Description

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The Inferior Court had jurisdiction over county business matters, such as care for the poor, building and maintaining the courthouse and jails, building and maintaining roads and bridges, issuing liquor licenses, nominating justices of the peace, performing naturalizations, appointing guardians, authorizing indentures, and maintaining a register of wills. The Clerk of the Inferior Court kept minutes of the foregoing proceedings--every one of which places individuals in Jefferson County at a particular point in time--and those minutes comprise the basis for this series by Michael Ports. The court minutes also contain numerous original signatures, such as those required from all county civil and military officers to the 1799 oath of allegiance to the state constitution. The transcriptions in Volume II of the series start on July 21, 1800, and proceed to December 3, 1803.