after revolution to 1805 69

after the Revolution⁵—assuming that the mere at-
tendance of a quorum of judges ready for business
constituted a session of the court, for no business
was done then; the court merely adjourned until
June following. No judges attended in June, and
a legislative enactment, act 1780, chapter 11, was
necessary to adjourn the court and keep its process
alive; and in October, another act, 1780, chapter
19, was passed to carry the court over despite an
absence of judges at a session called for September.
On October 3, 1780, when only Judges Rumsey
and Murray attended, the commission of the
judges, and certificates of the oaths of office taken
by Judges Mackall and Murray, were filed and
recorded in the minutes of that day, and the clerk
of the General Court brought in the transcripts
of records in two appeals, the first to be entered
by the reorganized court: John Trammell's Lessee
v. Arthur Nelson,⁶ and Edward Mockbee's Lessee
v. Samuel Clagett;⁷ and these were filed and en-
tered on the same day. The docket of the old court
held by the Governor and Council seems to have
been continued in use, the pending cases being re-
entered as usual for a new term of court, and new
cases being added, without a break in the con-
tinuity of the record. These seven pending cases,
carried over from the May term, 1776, constituted
the first business awaiting the new judges:

5. This information comes, not from original, contemporary minutes,
but from entries made in the minute book after the minutes of
1805, apparently in the hand of Thomas Harris, of what are
called on the back of the book "Styles of the Court, 1769 to 1805."
The entries seem obviously copies of some originals.

6. 2 Harris & McHenry, 4.

7. Ibid, 1.