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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
General of the garrison there. In 1790 he went to Kaskaskia, but eleven years later returned to Vincennes, being commissioned the same year by Gov. William Henry Harrison, Attorney-General of Indiana Territory, and, in 1805, becoming a member of the first Legislative Council. He was Secretary of the convention at Vincennes, in December, 1802, which memorialized Congress to suspend, for ten years, the article in the Ordinance of 1787 forbidding slavery in the Northwest Territory. In 1808 he removed a second time to Kaskaskia, remaining two years, when he located within the present limits of the State of Missouri (then the Territory of Louisiana), residing successively at St. Genevieve, St. Louis and Potosi, at the latter place acquiring large interests in mineral lands. He became prominent in Missouri politics, served as a member of the Convention which framed the first State Constitution, was a prominent candidate for United States Senator before the first Legislature, and finally elected by the same a Justice of the Supreme Court, dying in office at St. Louis, Feb. 1, 1824. He appears to have enjoyed an extensive practice among the early residents, as shown by the fact that, the year of his return to Kaskaskia, he paid taxes on more than 16,000 acres of land in Monroe County, to say nothing of his possessions about Vincennes and his subsequent acquisitions in Missouri. He also prepared the first revision of laws for Indiana Territory when Illinois composed a part of it.--Rice (Jones), son of the preceding by a first marriage, was born in Wales, Sept. 28, 1781; came to America with his parents, and was educated at Transylvania University and the University of Pennsylvania, taking a medical degree at the latter, but later studying law at Litchfield, Conn., and locating at Kaskaskia in 1806. Described as a young man of brilliant talents, he took a prominent part in politics and, at a special election held in September, 1808, was elected to the Indiana Territorial Legislature, by the party known as "Divisionists"-i.e., in favor of the division of the Territory-which proved successful in the organization of Illinois Territory the following year. Bitterness engendered in this contest led to a challenge from Shadrach Bond (afterwards first Governor of the
