in Huntsville July B. 1S19, and finished their work August ?. The convention was composed of forty-four delegates, rep resentlng twenty-two counties, all the counties there were then in Alabama. The chairman of the convention was John w. Walker of Madison county and the secretary was John Campbell. Among the members of this convention were future governors, United States senators
 i,,ct of a court. and one member, William R. King, was for a short time vice president of the United States
 On December 14, 1919, Alabama was ad- mitted into the union as state. The new constitution provided for the elec- ton of a governor, members of the leg islature and other state, officers and shortly after Alabama was admitted into the union an election was held and re- suited in the choice of William Wyatt Bibb, the first and only territorial gov ernor. as first governor of the state of Alabama.
 The first legislature of the state or Alabama met the first Monday in August, 1920, and enacted a code of laws for the new state. It was shortly after the close of this sesison of the legislature that the seat of government was moved to it's permanent site. Cahaba.
 It may be said that the town of Hunts vile had its beginning in the year 1865 when that sturdy East Tennesseean, John Hunt, visited the big spring and staked off a claim surrounding the spring. The following year he moved his family there The city was named in his honor, but later he lost his lands by having failed to perfect the titles. There are today in Huntsville and scattered all over north Alabama many of John Hunts decend- ants.
 In those early days Madison county was the common hunting grounds of the Chickasaw and Cherokee Indians, but settled by neither tribe. Their villages were along the Tennessee river to the south and among the mountain ranges to the north. Their hunting camps throughout Madison county are today marked by large numbers of arrow heads.