The most ancient memorial relating to civil or criminal procedure is the judgment of Enos Terry rendered as a Justice of the Peace against a stray negro who was arrested arraigned and tried before him for stealing a brass watch from a soldier of the Greenville garrison in 1812. On the conviction of the negro a sentence was pronounced by Terry unknown to the books and not set down or nominated in the statutes. The negro was required to submit to one of two penalties at his own option. Either to bear the infliction of the Mosaic forty lashes save one, or be stripped stark naked and climb a thorny honey locust before Terry's door. Abe Seribner who was present when the trial came off and sentence was pronounced made a lifelong enemy of Terry by suggesting to him that his two daughters (one of whom afterward married John Mooney and the other Bill Scott) that in case the negro took to thorns should assist him up the locust.
Subsequently John Purviance David Briggs and Terry were Justices of the Peace of Greenville Township which as yet was co extensive with the entire county no other divisions being made until after the organization of the county pursuant to an act of the General Assembly of December 14 1816 At a later period Samuel McClure who lived on Whitewater and Jacob Carlaugh who resided at Stillwater were commissioned Justices
