In the spring of that year laws were passed providing for the establishment of courts of pleas and quarter sessions in the district, as well as for the appointment of justices of the peace, sheriffs, and militia officers; and in the fall the district was made a county, under the same name.

The boundaries of Washington County were the same as those of the present State of Tennessee, and seem to have been outlined by Sevier, the only man who at that time had a clear idea as to what should be the logical and definite limits of the future State.
Upholding the Law.
The nominal change of government worked little real alteration in the way the Holston people managed their affairs.

The members of the old committee became the justices of the new court, and, with a slight difference in forms, proceeded against all offenders with their former vigor.

Being eminently practical men, and not learned in legal technicalities, their decisions seem to have been governed mainly by their own ideas of justice, which, though genuine, were rough.

As the war progressed and the southern States fell into the hands of the British, the disorderly men who had streamed across the mountains became openly defiant towards the law.