as the federal representative to the people. He continued to use the old Spanish blockhouse as the agency's store and established a land office in the former warehouse. He used the home of the former Spanish commandant as his own residence. In 1811 Gaines constructed what may have been the first brick building built by Americans in (today's) Alabama; it served as a warehouse. In 1804 Ephraim Kirby was appointed superior court judge of the Mississippi Territory by President Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to the president, Kirby described the residents of St. Stephens as "illiterate, wild and savage, of depraved morals, unworthy of public confidence or private esteems, litigious, disunited, and knowing each other, universally distrustful of each other." Pioneer minister Lorenzo Dow saw these weak points as a challenge, especially when he was asked to leave town. Dow, in a dramatic manner, prophesied the town's demise within a century, that it would become a "roosting place for bats and owls" and a ruin in which "no stone would lie upon another." Settlers living around Fort St. Stephens requested official recognition from the Mississippi Territorial legislature, which chartered the town of St. Stephens on January 8, 1807. The charter was amended on December 18, 1811, and the settlement was officially renamed Saint Stephens. By 1815, the Mississippi Territorial legislature surveyed the town site and lots were sold. Approximately 40 houses were reported in the town in 1816. Following Mississippi's statehood in 1817, the Alabama Territory was established. St. Stephens served as its territorial capital from 1817 to 1819, stimulating rapid town growth. By 1819 St. Stephens boasted over 500 homes. Its approximately 20 stores and commercial establishments included two hotels, legal and medical offices, and a theatre. Among the prominent citizens of St. Stephens was Henry Hitchcock, first attorney general of Alabama and later chief justice of the state Supreme Court. A post office was established in 1818, and George Fisher carried mail between St. Stephens and Mobile. Thomas Eastin published the Halcyon and Tombeckbe Advertiser, the fourth newspaper established in the Alabama Territory. Eastin described St. Stephens as a town of elegant tree-shaded homes, spacious streets, and genteel citizens. Washington Academy, a private boys school founded in 1811, was located on a prominent hill in town. The Tombecbe Bank, the first to be chartered in the state, was established by Israel Pickens, who would later be elected as