would recognize him. The story was too good a joke to be kept quiet, and the secret was out.

Soon after reaching Shawneetown the flatboat party was broken up, and the comrades of the voyage were separated, never to come together again. Lockwood and Brown, who had been warm and intimate friends in Auburn, determined to keep together and to make Illinois their home. Of the others, very little is known to the writer; William B. Rochester returned to New York and became a prominent citizen, as a member of Congress and a candidate for governor, losing the election by only a few votes.

Lockwood and Brown made the trip from Shawneetown to Kaskaskia, the state capital, a distance of 120 miles, on foot, expecting to reach their destination on Christmas, but, wholly unaccustomed to that mode of traveling, the progress was slower than calculated, and they did not enter the village of log cabins until the 26th of December.

On Christmas day, Lockwood and Brown were passed by two young men, in some sort of a vehicle, bound, like themselves, for Kaskaskia, and coming to stay. These young men were Thomas Mather and Sidney Breese, men afterwards prominent in the history of our state, and in this wayside chat these four young men, all from New York, commenced an acquaintance which lasted through life.

CHAPTER IV.

IN

ILLINOIS TERRITORY.

N January, 1809, Congress passed an act dividing the Indiana Territory, and giving to Illinois a distinct and independent political existence.. It was a magnificent domain, with territorial boundaries including the present states of Illinois and Wisconsin; and ever since the days of Marquette and Joliet, a wonderland, with its limitless water courses, its vast plains, rich, fertile and beautiful, beyond description; its inexhaustible stores of coal, iron and lead, and fabulous surmisings as to precious metals.

What is to be the history of this new territory, so blessed of God in all natural resources? What is its influence to be in the councils of the nation?-in the history of the country? Shall this new territory be barbarian, or civilized? Catholic or Protestant? Cursed with slavery, or blessed with freedom? These are the unsolved questions of the day, but questions that demand a speedy answer. These vast issues are trembling in the balance. Slight influences, a few men, even a single man, may turn the scale. The outlook is not promising. There is nothing in the established institutions, and very little in the character of the people to inspire hope. Hardly a Protestant church, or mission station; scarcely a schoolhouse, or Christian teacher to be found in the land. More than 30,000 Indians still hold undisputed possession of nine-tenths of this territory-Indians wronged, revengeful, savage. One more added wrong may combine these roving tribes under some efficient leader, threatening the extermination of the white settlers. Of the 10,000 population enumerated in the census, one-fifth are the old French settlers, with their dependents and negro slaves, unambitious, pleasure-loving, goodnatured, but intensely Catholic, with no sympathy with our republican and Protestant institutions. These, concentrated and

united, exert a controlling influence. The remainder of the population is made up of everything, the soldier element largely prevailing, old rangers familiar with Indian warfare. Quite a number who had come, under Col. George Roger Clark, in the old Virginia expedition, to capture Illinois, charmed by the beauty and richness of the country, determined to make it their home. At Shawneetown, and less important points on the rivers, were collections of flatboatmen engaged in river traffic, rough, profane and godless. Sprinkled in among all these were a few of a better class, but all adventurers, fortune seekers, honest and enterprising in many cases, but with no higher ends or motives in life. Very few names have come down to us from that early period worthy of consideration.

Pierre Menard, as leader of the French settlers, was perhaps the most influential. A good man he is called, but a Catholic, a slaveholder, and an earnest advocate of slavery.

William Morrison, who came from Philadelphia to Kaskaskia in 1790, was the merchant prince of the northern Mississippi valley, and with a partner resident in Philadelphia, and branch houses in Pittsburgh and New Orleans, he built up a trade, and established commercial relations hardly surpassed in these days of vast enterprises. He brought into this new country, in his own person and family, an element of civilization, culture and refinement, for those rough times; and his success in business brought around him, in later years, quite a colony of relatives and friends from the old Quaker state; but he became a Catholic and died in full sympathy with that church, and his example was followed by not a few of his associates. This is not strange, for this was the only church organized, and in this way only could the new settlers have their children baptized, or secure a ministerial marriage service, or a Christian burial.

Where shall be found the leaven of truth and righteousness, to act in this vast mass of error and corruption? The Christian church is not yet aroused to any realizing sense of the important work to be done. Missionary societies have not yet been organized, except for immediate home work; but the danger is imminent; something must be done, and done speedily. In this crisis President Madison, as one of the first acts of his administration,

rendered to the new territory most valuable and important service; and the state of Illinois, and the whole country, are under lasting obligation to him, for the kind of men he selected to fill the official stations under his appointment. These were not needy partisans to be rewarded for party service, nor restless adventurers seeking employment; but they were, without exception, men of high character, cultivated manners, and already holding important positions in other localities. In accepting the appointments, they came to the new territory with the intention of making it their home, to give to it their life work, and to secure for it those influences and institutions, which would insure its permanent well-being. The most prominent of these men were Ninian Edwards, governor; Nathaniel Pope, secretary of state: Jesse B. Thomas and Stanley Griswold, judges, each of whom is worthy of a much more extended notice than can here be given.

Governor Edwards was born in Maryland, and was brought up under the best educational and social influences of his native state. Removing in early life to Kentucky, he there entered upon a successful career as a lawyer, and had reached the high eminence of chief justice of the supreme court of that state, when he received his appointment to the new territory. He retained this position of governor till Illinois was admitted as a state, when he was chosen United States senator. In his official capacity as governor he secured the enactment of wise laws, did much to secure the peace, tranquillity and prosperity of the people, and through all the Indian troubles of that period adopted and carried out such wise and just measures as secured the new settlements from savage raids. He was conciliatory, but firm and energetic in all his movements, and undoubtedly saved southern Illinois from what might have been a second Chicago

massacre.

Secretary Pope, better known as Judge Pope, a native of Kentucky, was a lawyer of marked ability, refined and scholarly, with all those traits of character which would make him a power for good in his new home. In 1816 he was chosen territorial delegate to Congress, and in that capacity secured the passage of a measure which must be regarded as the most important legis

lative act relating to our state; and the credit of it is due to him alone. This was an amendment to the act admitting Illinois as a state, which changed the northern boundary from a line running due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to latitude 42° 30', giving to the new state a strip of land about fifty miles wide. It would take a long chapter to give Judge Pope's reasons for this amendment, and a still longer one to show its influence on the history of the state and nation.

Judge Thomas was delegate to Congress from Indiana Territory at the time of its division, and the principal agent in securing that division. He was a lawyer of marked ability, and a gentleman of high standing, morally and socially, but he had already made himself prominent as an advocate of slavery, and in the subsequent history of Illinois was a leader on the pro-slavery side. He was president of the convention which formed our state constitution, and was elected the first United States senator.

Judge Griswold was from New England, the only representative from that section; but he brought with him his Puritan habits. As Governor Reynold says of him, "He was a correct, honest man; a good lawyer; paid his debts, and sung David's Psalms."

These men did not come alone. They brought with them their families. Those from the south brought with them their domestic servants. They were followed also by many of their relatives and acquaintances, and their homes became centres of hospitality, refinement and Christian influence. When, a few years later, Samuel J. Mills came to the territory, as the pioneer home missionary and Bible agent, from Connecticut, he found at the home of Judge Griswold in Shawneetown a hearty welcome, and a little band of sympathetic workers; and at Kaskaskia a like welcome from Governor Edwards and Judge Pope, whose names head the list in the first Bible society formed, and whose influence quieted all Catholic opposition to this Protestant work.

One act passed by the Indiana legislature in 1807 and adopted by the new territory, must here be noticed. This was an act, providing for the introduction of negroes and mulattoes into the