This document identified the actions of the First Territorial Council (Senate), which first met at the town of Pawnee near Fort Riley on Monday July 2, 1855. On July 6, 1855, the House of Representatives approved a resolution sent to them by the Council that moved the meeting of the Legislature to the Shawnee Manual Labor School beginning July 16, 1855. This session of the Council concluded this first session on August 30, 1855. Included in the volume were various messages from the Governor and Acting Governor. The appendix contained reports of various committees--judiciary, special committee on exempting slaves from execution, bounds of counties and districts, elections, convention, public printing. The appendix also had the "opinion of the Supreme Court in regard to the legality of the present session" by Samuel Lecompte and Rush Elmore, a memorial from the legislature of Kansas to the President of the United States requesting the removal of Andrew Reeder, and the Rules and Orders under which the House of Representatives conducted business. The last fifty-two pages were an index to the volume. The members of the Council were: Thomas Johnson and Edward Chapman, 1st Council District; A. M. Coffey and David Lykins, 4th Council District; William Barbee, 5th Council District; John W. Forman, 7th district; William P. Richardson, 8th district; D. A. N. Grover, 9th district; L. J. Eastin and Richard R. Rees, 10th district. The elections in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Council Districts were disputed, but Andrew Macdonald, 2nd Council district, H. J. Strickler, 3rd district; and John Donaldson, 6th district, were sworn in as members of the Council. John A. Haldeman served as the Chief Clerk.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
Journal of the Council of the Territory of Kansas, 1855 - p. 4