Jefferson County, Illinois - Chapter 10 (1 of 2 so headed), 1883

Chapter 10

EDUCATIONAL - EARLY EFFORTS AT FREE SCHOOLS - THE DUNCAN LAW - EDUCATION AT PRESENT - STATISTICS - THE PRESS - EDITOR .JOHN S. BOGAN - FIRST NEWSPAPERS - MOUNT VERNON A NEWSPAPER GRAVEYARD - THE PRESS OF TO-DAY - RELIGIOUS HISTORY - OLD-TIME CHRISTIANITY - PIONEER MINISTERSCHURCHES ORGANIZED - REV. JOHN JOHNSON, ETC.

THE subject of education should interest every reader of this work, more, perhaps, than aay other mentioned in the general history of Jefferson County. For we are told that it " is education forms the common mind," and our forefathers appreciated this fact when they declared, in their famous ordinance of 1787, that " knowledge, with religion and morality, are necessary to the good government of mankind." In that little clause they struck the very keynote of American liberty. The governing power in every country upon the face of the globe is an educated power. The Czar of the Russias, ignorant of international law, of domestic relations, of finance, commerce and the organization of armies and navies, could never hold, under the sway of his scepter, 70,000,000 of subjects. An autocrat must be virtuous and intelligent, or only waste and wretchedness and wreck can wait upon his reign. England, with scrupulous care, fosters her great universities for the training of the sons of her nobility, for their places in the House of Lords, in the army, navy and church. What, then, ought to be the character of citizenship in a country where every man is born a king, and sovereign heir to all the franchises and trusts of the State and Republic? An ignorant people can be governed, but only an intelligent and educated people can govern themselves.

be reserved for the maiDtenance of public schools within each townshii?. The ordinance of 1787 proclaimed that " schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged." By the act of Congress passed April 18, 1818, eaabling the people of Illinois to form a State Constitution, the " Section numbered 16 in every township, and when such section had been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be, should be granted to the State for thn use of the inhabitants of such township for the support of schools." The act further stipiilates " That 5 per cent of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said State, and which shall be sold by Congress from and after the 1st day of January, 1819, after deducting all expenses incident to the same, shall be reservud for the purposes following: Two-fifths to bo disbursed, under the direction of Congress, in making roads leading to the State; the residue to be appropriated by the Legislature of the State f nr the encouragement of learning, of which one sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." In other words, Congress donated to the State a full township, six miles square, for seminary purposes, and the thirty-sixth part of all the residue of public lands in the State and 3 per cent of the net proceeds of the sales of the remainder, to support common schools and pi'omote education in the then infant State. Truly a most magnificent and princely donation and provision for education. The sixteenth section, so donated, amounted in the State to nearly a million acres; in Jeflerson County to over ten thousand acres. Laws were first passed, directing Commissioners' Courts to appoint three Trustees for the school land in each township, where the inhabitants of such townships numbered twenty white persons. These Trustees had power to lease the school lands at public outcry, after twenty days' notice, to the highest bidder, for any period not exceeding ten years, the rents to be paid in improvements, or in shares of the products raised. The laws were crude, and fell far short of their intended object. The school lands, under the lessee or rental arrangement, yielded little or no revenue; many of the renters, having no title to nor common interest in the land, only opened and cultivated enough for a bare support, and of course produced nothing to divide. Then squatters took possession of a considerable portion, and wasted the timber, and in many ways depreciated the value of the lands. As a result, the cause of education languished, and was at a standstill for years. There were a great man}' influences and obstacles in the way of a general diffusion of knowledge. The settlements were sparse, and money or other means of remunerating teachers were scarce; and teachers, competent to impart even the common rudiments of an English education were few and far between.

This state of affairs continued until 1825, when Joseph Duncan, then a member of the State Senate, introduced a bill for the support of common schools by a public tax. The preamble to the act was as follows: "To enjoy our rights and liberties, we must understand them; their security and protection ought to be the first object of a free peo2:)le; and it is a well-established fact that no nation has ever continued long in the enjoyment of civil and political freedom which was not both virtuous and enlightened; and believing that the advancement of literature always has been and ever will be the means of devolojjing more fully the rights of man; that the mind of every citizen in a republic is the Common property of society and constitutes the basis of its strength and happi- ness; it is, therefore, considered the peculiar duty of a free government, like ours, to encourage and extend the improvement and cultivation of the intellectual energies of the whole." The test of this admirable law may be divined from the preamble. It gave education a powerful impetus, and common schools floimshed in almost every settlement. But notwithstanding all this, the law was in advance of the civilization of the times. The early settlers had left the older States - the Southern States, where common scliool education never has flourished as it should - and plunged into the wilderness, braving countless dangers and privations in order to better their individual fortunes and to escape the burdens of taxation, which advanced refinement and culture in any people invariably impose. Hence, the law was the subject of much bitter opposition. The very idea of a tax was so hateful, that even the poorest preferred to pay all that was necessary for the tuition of their children, or keep them in ignorance - which was generally the case - rather than siibmit to the mere name of tax. This law - the Duncan law, as it was called - is the foundation upon which rests the superstructure of the present common school system of Illinois. The law provided for the division of townships into school districts, in each of which were elected three School Trustees, corresponding to Directors of the present day, one Clerk, one Treasurer, one Assessor and one Collector. The Trustees of each district had supreme control and management of the school within the same, and the employment of teachers and fixing their remuneration. They were required to make an annual report to the County Commissioners' Com-t, of the number of children living within the bounds of such district, between she ages of five and twenty one years, and what number of them were actually sent to school, with a certificate of the time a school was kept ujj, with the expenses of the same. Persons over the age of twentyone years were permitted to attend school iipon the order of the Trustees; and the history of education in Illinois discloses the fact that it was no uncommon thing for men beyond the meridian of life to be seen at school with their children. The law required teachers, at the close of their schools, to prepare schedules giving alphabetically the names of attending pupils, with ^their ages, the total number of days each pupil attended, the aggregate number of days attended, the average daily attendance, and the standing of each scholar. This schedule was submitted to the Trustees for their ajaproval, as no teacher was paid any remimeration except on presentation to the Treasurer of his schedule, signed by a majority of the Trustees. The law further provided, that all commun schools should be maintained and supported by a direct public tax. School taxes were ' payable either in money or in produce, and teachers would take the produce at market price, or if there was no current value, the price was fixed by arbitration. Fancy the schoolma'am of the present daj^, taking her hard-earned salary as a teacher in potatoes, turnips or coon skins! We have heard it related of a teacher in one of the counties bordering the Wabash River, that he was paid in coon skins for a ten weeks' school ; and after his school was out, he footed it to Vincennes, with his pelts upon his back, a distance of over thirty miles, and there disposed of them. When this wise and wholesome law was repealed by the Legislature, Gen. Duncan wrote, as if gifted with prophecy, " That coming generations would see the wisdom of his law, and would engraft its principles on their statute-books; that changes in the condition of society might render difterent ap- plications of the same necessary, but that the principle was eternal, and the essence of free and enlightened government; and legislators who voted against the measui-e will yet live to see the day when all the childi'en of the State will be educated through the medium of common schools, supported and maintained by direct tax upon the people, the burden falling upon the rich and poor in proportion to their worldly possessions." These predictions, yellow with the years of a half-century and over, have been faithfully fulfilled and verified.

The Duncan school law remained in force only a little over two years, when it was re pealed. The great objection, as we have said, to the law, was the tax clause. This was, substantially, that the legal voters of any school district had power, at any of their meetings, to cause either the whole or onehalf of the sum necessary to maintain and conduct a school in said district, to be raised by taxation. And if the voters decided that only one-half of such required amount was to be so raised, the remainder was to be paid by the parents, masters and guardians, in proportion to the number of pupils which each of them might send to such school. No person, however, could be taxed for the supjjort of any free school unless by his or her consent fu'st obtained in writing, though all persons refusing to be taxed were precluded from sending pupils to such school. In almost every district there were those who had no childi'en to educate, and then there was an uncivilized element of frontier life, who believed education was a useless and unnecessary accomplishment, and only needful to divines and lawyers; that bone and muscle and the ability to labor were the only requirements necessarv to fit their daughters and sons for the practical duties of life. A proverb then current was (in many localities),

" The more book-learning the more rascals." To quote a localism of the day, "Gals didn't need to know nothin' about books, and all that boys orter know was how to grub, maul rails and hunt." That senseless prejudice, born of the crude civilization of the early period of the country, has descended, in a slight degree, to the present, and yet tinges the complexion of society in many different localities.

After the repeal of the Duncan law, education, for nearly a generation, was in anything but a flourishing condition, either in this county or in the State. Like the stagnant waters of a Southern lagoon, it was difficult to tell whether the current flowed backward or forward. For many years the schoolhouses, school books, school teachers and the manner of instruction were of the most primitive character throughout the whole of Southern Illinois. The houses were the proverbial log cabin, so often described in the early annals. A few of these humble schoolhouses, unused and almost rotted down, may still be occasi'jnally seen, eloquent of an ago forever past. The early books were as primitive as the cabin school - houses, and the early teacher was, perhaps, the most primitive of all. The old-time pedagogue was a marked and distinctive character of the early history - one of the vital forces of the earlier growth. He considered the matter of imparting the limited knowledge he possessed a mere question of effort, in which the physical element predominated. If he couldn't talk or read it into a pupil, he took a stick and mauled it into him.

The schoolmaster usually, by common consent, was a personage of distinction and importance. He was of higher authority, eveu in the law, than the Justice of the Peace, and ranked him in social position. He was considered the intellectaal center of the neighborhood and was consulted upon all BubjectB, public and private. Most generally he was a hard-shell Baptist in religion, a Democrat in politics and worshiped Gen. Jackson as his political savior. But the old-time pedagogue - the pioneer of American letters - is a thing of the past, and we shall never see his like again. He Is ever in the van of advancing civilization, and tied before the whistle of the locomotive or the click of the telegraph was heard. He cannot live within the pale of progress. His race became extinct here more than a quarter of a century ago, when the common school system began to take firm hold and become a fixed institution among the people. The older citizens remember him, but to the young of to-day he is a myth, and only lives in tradition.

The school laws, after the repeal of the Duncan law, were often changed - they were revised and changed again before they attained to the perfection we at present have in them. Even now, they are susceptible of improvement, though they are superior to those of many other States. A ])eculiarity in the difl'erent State constitutions is that pertaining to education. The constitution of 1818, while indorsing education in a general way, is silent upon the subject of educating the masses through the medium of the common schools. The framers of the constitution of 1848 went a little further; they said that the General Assembly might provide a system of free schools. It was not, however, till cf ter half a century of existence as a State, that her delegates, in convention assembled, engrafted upon the pages of her organic law a mandatory section, declaring " that the General Assembly sihall provide a thorough and efiicient system of free schools, whereby all children of this State may receive a good common school education ;" and the last General Assembly (1882-83), among the few redeeming acts of its long, turbulent session, was one compelling all parents, guardians, etc., to educate the children intrustedto them. The first school ever taught in Jeiferson County was in 1820, by Joel Pace, whom we have mentioned elsewhere as the first County and Circuit Clerk. It was taught in a floorless cabin, without ceiling or window - perhaps without a shutter to the door. The pupils comprised the children of William Maxey, probably, and John and Henry Wilkerson's, one or two of Isaac Casey's and a few of James and Lewis Johnson's. The next school was taught by James Douglas, at Old Shiloh. Douglas was a man of educa tion, and, it is said, understood several different languages. He boarded at Zadok Casey's much of the time, and from him Mr. Casey received the rudiments of an English education. The Shiloh house in which Douglas taught was burned down the next fall, and hence his was the only school taught in it. Another was afterward built, near the same site. Emory P. Moore taught, perhaps, the third school in the county at Union, in 1820-21. In 1822, W. L. Howell taught in the same house. About 1821-22, an Irishman named Freeinan taught a school on Mulberry Hill, in a cabin that had been built by Clark Casey and afterward abandoned. Referring to the early schools of the coanty, Mr. Johnson says: " The schools were not large nor learned. The Testament, spelling-book and arithmetic, with writing, constituted the coarse of study; audit didn't 'run smooth,' for nearly all the schools were loud - just as loud as the children's lungs could make them, every one studying at the top of his voice; yet the teachers were more rigorous in discipline than is common at present. "

Eli Gilbert

The Press. - A history of the county which did not give a full and complete histor}' of the press woitld be incomplete, to say the least. JeiTerson County, like many other por tions of the State - and many portions, even, of the whole country -^has been a great news paper graveyard. For a history of the many enterprises - living and dead, past and present - in the "art preservative of all arts," we are indebted to Dr. A. Clark Johnson, who knows more of the press history, as well as the entire history of Jefferson County, than any other man. living. His sketch of the jjress is as follows:

It ought not to be difficult to prepai'e a full and connected account of our newspaper enterprises, but it is so; and chiefly, we suj)- pose. because oui- papers .changed owners so ofteu, and so many of our editors and publishers have left us. We trust, however, that the reader will find nearly all the leading actors and events in this line in the following sketch:

Tlie Jeffersonian. - Our present Circuit Clerk, John S. Bogan, was the principal one "to be, to do and to sufier" in this, our lirst attempt. A few words of him are not out of place here. The son of a printer, Mr. Bogan had learned the art in the Congressional Globe office at Washington City in early boyhood, and followed types till 1840. He then located a few miles out of town, near the line of Montgomery and Prince George Counties, in Maryland. He was born in Shenan doah County, Va., in 1820. His father, Benjamin Bogan. was also a Virginian, and a fine type of that old Virginia gentleman now fast passing away. For many years he edited and published a newspaper in both Virginia and Ohio, and then located in Washington City. Our old editor, John S. , has been with us so long that we all know him. He is a part of us - a very large part, for his heart is large enough and warm enough to take in the whole human race. He came here young, and buoyant with hope and life, and now he is growing old and is fast descending the shady side of life. For forty years he has gone in and out among us, and his long and active life is without spot or blemish. Although he long ago retired from the editorial chair, he has always been in public life, itntil the county machinery would hardly run without his aid.

He came to our county in 1846, at the suggestion of Gov. Casey, who was ever trying to bring the better class of immigration hither, and bought the old Sam Casey place in Grand Prairie. He was quite a successful farmer, aad remained here till 1851. T. B. Tanner, having learned from Gov. Casey that Bogan was a printer, rode out to his farm and remained a day or two with him, discussing the project of starting a paper in Mount Vernon. The result was that the paper was determined upon, and a subscription by the citizens footed up $156. A pause ensued. H. T. Pace inquired how much more was wanted, and finding it was §200 offered to loan that sum, taking notes due in one and two years.

Bogan found a partner in the person of Augustus A. Stickney, then at Centralia. Stickney, we believe, was originally from St. Clair County, and was related to the O'Malvenys. He was a man of brain and vim, but not much physical strength. An old Rammage 2:)ress was secured at Belleville. It had formerly done service at Alton. It was inked with balls instead of a roller. Its mahogany frame would indicate that it had once been a line one, but it required four tremendous pulls to print a paper. This was too much for Stickney, who got to spitting blood when he went to strike off the paper; so in a few weeks he retired, went to Faii-tield and started a paper there. Let us finish him: From Fairfield he went South, and at length brought up in San Francisco, where he published, and perhaps still publishes, the Alaska Herald. We have a copy of his paper. Vol. VI., No. 140 agooddeal English, some Russian, and in his terms he agrees to take greenbacks at par.

The first number of the Jefferson ian was issued in August, 1851. It was a modest sheet, of six column size, with some advertisements, and enjoyed a circulation of about six hundred copies. The Hamilton County printing was done here, but beyond this the job work did not amount to much. Prob ably, in the way of Eastern exchanges, the Jeffersonian excelled any other paper we ever had. The Alton Telegraph and the State Register, both dailies, were also on the exchange list, besides the few papers then published in Southern Illinois, as the Cairo Argus, Benton Standard, Shavpneetown Advocate, Belleville Advocate, Salem Advocate and the rest of the Advocates, whether socalled or not. It was not, however, a financial success, resembling, in this respect, Grossman's Benton Standard, and most of the papers of that day in Southern Illinois.

After Stickney left, Bogan had helps - "Wallace; Matchett, the universal tramper, who could scare all the boys bj' his fearful recitations of Shakespeare; Frank Manly, who married and went to Mount Carmel and died; John A. Wall for a short time, T. T. Wilson, E. V. Satterfield, et at. This office produced the first roller ever used in the county. Bogan was the building committee, and Ed Satterfield the master mechanic. Ed Noble made a tin mold; the materials were mixed and cooked in an old iron pot, and the whole performance took place in the middle of Main street, in front of the office. Thus the modern improvements were introduced. Yet the enterprise failed to pay, and in three years was hopelessly in arrears - as papers are apt to be when their subscribers are. Pace sued on his notes, and finally Bogan, his paper and his farm all "went under" together.

Tanner, at this time, was Circuit Clerk, having been elected in 1852, and he reproached himself as the cause of Mr. Bogan' s misfortune. Downing Baugh was now Judge, filling the unexpired term of S. S. Marshall. So Tanner, having first obtained a promise of Judge Baugh, resigned his office and Bogan was appointed to succeed him. Thus began Bogan's somewhat protracted term as Clerk of the Circuit Court, dating from September. 1854.

In August of that year, however, in winding up his affairs, he had sold his old press to Bowman & Robinson for $325 in gold. These gentlemen were from St. Louis; the former a son of wealthy parents, the latter fresh from California; both nice young men - too nice to be satisfied with so rough a press. Before they had run it long, they offered to sell Mr. Bogan the whole concern for about $200. Robinson soon quit, and Bowman persevered for about six montiis when he sold out to Dodds, Johnson & Co. The origin of this company was peculiar. The county had recently come in possession of about 19,000 acres of swamp lands. One party was in favor of selling these lands immediately, and talked of a groat system of drainage and numerous new schoolhouses as the result. Dodds favored selling, partly, it may be - and very naturally - because ho was County Clerk, and would receive $1.50 for every deed made by the county. A caucus of those opposed to selling and in favor of holding the lands as a means of some day securing a railroad, was held - Casey, Seates, Johnson and Tanner, perhaps, forming the caucus. They resolved to form a company and buy the Jeffersonian, and run it in the interests of their raiboad project, fighting the pi'oposed sale of the lands. Of course this design was not even whispered to Dodds. The company was soon formed, composed of W. Dodds, John N. Johnson, Z. Casey, W. B Scales, T. B. Tanner, An ders'jU & Mills, J. Pace & Son. This was in April, 1855.

Tanner, fresh from the Legislature, became the editor. A Mr. Smith - not John, but Lute B., from Evansville - an inferior printer but not easy to get rid of, was foreman, aided by any boys he could pick up, especially, and for most of the time, by John A. Wall. Tanner went to St. Louis and secured a number of advertisements. The people were talked to, and the subscription list ran up to eleven or twelve hundred. A new press was bought from Frank Manly, and Daniel Anderson took a wagon to Grayville and hauled it home. In short, the enterprise was quite a success. After Dodds, Johnson & Co. had run the concern one year, and had accomj)lished their design - the selling of the lands had been voted down by the people - but still wishing to have a county

The Sentinel. - This was the nest paper that made its appearance. Tanner and Tom Casey were practicing law together and William Ander.'ion was studjing. Casey and Anderson were ambitious, and wished to try their hands at' the newspaper awhile, and Tanner consented to the use of his name. So Tanner, Casey & Anderson it was. They took the office for one year. The paper was styled the Sentinel, and Anderson was the ostensible editor. John A. Wall and Joel V. Baugh were the typos. John had been "devil" a good deal, but we believe Joe just went in with scarcely any initiation. It was before Casey had learned to write - we mean like he does on the Judge's docket - so the boys could read nearly all his articles. Tanner wrote the long articles - so long, the boys did not have time to correct the pi-oofs carefully; and Anderson not being a born wi-iting master, it went hard with the editorials. Tanner said that sometimes when the paper came out, and he looked at the " leader, " he could hardly remember whether he had ever written anything like it or not. The Sentinel did not prove very profitable, in fact, it began at the wrong time - just after the Presidential election in 1856, when everybody was cooling off so, when the year was out, Tanner, Casey & Anderson went out. And Baugh went out.

The Egyptian Torchlight. - Dodds, Johnson & Co. now sold their press and fixtures to William R. Hollingsworth and John A. Wall. They christened their paper the Egiipiian TorchUght, and published under the fii-m style of Hollingsworth & Wall, Ed Sattertield and Sam Bird assisting. In the fall, 1857, Wall withdrew and went to Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Hollingsworth went on

1857. Hollingsworth then surrendered .the office, not having yet paid for it, and went to Missoui-i or Arkansas. He came from Iowa. After Hollingsworth & Wall had both gone, Ed Satterfield issued the paper for a few weeks, making no notable change in it except the adoption of a motto that some were wicked enough to say was ambiguous: " Egyptian darkness and Jackson Democracy - - one and inseparable." The paper then again changed hands and name

The Advocate. - This was the name of the new paper. S. Tm'ner Brown was the new proprietor and Ed Satterfield and Frank Dowler were his forces. This enterprise lasted from "late in 1857," vide supra, imtil very late in 1857 - that is, for about three weeks. Dr. Brown was from Alabama by way of Metropolis, and his tall, slender figure, his very [tall, slender coat, his nervous locomotion, his fi'ay with Mi". Thorn, his real estate speculations, his marriage to Miss Jennie Lewellyn and his departiu-e will be well remembered by many. The lady mentioned was a niece to H. D. Hinman, was out on a visit from West Virginia, was ij[uite handsome and accomplished and was with the Doctor when they were heard from - what was long the last time; they were then at Memphis, he a surgeon in McCullough's ai-my, which was moving into Arkansas. Recently we learn that the Doctor now lives near Little Bock, and is succeeding well. After the Doctor left, Ed Satterfield again came in as the forlorn hope, and kept the paper going till after the publication of the delinquent tax list in the spring of 1858.

Joel F. Watson's store, east of the present Phcenix Block. J. E. Satterfield now bought the office for about $250, and kept it till after the sale of delinquent tax lands, as above-mentioned, when he sold it to Curtis & Lane for §300, and, we suppose, "was happy." The new men, S B. Curtis and James S. Lane, were both fi-om Y'psilanti, Mich., both were school teachers and Curtis had studied law. Wall was in Centralia. and Curtis & Lane sent for him to take charge of the type and press' work, as they were not printers, and Wall felt " passing rich" on a promise of §450 a year. Todd Wilson was his only " devil." We now find the office over James M. Pace's store, in the Johnson House, and the paper comes forth as the Mount Vernon Star, with a Latin motto, something like Non nobis solum, sed toto mundo nati. The" proprietors were strongly anti-slavery - perhaps Abolitionists would not be too strong a word; but they tried to make the Ijaaper neutral and failed, as usual. People found them out, and did not support them well. So, in 1859, at the end of one year, they retired, giving Wall a lease for another year. We believe they both returned to Michigan. Lane went into the army and was killed, and Cm-tis is practicing law.

"Wall soon after moved the office into the basement of the old Odd Fellows Hall. Todd Wilson and Ham Watson - now Dr. ^\'atson, of Woodlawn - were his helpers. At the end of nine months, Curtis & Lane, and Wall and all of them failed to finish paying for the press;] Wall's lease succiunbed to a prior claim, and Judge Sattei-field closed up the business by taking possession. But the Star was not extinguished. The Satterfield boys, Ed and John, moved into a room up-stairs in the com-t house, where it remained until they sold out to Haves in the fall of 1865. In the meantime it was still changing hands. We had Satterlield Bros., or Sattertiold & Bro., till 1861. Ned went to the war, and John ran it till the close of the year, then he went South, and Judge Sattertield and Wm. Davissim ran it till the next spring. Ned came back and ran it till fall, then both ran it till Hayes bought it.

The Mount Vernon Guardian. - In April, 1860, the Guardian appeared. It was published by Eussell & Wall. Alex Russell was from Minnesota, and was son-in-law to Mr. Erwin, who had bought and located on the hill where L. N. Beal lives. Eussell & Wall bought their press from Judge O'Malveny, of Centralia; it was the same that had been used by the somewhat noted J. G. D. Pettyjohn, when he was publishing his Modern Pharos. It was located upstairs in the building now occupied by W. E. Jackson, south side of the public square. This was our first Republican paper; indeed, it rather |claimed to be a War Democrat. Thus it went on for one year, when Wall joined the army, and was succeeded by William Durlinger, another son-in-law of Mr. Erwin. In a few months, Russell sold his interest to Durlincrer, and went to Belleville, and started the Bellville Democrat. Durlinger held up manfully for some time, but at last gave way, and retii-ed to a farm near Tamai-oa. Not liking that, he changed again, went to Belleville, and is still there with Russell, publish ing the Democrat. We believe it was in March, 1863, that the Guardian went down. The Unconditional Unionist. - By this time - 1863 - Wall came home from the ai-my, crippled, and some of his friends aided him to piu-chase the Guardian office. He moved to the room formerly occupied by Jack Fly as a furniture shop, near the old stand of D. Baltzell, and gave his paper the name of Unconditional Unionist. Of course it was unquestionably Republican. After piiblishing this paper for three years. Wall pulled out and went to Salem. Then A. B. Barrett and others formed a stock company, that we might not be left without a Republican paper, find soon found a man - A. J. Alden - to publish it. Jack kept it going, aided, of course, by Barrett and others, until the summer of 1867. He then went to Mc- Leansboro, and started the Hamilton Sucker, and was succeeded by George W. Moray. But Moray did not seem to succeed any further, for in five weeks he subsided and went to Princeton, Ky., and started a paper there. The Statesman. - This paper followed the Unionist. Henry Hitchcock, from Indianapolis, bought the press and fixtures, put Theodore Tromley in as chief " type tosser," and issued his first paper Septembers, 1867. Hitchcock was a nice, pleasant gentleman, and his paper did well until domestic afflictions compelled him to relinquish the business. He sold out in 1873.

The Free Press. - C. L. Hayes, as before noticed, bought the Star office from Satterfield in November, 1865, and on the 6th day of December issued his first paper, with the name of the Mount Vernon Free Press. From the court house he m(3ved to the room over Tom Goodrich's store, where it was burned in the great fire of March 16, 1869. His friends promptly rallied to his aid, and in about a month after the fire he had n new press, and resumed the publication of his paper. Hayes, with all that bitterness which sometimes injured him, must ever [be ranked very high as an editor and newspaper manager. He was a good hand to gather news, judicious in the use of the scissors, and much above the average in his editorials. He published the first history of Jefferson County, and expended $100 in assisting the writer in gathering up materials and preparing the sketches that appeared from week to week in his columns. In March, 1872, he sold to R. A. D. Wilbanks and G. M. Haynes, under whose management it continued till the next October, John Wightman being chief printer. This last purchase may have been made for a political pui-pose - we can't say.

The press was still nearly new; it was one that Wilbanks & Haynes had traded the old Star press for in Chicago, paying the difference. These gentlemen, now having no special object to accomplish, let the ofSee to W. H. Mantz. He continued till the spring of 1870, when he assumed a hostile attitude toward Wilbanks & Anderson, whereupon they " elected that his lease should terminate," and he went out, and became correspondent of the Missouri Republican. He was succeeded in the Press office by Don Davisson. Don was a Greenbacker now. and so was the Free Press, and the editorials presented a rare combination of softness and roughness. It will be remembered that the Greenbackers that year - 1877 - elected two of their candidates - John N. Satterfield, County Clerk, and John D. Williams. Superintendent of Schools.

But it soon became necessary to do something more; so, in April, 1879, the Jefferson Couuhj Greenback Printing Company was organized. William B. Anderson, Seth F. Crews and William H. Smith were the Commissioners to obtain license, etc., from the State. The object, as stated in their application, was to print and publish a weekly newspaper and to do a general printing, publishing and book-binding business, with power to change the weekly to a semi-weekly, tri-weekly or daily. Their capital was $2,000, in 200 shares of $10 each, and their corporation was to run for ninety-nine years. The principal stockholders were W. B. Anderson, W. H. Smith and S. F. Crews, fifteen shares each; G. W. Evans, G. L. Varnell, John Wilbanks. Ananias Knowles and Jesse H. Smith, ten shares each; the rest running from nine shares down to one. November 8, 1879, they elected as Directors, for three years, T. Anglen, L. B. Gregor}% J. B. Pearcy, Ananias Knowles, Alonzo Jones and G. W. Evans. Thus backed - and greenbacked - the thing looked fearfully strong; but the high colors soon began to fade, and in February, 1880, they sold out to H. H. Simmons, of the News. During the brief existence of the Free Press, in its last days, Anderson was the editor, and the vigor and earnestness - not to say acrimony, - with which he threw hot shot into the defunct old parties are too fresh in mind 'to be referred to here.

The News. - September 2, 1871, is the date of the lirst issue of the Mount Vernon Neivs. It was published by Lawrence F. Tromly, the auxiliary side being furnished by Kimball & Taylor, of Belleville, and the style of the concern being L. F. Tromley & Co. Theodore Tromley, who had handled some types for Satterfield, and had graduated under Jack Alden, on the Hamilton Sucker, joined Lawrence and they bought the office. Under the style of Tromly Bros., they then changed the paper to a quarto of eight pages, and moved from Varnell's Block to the Phoenix Block. L. F. Tromly began his experience with Durlinger & Russell, in 1861, and now publishes the Shawnee Neivs.

In the spring of 1876, the Tromly brothers sold out to C. L. Hayes, and Hayes to C. A. Keller in Januaiy, 1877, Hayes retaining possession till April 1. November 28, Keller sold to H. H. Simmons. Simmons was an Eastern man, who came West in 1849. After exploring the W'est, from Dubuque to New Orleans, he went into the Alton Democrat office with John Fitch, and remained there two years. He then went to Greene County, and published the CaiToUton Democrat for cue year, and then the Logan County Democrat for one year, and through the Presidential campaign, lighting Fremont. He was then correspondent for the Herald for a time, after which he traveled several years in the East, in the in*^erest of the North Missouri and the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad. In 1867, he started the Lebanon Journal, as an independent and local newspaper, and continued it for several years, when he sold out to Eckert and went back to Washington County, Ohio. He'there bought a half interest in the Democratic paper and remained one year, when his wife died and he went to Cleveland, where his sister lived. Thence, he came here in April, 1877, and ran the News for C. A. Keller till November 28, when he bought it, as before stated.

In February, 1880, Mr. Simmons bought the Free Press, and his paper is now the Mount Vernon News and Free Press. He paid what was, perhaps, a good price for the Free Press - $1,100; but he has shown himself what most printers are not- -a good financier, and has the whole outfit of both papers paid for. The News is the first paper in the county that proved a financial success. By this, and by a dignified course, with a good deal of editorial ability, the News has attained a high rank among the local papers of the State.

r/ie Si(cfcerS/a/e. - In May, 1873, C. L. Hayes and R. M. Morrison bought Henry Hitchcock's Statesman oifice, and began the publication of the Sucker State. In changing hands, the News changed politics - from Republican to Democratic - without change of name; but in case of the Statesman the change of name was as conspicuous as that of its political complexion. Morrison retired from the Sucker State December 27, 1873, and January 17, 1874, Hayes drup[)ed the co-operative outside, after which he claimed to have " the only paper printed in Jefferson County." But this county is too small a stream to float large or heavily-laden craft, so he finally ran aground and went to pieces.

The Weeldy Exponent. - In our biographical department will be found a sketch of Mr. Edward Hitchcock, the editor and proprietor of the Exponent. This supersedes the necessity to notice here his previous labors as a journalist. In November, 1878, when solicited by Rejaublicans of Jeflerson County to publish a paper here, he was, and had been for two years, publishing a paper at Casey, in Clark County, bearing the name of the Exponent. At that date - November, 1878 - the Republicans of Jefferson County invited Mr. Hitchcock to locate at Mount Vernon, and to bring hither his press and printing material. He did so; and on the 5th day of December, 1878, the first number of Vol. Ill of the Exponent was issued in Mount Vernon. Since that date, and up to the present, during a period of nearly five years, the paj)er has regularly appeared, notwithstanding difficulties and trials that can scarcely be appreciated by those who never tried to stem the tide of adverse political sentiment and contend with a majority such as uniformly sweeps all before it at election in Jefi'erson County. The paper is now well established, with a good circulation and liberal patronage in the way of job work and advertising. The office has been recently moved from the northwest corner of the same block to rooms in the Crews building, corner of Bunyan and Washington streets. It will not, perhaps, detract from Mr. Hitchcock's reputation to attribute his success, in part, to the amiable character of his family, as well as to his own ability as a jom-nalist.

or si sty years ago here was rough and rude. But for all this, that curse of huuianity, intemperance, was no more pre-valent, in proportion to population, than now - perhaps not as much. Scarcely was the nucleus of a settlement formed ere a distillery was started; for where there was such profusion of snakes there must be whiskj- to cure their bites! The settlers endured privations and hunger, and their children cried for bread for want of mills, they groped in ignorance for want of schools and churches, but the still house was reared in their midst, where the farmer exchanged his bag of corn for the pioneer beverage of the border. This is but the history of Illinois, and particularly of the southern part of the State. In every family the jug of bitters was to be found, and was regularly partaken of by every member of the household, especially during the chill season. The visit of a neighbor was signalized by producing the bottle or demijohn. At all rustic gatherings, liquor was considered an indispensable article, and was freely used. Everybody drank whisky. Even ministers sometimes took a little as an - ague preventive, or for the stomach's sake. There were some rough neighborhoods in which the people resisted all advancement and progress. In these, liquor was used to great excess, and then, as now, was an active promoter of broils, disturbances and tights. In these affrays - to their credit be it said - fists and feet were alone used, and were called "rough and tumble." The knife, the pistol and the bludgeon were then unknown, and are the products of a much later and more advanced civilization. These sections were known as "hard neighborhoods," and were shunned by all respectable emigrants seeking homes, who were so fortunate as to find out their reputation.

pioneer preacher, as " oae crying in the wilderness." These old-time ministers were characters, in their way. They were possessed of an individuality peculiarly their own, and as different from the high-bred clergymen of the present day as possible. As a class, they were uneducated, rough and resolute, and exactly suited to the day and civilization in which they lived. They encountered and overcame obstacles that would appall their effeminate representatives of a later period. They were exactly suited, we repeat, to the civilization in which they lived, and seem to have been chosen vessels to fulfill a certain mission. These humble pioneers of frontier Christianity proclaimed the glad tidings to the early settlers, at a time when the country was so poor that no other kind of ministers could have been maintained. They spread the Gospel of Christ where educated preachers with salaries could not have been supported. They preached the doctrine of free salvation, without money and without price, toiling hard in the interim of their labors to provide themselves with a scanty subsistance. They traversed the wilderness through sunshine and storm; slept in the open aii, with the green eai-th for a couch and the blue sky for a covering; swam swollen streams, suffered cold, hunger and fatigue with a noble heroism, and all for the sake of doing their Master's will and of saving precious souls from perdition.

Many of these old-time preachers sprang from and were of the people, and were without ministerial ti-aining, except in religious exercises and the study of the Scriptures. In those days it was not thought necessary that a minister should be a scholar, but that he might be from the common people, just as some of the disciples were from the lowly fishermen of Gallilee, and that it was sufficient for him to preach from a knowledge of the Bible alone; to make appealH warm from the heart; to paint the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell to the imagination of the sinner; to terrify him with the one and exhort him, by a life of righteousness, to attain the other. Many of these added to their Scriptural knowledge a diligent perusal of Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise Lost, Jenkins on Atonement and other kindred works, which gave more compass to their thoughts and brighter imagery to their fancy. In profuse and flowery language, and with glowing enthusiasm and streaming eyes, they told the story of the crown of thorns, of Golgotha and Calvary.

Their sermons sometimes turned upon matters of controversy - unlearned arguments on the subjects of free grace, baptism, freewill, election, faith, jusitfication and the final perseverance of the saints. But that in which they excelled was the earnestness of their words and manner, the vividness of the pictures they drew of the ineffable bliss of the redeemed and the awful and eternal torments of the unrepentant They painted the lake of fire and brimstone and the torments of hell so plain, that the startled sinner, in his excited imagination, could hear the ponderous iron doors open and their rusty hinges creiik. But, above all, they inculcated the great principles of justice and sound morality, and were largely instrumental in promoting the growth of intellectual ideas, in bearing the condition and in elevating the morals of the people: and to them are we indebted for the first establishment of Christian institutions throughout the county.

The first religious sect represented in the county was the Methodists, and of course they organized the first church society. This was different from most of Southern Illinois, for in many other portions, in fact in a majority of the counties, the Baptists - the hard shells - were the pioneers of religion. But here the Methodists got the start. We have said elsewhere that Jefferson County was a stronghold of Democracy; it was also a stronghold of Methodism. Several of the very earliest settlers were not only Methodists, but were Methodist preachers. Among these were Zadok Casey, Edward Maxey and Lewis Johnson. John Johnson, another pioneer preacher, came in later. As pioneers, these men are noticed in other chapters. They were the old-time ministers we have already described, plain and unvarnished, and preached the Word of God, not for "the world's di-oss," but from a sincere conviction of riffht and a desire to benefit their fellowmen. Next to the Methodists, the Baptists were the strongest in numbers and earliest in settlement. Elder Harris was one of their early preachers. The first sermon preached in the county is said to have been delivered by Zadok Casey. It was preached in the fall of 1817, in a house that had been just erected by Isaac Hicks, and we have the authority of Johnson, the historian, for stating that every man, woman and child then within the present limits of Jefferson County was pres ent. The first house iised for church purposes was the one already mentioned as the one in - which Joel Pace taught the first school. It was used until the fall of 1820, when it was destroyed by tire.

In the spring of 1819, or thereabouts, the first religious oi-ganization in the county was effected. It was at a meeting held at Edward Maxey's cabin, and the society thus formed comprised Edward Maxey and wife, William Maxey and wife, Burchett Maxey and wife, Fleming Greenwood and wife, James Davis and wife and Zadok Casey. In the fall of 1820, a house was built at Union, and in the fall of 1821, that at Shiloh. These were used both for school and church purposes.

We cannot, however, go into details of organization of the different churcheH in this chapter, but in the history of the towsnhips shall devote considerable space to each of them.

Rev. John Johnson. - A more fitting conclusion, perhaps, could not be given to this chapter than to append a sketch of the Rev. John Johnson. No minister of his day stood higher in Southern Illinois. Rev. G. W. Robbins, who preached his funeral sermon, only -ipoke the unanimous verdict of all who knew him best, when he said " John Johnson was no ordinary man." He was born in Louisa County, Va., Januaiy 7, 1783. Born in poverty, he was left an orphan when less than two months old, and sank to the extremes of poverty more trying still. When her sons had grown to manhood and had gained sufficient wealth to own a cart and yoke of rattle, the mother moved to Sumner County, Tenn. There Mr. Johnson, slender and feeble in his youth, lived to the age of twenty-eight, developing a strength of frame that would be deemed almost gigantic at the present day. With increasing strength, there came a desire for improvement. By the help of a slave, he learned the alphabet, and by the help of a piece of an old song book, containing songs he knew by heart, he learned to read. He was converted, and felt himself called to preach before he could yet read so as to be understood. By the light of pineknots, lie studied at night, after his hard day's work was over, and on Sundays, at some little cabin on the hillside, he would proclaim the Gospel, with little of man's learning but with a pathos and a power that always carried the hearts of his rustic hearers by storm. He applied for admission into the old Western Conference, but even that primitive body, looking at his uncouth garb and listening to his stammering e£fort to read, rejected his application and kindly advised him to abandon his design of trying to preach. He was not humbled by this - he was as humble as man could be before. He returned to his home, his studies and his toil. The next year, the Conference admitted him on trial, but seemed curious to see how 'much hardship he could bear. They sent him to the Sandy River, where climbing mountains and swimming unbridged streams was his daily work. Two hundred times he had to swim in the course of the year. He then traveled two years in diiferent parts of Ohio - then the frontier - and was next sent to Natchez, in Mississippi, a jpoint it required 1,500 miles' travel by the zigzag routes to reach, most of this distance being by paths and trails, 600 miles of it through the " Indian nations."

We have not space to follow Mr. Johnson through his various experiences of trial and toil. August 10, 1814, he married Miss Susannah Brooks, who showed herself a worthy helper for such a man, and who still lives, one of the most aged and venerable of the few survivors of her generation in Jefferson County. Without a trace of ambition or a suspicion of self-seeking, but by the overpowering weight of mind and character alone, Mr. Johnson rapidly made his way to the very front. In the palmiest days of the Kentucky Conference, when it contained many such men as Peter Cartwright, Peter Akers, Thomas A. Morris, Jonathan Stamper and Henry B. Bascom, it was asserted by a writer of that day that " Bro. Johnson was the most poj)ular and effective preacher in the State." An evidence of his standing is found in the fact that, in 1822, when the conference sat at Bells' Camp Ground, near Lexington, Mr. Johnson was unanimously chosen to preach the funeral of that great and saintly man, Valentine Cook, to one of the largest and most august assemblies that had ever met in Kentucky. After filling nearly all the most important positions, having been stationed at Nashville, Maysville, Louisville, Hopkinsville and other points, and Presiding Elder for several years on the Hopkinsville District, Gum River District, etc., he located and came to Mount Vernon in 1834:, and here, on the 8th day of April, 1858, he passed away.

In person, Mr. Johnson was of medium height - about five feet eleven inches - his weight 170 to 180 pounds, complexion dark, hair black as the raven. His movements seemed slow, but, he pushed forward what ever work he had to do with an energy that never tired. In his labors, whether on the circuit or the farm, he seemed incapable of fatigue and had physical strength sufiicieut for all demands. But with all his rugged vigor he had a heart as tender as a woman's, and a sympathy that extended even to the insect under his feet. He had a voice of most unusual power. Even when speaking in tones so loud that he could be heard two miles away, he seemed to speak with ease, and his voice never lost that peculiar quality that melted the hearts of all who heard. His profound learning and his masterlj' intellect commanded the respect of all; but it was more, perhaps, by the tenderness and intensity of his emotions that he swayed the multitudes. Yet his discourses were short, seldom over twenty or thirty minutes. A camp meeting was once held near his home; he returned fi-om a business trip on Satm-day evening; the meeting was dragging on, heavy and cold; he jsreached on Sunday, at 11 o'clock, and it was as if a cyclone had struck the congregation, carrying saint and sinner alike before it. The uproar after ho closed lasted longer than the sermon. One evening in Hopkinsville, the sexton was absent with the church key, and Mr. Johnson talked a few moments to the group that was shut out, and when he closed, all were in tear.s, and they went shouting along down the streets in every direction. Perhaps there never was a man who could open a shorter way to the heart. At a love- feast at old Union, he once spoke not more than half-adozen words, but everybody's cup seemed to run over at once, for a general shout was the result. He was not fond of debate, but when it was forced upon him showed himself a David ready for any Goliath he might meet.. While stationed at Nashville, Tenn., the Methodist Episcopal Church was assailed, and defiance thrown out by a Mr. Vardiman, distinguished alike for polished manners, learning and skill as a debater. Mr. Johnson accepted his challenge. When the appointed day came, Johnson walked humbly in, alone, and soon Vardiman strode in, with Felix Grundy on one arm and Andrew Jackson on the other. The contest was to last three days. On the second morning Vardiman failed to appear, and he never was seen in Nashville again. It may be that there was what some ministers term a divine power about his ministry; for he was one of the most fully consecrated of men, and there was a solemn gravity about the man such as is very rarely seen. It may have been this that made a certain man declare that it "made the cold chills run over him to see Mr. Johnson walk down the aisle to the pulpit." It is, no doubt, largely owing to his influence that the Methodist Church has grown from D. Baugh and wife, the only members at the time he came, to 400 members now. His remains, with those of his youngest son, who died in 1853, repose in Salem Cemetery.