MS (DLC); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Hunter and Ellis; attested by Edwin L. Harris as clerk of the Mississippi Territory House of Representatives; endorsed by TJ as received 24 Feb. 1802 and so recorded in SJL.

Henry Hunter was elected to the new House of Representatives of Mississippi Territory in 1800 and became its first speaker. He had been one of the territorial residents opposed to Winthrop Sargent, the first governor. Hunter, who during his career was also a county sheriff and a militia officer, sat in the legislature until 1807. Like Hunter, John Ellis first took up residence in the region when it was governed by Spanish authority. Ellis was not part of the opposition to Sargent, and in December 1800, Ellis signed a memorial to Congress supporting Sargent through an unsuccessful attempt to postpone the creation of a territorial assembly. Before that memorial reached Congress, John Adams named, and the U.S. Senate approved, Ellis as a member of the first legislative council for the territory. In a structure adopted from that of the Northwest Territory, the council formed the upper chamber of the general assembly, and the members of the first council made Ellis their president. Later he was elected to the territorial House of Representatives, serving for a time as its speaker (Dunbar Rowland, ed., Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, 2 vols. [Madison, Wis., 1907], 1:684, 909, 914; 2:76–8; Terr. Papers description begins Clarence E. Carter and John Porter Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1934–75, 28 vols. description ends , 5:109–14; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States … 1789 to March 3, 1845, Boston, 1855–56, 8 vols. description ends , 1:51–3; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States … to the Termination of the Nineteenth Congress, Washington, D.C., 1828, 3 vols. description ends , 1:363–4).

Pamphlet: Papers, in Relation to the Official Conduct of Governour Sargent, published at Boston on 1 Aug. 1801; see also William C. C. Claiborne to TJ, 27 Nov.

On a trip to Philadelphia early in 1800, Narsworthy hunter represented the faction in Mississippi Territory that opposed Sargent. On that visit, Hunter supplied information to William Claiborne, who was then a member of Congress prominent in the investigation of Sargent’s governorship. In 1801, Narsworthy Hunter was elected the first delegate to Congress from Mississippi Territory. As a delegate, he could participate in debates in the U.S. House of Representatives, but had no vote. On 8 Dec. 1801, he presented his credentials, which the House accepted on the 21st of that month. However, Hunter, a native of Virginia, died in Washington early in his term as delegate, on 11 Mch. 1802. According to SJL, he wrote a letter to TJ of 18 Feb. 1802 that has not been found (Papers, in Relation to the Official Conduct of Governour Sargent, 6–10; JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1826, 9 vols. description ends , 4:7, 21–2; Rowland, Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, 1:909; Biog. Dir. Cong. description begins Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989, Washington, D.C., 1989 description ends ).