Ward System

in an 1824 letter Thomas Jefferson said:

"Among other improvements I hope they will adopt the subdivision of our counties into wards. The former may be estimated at an average of twenty - four miles square. The latter should be about six miles square each, and you answer to the hundreds of Saxon Alfred. In each of these might be

"First, an elementary school; "Second, a company of militia with its officers; "Third, a justice and constable; "Fourth, each ward should take care of its own poor; "Fifth, their own roads; "Sixth, their own police;

"Seventh, elect within themselves one or more jurors to attend the courts of justice;

"Eighth, give in at their folk - house their votes for all functionaries reserved to their election.

"Each ward would thus be a small Republ Ic (SmallWorld) within itself; and every man in the State would thus become an acting member of the common government, transacting in person a good portion of its rights and duties, subordinate, indeed, yet important and entirely within his competence. The wit of man cannot devise a more solid basis for a free, durable and well - administered republic."

http://www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/cc011762.html