Mount Vernon Township

Mount Vernon Township

Thus was the county seat of Jefferson county fixed upon, and selected (in 1819 - nearly ninety years ago), and no doubt permanently so, for no one would venture a prophecy of it ever being removed. At the time it was located there was a little dissatisfaction but none since. Isaac Hicks thought it ought to have been located at Post Oak Hill, which was a little nearer the center of the county. Other parties wanted it on or near the land where Oakwood cemetery now is. And complaint was made that one of the Commissioners, Lewis Barker, was the father-in-law of William Casey, and acted partially. But soon everybody admitted and everybody admits yet, that the selection was a good one, unsurpassed by those that were offered by other parties. Of course at that time it was difficult to .conceive what a real live town would look like in this virgin wild - as there was scarcely anything in sight but heavy timber, and forests of under-brush, all to be cleared away by those hardy sons of toil, the pioneers of Jefferson county.

For their services these commissioners were allowed, Maulding, who lived near where McLeansboro now is, $8, and Richardson, who lived near Carmi, and Barker, who owned the Cavein-Rock Ferry, $12 each.

Public Buildings

At the first meeting of the County Commissioners' Court, it was resolved to build a court-house. It would be a curiosity to see it in our public square now, but people were not so numerous, prosperous and proud as we are now. Its size was eighteen by twenty feet, built of hewed logs that faced ten inches, closely notched down, to have a good roof of boards, a plank floor closely laid ; to have one door and one window all done in a workman-like manner, to be completed and delivered to the Commissioners' Court at the next September term, said house to be built in the public square, the timber to be furnished by Isaac Casey and Joseph Jordon ; John Sanders' bid on the job was eighty-five dollars, and gave as bondsman, James Kelley. On the ridge west of town the timbers were "got out" and the boards "rived." Henry Tyler hewed the logs secured on the lands of Isaac and William Casey and Joseph Jordon. The building was ready for use in September as ordered by the court, whereupon John Sanders received an eighty-five dollar certificate for the same. It stood about where the present courthouse stands, its one door facing south and its only window, west. As winter came on it was discovered that the house was too large to keep warm inside without fire; hence the court ordered that the finishing touch to the building, the adding of a fire-place, be let to the lowest bidder, and this was the style of it : "A chimney place to be cut and a good chimney built, back and hearth to be like the one in the house of Lewis Watkins, and to be as good - an upper floor or loft of same plank to be closely laid and the cracks to be chinked and daubed with good mortar. Also, a platform, constructed in the west end of the room, to be of proper height, four feet wide, of good hewed puncheons, to lack but three feet of reaching from one side of the house to the other; at the end of said platform, are to be the steps, composed of blocks or planks and a hand rail in front of the platforms of proper height and a seat in the rear of the platform (supposedly the seat of justice) and two seats in front, all to be made of good hewed puncheons. The platform to be supported by good substantial posts or pillars or blocks, to be completed by the first Monday in March, next, in workmanlike manner. Oliver Morris undertook the job for eighty dollars, but when March came the Commissioners found the work but imperfectly done, and forthwith docked the architect and builder five dollars, and he had to accept seventy-five dollars. And the court house complete cost Jefferson county what was then considered the exorbitant sum of one hundred and sixty dollars. Such was Jefferson county's first temple of justice.

Still Further Improvements

In 1 820 a stray pound and a log jail were ordered built on the lot where the jail now stands. This lot was sold to G. Greenwood at the first auction of lots to help put up pubic buildings, but he failed to pay for it, and it reverted to the county. John C. Casey took the contract for building the pound for thirty-three dollars eightyseven and one half cents, and Burchett Maxey took the contract for building the jail for three hundred and twenty dollars more than twice as much as the court-house cost. Zadok Casey, who was then an extra hand with an axe, either in chopping or hewing "went partners" with Burchett Maxey and together with the assistance of Lewis and James Johnson and others got out the logs, two hundred of them, and had John Wilson haul them to the lot. December 5th. of that year, Henry B. Maxey, who was the main builder, turned the completed jail over to the court, and the work was endorsed and paid for. The platform provided for an upper story, was made by simply working in four logs four feet longer than the others, the projecting ends forming the platform - needing no support, while the steps were two logs with steps cut in them, but the work was substantial and satisfactory. Afterward the log jail was torn down and rebuilt just east of the court-house, in the square, and many now living remember seeing it there. The writer remembers when a boy, of accompanying A. M. Grant, who was the jailor there, to feed the inmates. He also remembers of carelessly (perhaps intentionally) letting a kind-hearted old slave, who had been taken up and posted as a stray or runaway, get away and pursue the road to freedom.

Next the court let to John Wilkinson the building of another hewed log house, to be used as a Clerk's office, for which, when completed, they paid William Casey forty-one dollars, William Jordon two dollars and twenty-five cents, Henry B. Maxey. four dollars, and John Wilkinson twelve dollars thirty-seven and onehalf cents, making the Clerk's office cost fifty-nine dollars sixty-two and one-half cents, but it took one dollar more to purchase a padlock and chain with which to lock up the records. Safety was secured by putting the chain through an augur hole iti the door and around the facing through a chink in the logs and pad-locking the ends together.

tuting at that time about half of the entire town. In the courthouse Burchett Maxey hved while he built his own house and in the Clerk's office, Joel Pace spent the last years of his single and the first years of his married life here. It was here that he lived when Harvey T. Pace came from Kentucky and split three thousand rails for Joel at fifty cents per hundred in state paper, equal to twenty-five cents in specie. Harvey boarded with his Uncle Joel, and fourteen feet square proved big enough for him and Joel's family besides, and also for the Circuit and County Clerk's office. For many years Joel Pace held both of these offices and discharged the duties well.

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon was chosen by the coirmiissioners as the name of the new county seat of justice, although Mount Pleasant was first proposed and favorably considered, but the name of Washington was greatly revered by the citizens, and Mount Vernon, his ancestral home, prevailed as the county seat of Jefferson county. Joel Pace was ordered by the court to contract with a surveyor to lay off the twenty acres, donated by William Casey, extending from Harrison street on the north to Jordon street, on the south, and from Casey street (now Eleventh street), on the west to Johnson street or alley, first street east of the public square. The lots numbered forty-eight, lying in eight squares, three squares each way, and one to the county, but nothing was said about blocks in the survey. The surveyor was William Hosick from - perhaps, Shawneetown. In September it was ordered that Joel Pace and William Casey be and are hereby employed to set Mulberry stakes around the public square, one at each corner, to drive all the stakes in the town and also to number the lots for which they are to be paid by the county.

the sum of five dollars. On the day of the sale the services of J. E. Davis, a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, was secured to cry the sale.

"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I am now gomg to sell you some lots in the beautiful city of Mount Vernon, all covered with a beautiful coat of green, but destined to be covered with beautiful blocks of magnificent buildings."- - How phophetic.

Lot No. I , was struck off to Bennett Maxey for forty-one dollars; No. 2 to Barton Atchison; Burchett Maxey bought No. 4, south of Herman's, where he built a log house; Lewis Watkins took the Joel Pace corner at one hundred sixty-two dollars and fifty cents; Nelson Ferguson took what is now the Ham's bank corner, one hundred and sixty-five dollars; Clark Casey, the Bond corner for one hundred and sixty dollars; Thomas Jordon, the lot where the Economy store now is; Doctor McLean, who afterwards located at McLeansboro, bought the Harvey Pace corner, where the third National Bank is, for one hundred and thirty-six dollars, with Isaac Casey as security. He failed to pay for it and Isaac passed it over to Burchett Maxey. J. E. Davis, the preacher who cried the sale of the lots, came in with a colony of Casey's and Maxey's in 1818. His wife was a sister to Burchett and Elihu Maxey's wives, and to James Bowman's and John Afflack's wives, all being daughters of John Taylor, of Wilson county, Tennessee. Of those who bought the original lots, Bennett Maxey was the son of William Maxey and brother to Joshua C. and J. P. Maxey, and was the father of William H. and James J., Charles C, Joshua C, Jr., and Thomas J.; also of Mrs. Emily Ray and Mrs. Eliza White; William and Edward were brothers from Virginia. William married Rhodam Allen's sister, Emily, and was the father of Henry B., Bennett Nelson, Elisha, Charles, Hardy, Joshua Cannon. William McKendrie, Adney and John, also of Mrs. Clarwall's history of JEFFERSON CO., ILL. 39 issa Johnson, Mrs. Harriet and Mrs. Vilinda Casey and Hostillina; Edward married Elizabeth Pitner, came to Kentucky and thence to IHinois, in 1819, was a Methodist and raised no children, but adopted Judge J. R. Satterfield. Barton Atchison was from Georgia, married a Hill, sister to Mrs. Wilkey and Mrs. Dempsey Hood, came to this county in 1816, and was much in public life. His sons were William, Ignitius, Samuel, George and the daughters, Winnie Myers, Martha Chaffin and one, the wife of Theophilus Cook, Jr., Nelson Ferguson, came and stayed one year and went back to Tennessee. His wife was a sister of Jordan Tyler. Clark Casey, John C, was a son of Abraham P., and son-in-law of Isaac Casey; came in 1818, and built a cabin on Mulberry Hill, southwest of town, lost his wife and married a Bingaman, went to Missouri, came back and died in 1862. Lewis Watkins was at the front some years, first in Moore's Prairie, then in Mount Vernon, finally returning to Tennessee, leaving his daughter, Mrs. Green P. Casey here. She was the mother of Lewis F. Casey. Henry Tyler was the son of John Tyler and John was a half-brother of James and Lewis Johnson. Henry married Isaac Casey's daughter, Catherine. He lived on the Centralia road for many years. John C. and Isaac Tyler were sons of Mrs. Ingram. Oliver Morris was son-in-law to Joseph Jordan. He built a brick house in Moore's Prairie as early as 1823. John Wilkerson married Dicy Keelin. in Virginia; she died and he married Mrs. Thomas, sister of Rhodam Allen and to William Maxey's wife. Mrs. Thomas by her first husband had five children; Mrs. Thad Moss's grandfather. Aunt Polly Parker and Edward Wilkinson's wife were three of them. This much for some of the very first settlers and builders of Mount Vernon.

manent seat of justice for the county as a starting point, we shall now launch out in search of the other unseen, and to a very large extent, unknown facts about the county and its inhabitants.

No institution, governmental or otherwise, comes near touching all the people in everyday life for the year round than does the post-office and the business transacted by the authorized agent of "Uncle Sam." The post-office is strictly a business institution, the business barometer of every city, town and village, readily showing the rise and fall of prosperity. If the business of the post-office shows a healthy increase there is increasing prosperity in the city or town. If on the contrary the receipts of post-office show a decrease, the prosperity of the place is tending in the same direction.

Notwithstanding this fact, however, each town and city has scores of people, some of them in business, who do not seem to realize that they might materially aid the business of the post-office by a little forethough in the transaction of their everyday business. Many instead of dispatching whatever they may desire to send abroad through the mails, rush off to the express office and pay extra prices to foreign trust companies for the services, and this too, while the post-office is the local institution of the people themselves - instituted by the government for the people in their respective localities, and operated by their own people for their own benefit. For it is a well known fact that the only place that the government comes in contact with the people, when they are brought to realize its beneficence, is through their post-office, where it provides for them fast mails, cheap rates, free delivery and the most accommodating public servants in the country, aside from securing the best and cheapest modes of sending and receiving money and other valuable articles. Every man, woman and child should know that they can send through the mails most any instrument of manuscript safer and cheaper than they can send same by an express company, which has no interest in the city except its one representative. As to merchandise, the mails also afford cheaper and quicker delivery. This is especially true as to other classes of goods, such as papers, books, etc.

As showing the demonstration of these facts, we begin away back at the time Mount Vernon was laid off. At first the pioneers had no post-office and no means of communication with or receiving information from the outside world. Imagine if you can what the town would be today were it in the same condition. Of course, after a few years, the people felt the need of a post-office and mail facilities and a post-office was finally ordained, and a mail route established to run from Shawneetown to Alton, and later, one from Metropolis to Salem, and of course Mount Vernon got the benefit of these routes, but the mail amounted to but little for several years. It was difficult to get anybody to act as postmaster for there was responsibility and no pay. It is said while Uncle Joel Pace held about all the county offices he also had to discharge the duties of postmaster. As in all new villages some one in other business was usually pressed into the service as postmaster. After passing the task around for some time, Downing Baugh (father of J. V. and

J. W.) assumed the duties of postmaster. A little later, the plum was transfered to Noah Johnston, who after operating it a while installed Daniel Kenney, a peculiar character who happened along as a tramp tailor, but a prominent Mason, and allowed him the salary for the service. Some of the older inhabitants will remember old man Kenney, who spit and sputtered when he didn't want to be disturbed, and how he used to call letters over to the crowd after the tri-weekly and daily stage came in, and how he seemed to think everybody should be there to claim their letters, without disturbing him in the interim. Without contest the old man was allowed to conduct the office until after President Lincoln was inaugarated in 1861. The old man Kenney had the office in a little shack near the new Presbyterian church. The old man died soon after giving up the office and was buried by the Masons.

Amos B. Barrett was appointed postmaster by President Lincoln and he located the office on Main street about the middle of what is now Pace block. The war came on and Barrett made himself quite popular as the soldier's friend in sending and receiving letters to and from the front. Barrett, however, did not hold up so well, after the war - he changed his politics and religion and finally died in Arkansas poor and friendless. Under Andrew Johnson, Will Baugh was appointed postmaster and he installed J. V. to act, which he did very satisfactorily until President Grant appointed S. K. Latham, who moved the office to a grocery store on the north side and served twelve years; Barrett again got into the office as helper. After Latham, came Robert Hinman, who served two terms as postmaster in an acceptable manner. He had the office in the Johnson block where the Boston store now is. When Cleveland was elected Robert F. Pace was appointed postmaster and was assisted by his sister. Miss Gussie Pace. He removed the office to the Bond block on Broadway, where it was considerably shook up by the cyclone in February, 1888. He was followed by the writer, John A. Wall, who moved the office into the Harrison block, south side of the square. He was assisted by Ed Stratton, Al Wall, Vesta Polk, and Bessie Wall and May Miller. During his incumbency he weekly handled the Progressive Farmer, nearly fifty thousand copies, which afforded the most work for the least pay ever recorded in the office - dividing and sending out a stake-wagon load of papers each week to different states, largely to single subscribers. He served nearly five years and brought the office up to a paymg basis.

Mr. Wall was succeeded by Allan C. Tanner, who removed the office to the room now occupied by Buckham's drug store. Wall continued with him until 1895, when he quit, was elected assessor and assessed Mount Vernon township. In 1897, Samuel H. Watson was appointed to succeed Tanner. At this time the office was changed from third to second class and Watson took hold of it determined to make it first-class, as to the service performed. He secured a lease on the building now occupied, from Doctor and Albert Watson, making the government responsible for all charges for rent, lights, fuel, etc. John A. Wall again came in as assistant postmaster, and at various times during this administration the office had as clerks: Omer Pace, Ray Hitchcock, Walter Gibson, James Mitchell, Wainwright Davis, J. W. Maddox, Harry Rice, Mary Malton and Nellie Woodworth, all good helpers, the only drawbacks being that no sooner was the young clerk installed than he would get married, and have to divide his attention somewhat between the mails and the females. Four were thus married in four years. Miss Mary Malton was the only one saved from the matrimonial wreck, she having served from 1 900 until now, and is counted one of the best post-office experts in the business and is head of the civil service examinations.

Under postmaster Watson, both city and rural delivery were established, not only as to Mount Vernon, but as to the other parts of the county as well. Through his untiring efforts he had twentyseven rural routes established, traversing nearly every part of the county, making Mount Vernon the starting point for ten of these routes. It would be interesting to give some statistics showing that at no period of the office's history has there been such a boom as under the never waning energy and business determination of postmaster Watson. He brought the income of the office up from nine thousand dollars per annum to sixteen thousand dollars, and he left the service with the assurance from the department that the record of the Mount Vernon post-office was the best in the state excepting one. But while the civil service law and the rule of the department both seemed to insure a continuance of the faithful and eminently useful administration of Capt. S. H. Watson and his assistants, undersirable political methods decreed that a good record and the enforcement of the civil service rules in the Mount Vernon post-office must not get in the way of paying political debts or fulfilling the condition of political trades and swaps, so Watson was let out and G. Gale Gilbert let in.

Roster Of Post-Office Force At Present

So it will be seen that the trend of the Mount Vernon postoffice is continuously onward and upward. The carrier's force is the same as under the former administration. The office clerks force is different except as to the lady clerks. Misses Malton and Woodworth.

The post-office at other towns in the county have had some of the same experiences as Mount Veriion. Dix, Woodlawn, Waltonville, Bonnie, Ina, Belle Rive, Opdyke, Bluford, Marlow and Emmerson City, all have well conducted post-offices, most of them operating rural routes. Most of the cross roads post-offices have given away to those rural routes, which serve all the people better than did the offices. The one thing needed to perfect this mail service in Jefferson county, is good roads, so that none of the routes may he held up in bad weather. It was part of the plan on the part of the government to require townships to keep their roads in order as a return for free mail delivery, but we regret to say that this is not being carried out. With the government giving this free mail delivery at great expense to the people, business men, farmers and others certainly ought to be willing to make an effort to make good roads, thus adding to their own conveniences as well as to the price of their farms, and the good opinion not only of the Jefferson county historian, but of all visitors to the county.

dred and seventy-eight dollars, the largest in the history of the department. The chief cause of the deficit is the increase of the rural free delivery system, which cost thirty-four million, three hundred and sixty-one thousand, four hundred and sixty-three dollars. The postmaster general recommends now a parcel post addition to the rural delivery, believing that it would be not only of great benefit to the farmers, but would earn millions for the postal service. Furthermore, it is urged that such a service would help the small local stores. Says Meyer: "Were the post-office department a modern business corporation, its board of directors would not hesitate fortyeight hours to utilize the present machinery and establish a limited local parcel post on rural routes." A two-cent rate is now in operation between the United States and both England and Germany, and the demand for cheaper postage has certainly gone to the limit. Better let the rate of postage rest and strain every nerve to bring it up to paying basis, the business of the department. Nobody has a right to complain of a two-cent postage rate, especially in view of the facilities and accommodations afforded by the government. The railroads and improved steamships have made mails possible and cheap everywhere, and the mails in turn have wiped out state lines and brought the national lion and lamb to the point of lying down together. The mail is the great civilizer. It has been and is the mother of commerce. It will one day sheath the sword and spike the cannon.

Telegraphs And Telephones, Etc

The telegraph came with the railroads and held full sway until the telephones came along and divided time with them. The roads are now using both the telegraph and the telephone in their business. The Western Union Telegraph Company have an up-town office with Joseph Medders in charge; they also have a machine in the Car Manufacturing Company's office, as also the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company has their system in full sway in Mount Vernon, and seem to render good service. We also have several independent lines extending through the rural districts. So in the matter of receiving or sending news we are up-to-date. To appreciate our condition, in this respect, we need only contrast the recent election with those held in the early settlement of the county, when it took two months to learn the result of a Presidential election. Now we can know by midnight of the day of election, just what has occurred. Yes, indeed, we are living in a fast age. Away back in 1 848, when Timothy Condit used to take and read the only daily paper that came to Mount Vernon, we were deeply interested one day in hearing what purported to be a dispatch from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan, said to have been sent over the first submarine cable laid in the waters of the Atlantic, which would permit us to hear the news from Europe in a few minutes, whereas before it took about a month. We confess we had some doubts about the authenticity of the dispatch and when in a few days we learned that the cable had parted, we were sure it was a mistake. But it was not, and now we have submarine cables in full operation between all countries of the world, and the daily papers of today tell us the world's happenings of yesterday - wonderful, of course.

But the greatest marvel yet, is the wireless system of hearing from ships out on the ocean and from the other side of the ocean, as well as from different parts of the earth, thus doing away with the great expense of putting up poles and wires. Can this be so? The answer is, it is so. We confess that we can not understand these things only on the theory that "there is nothing new under the sun." Evidently this is true so far as creation is concerned ; for everything we see, know or hear, was created and pronounced good, long before our feeble intellects were crystallized enough to attempt to grasp them. If we understand even the theory of wireless telegraphy, it requires two instruments exactly attuned to each other having the capacity of both sending and receiving messages, and no other instrument in the world except the attuned ones can even receive or know anything about the messages sent. Like throwing a pebble on the lake, its waves go out in every direction and are never broken until they strike the further shore or some intervening object. So with these wireless messages. As mysterious as all this seems, the idea, the principle, the fact, is not new.

But even while we write of this we read in the paper of today of a collision at sea of two big steam liners away out in the ocean in the fog and darkness in which one or both is badly crippled with danger of going to the bottom. The account says: It is the first time the wireless has demonstrated its reliability and usefulness in the case of disasters at sea. Through the waste of fog she called sound waves went north and east and south, overhauling the hurrynig liners a hundred miles and more away and wheeling them to her aid. There has been nothing like it in marine history, this drama of the wireless, the thrilling story that leaped through the darkness and the fog before the sun lit up the sea; the tale that was told in dots and dashes, in short, curt, frightening syllables; not a letter waster, not a word squandered. In short, four hours, perhaps, after the Republic was smitten way out in the Atlantic the world knew that no lives were lost, by means of wireless telegraphy. And written between every such message for the imagination to seize upon and make clear were volumes as thrilling as any story of Russell's or Maryatt's or Connelly's. And thus God is using the brain of creature man to bring out and develope the saving forces he created when he created man and endowed him with intellect, that he might know the "secret of the Lord " both as to material and spiritual life.

When the great Light of the world, the bright and morning Star, the Alpha and Omega, the great Redeemer of mankind, over nineteen hundred years ago, personally reiterated the words of life (which had been prophesied centuries before), and sent them forth on the waves of time, across oceans, seas and contments, addressed to every living soul, promising that they should not return unto Him void, this air wave system was then inaugurated and the wonder is that the slow brain of man has not long since appropriated it to his own use. These wonderful words of life are constantly flowmg to all people in all lands and on all waters like the waves caused by casting the pebble into the ocean, but to be received effectively and be productive of good fruits, the hearts of men must be attuned to their melody, their song of Salvation - just like the sending and receiving of messages by wireless telegraphy. Otherwise it would be better for the individual had the words never been spoken. For he that heareth the words of truth and salvation and believeth not is condemned already. So after all. these marvelous things, inventions so called, are simply the working out of the great Creator's plans for the enlightenment and betterment of the condition of mankind, and bring them to a knowledge of the truth as it is in the great Redeemer of the human race. God is the creator, man is the instrument and agent to bring these things to pass and to weave them into forms of usefulness; and man's brains the models and his hands the workshop, from which the finished product must be turned out. His will is the motive power, both as to earthly success and everlasting greatness in the world to come. Then, there is the telephone ; that is only a divine revelation reduced to practical use. The thought is brought out in the child's song, where it says, "Hello Central, Give Me Heaven, for My Mamma's There." Prayer is the telephone by which we talk to our Heavenly Father and our loved ones there and each soul has a separate line of his own with no sidelines "butting in," and disturbing the sacredness of our conversation. The time has come when anything that interfers with travel or traffic is a bar to progress. In the early days of which we have been writing the pack-saddler men fought against the advent of wagons. They said it would ruin their pack-saddle industry ; then the wagon men fought the stage coach, on the theory that it would faciliate traffic and throw the wagon out of business, the stage coach then battled against the coming of the railroads, because steam cars would out-law the stage coach ; but each in turn were forced to give way. The horse car men fought the trolley car, claiming that they would put two million horses out of commission, and horse-breeders would starve. The trolley came and yet more horses are raised, at better prices than before. The horse interests are fighting the bicycle and automobile and will in due season be turned down and still the new methods are humming their way to the front, and not only in the matter of travel and traffic but in the line of communication and general intelligence. When we want to know anythmg we want to know it without delay, hence the general use of the telephones and telegraph. Not satisfied with the world's news of yesterday spread before us at the breakfast table, we want to know all the neighborhood news of today, hence we have our telephones and our local dailies. All this brings to mind that ninety years ago Illinois was admitted into the Union and at the time had less than five thousand inhabitants, less than half what Mount Vernon has today, that one year later, Jefferson county was established with only a few hundred people within its borders, whereas, today it has over thirty-five thousand inhabitants and perhaps the next twenty years will add more to the material prosperity of the county than have the past ninety years. We hand these facts and predictions over to the next historian, with the expectation that he will do his whole duty as we have tried to do ours, that is, tell the truth - let the chips fall where they may. He is at liberty to make this job easy by appropriating the facts and figures he may find herein, and which has cost us much weariness of mmd and body to accumulate.

Truly, what wonderful beings we are, and what wonderful possibilities we are blessed with, if only we will open our eyes and minds and see for ourselves. These wonderful facts and the many others that present themselves to the human mind, ought to bring men and women into the realm of eternal love, where

To cherish and to lose thee? Must the dread Reaper bind thee in his sheaf?" "Fear not," quoth he, "for thus the Scripture saith. All-conquering Love in strength surpasseth Death.

Love's empire hath no bounds, Love's sea no shore. I am thyself, dear Life, I can not leave thee. Nor can the King of Terrors e'er bereave thee. For Love and Life are one, for evermore."

It will be seen, that in writing this history, we have had more regard for the fact, the truth, than we have had for rhetoric or spread-eagle. Truth is the basis of every other virtue. Great is truth and stronger than all things. All the earth trembles at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. In endureth forever and is always strong. With truth there is no excepting of persons or reward ; but it doeth the things that are just and refraineth from the wicked and unjust things.