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to haul them. There were no plows to be had nearer than Shawneetown, fifty miles away, and I had no money to buy one had they been nearer. I borrowed a "bull tongue" plow of my father-in-law, stocked it myself. It had no iron about it except the plow and bolt, had a wooden devise, wooden singletree, etc. For harness I had shuck collar, hickory bark lines. With this rigging I broke up my ground, and covered my corn with a cooper's adze, having no better tool for the purpose. One night a trifling dog had eaten up my deer-skin backband. I went into the house and got my gun to shoot him to get his hide to make another backband, but the dog seemed to know what was up and got away from me, so I had to make another deer-skin one. With these implements we made corn in abundance.
The nearest mill in the country was on the Wabash River near where Carmi now is. I once took a load of corn to that mill and had it ground. We had no wheat in those days. On our return we upset in a small creek which was swollen by a freshet and lost most of our meal. We then concluded we would go back there no more, and had to resort to other means to make meal. For the most part we beat out our meal in wooden mortars, but finally I rigged up a kind of hand mill of my own out of a couple of old stones that I procured down at the old Jordan Fort in Williamson County. The only objection I had to the arrangement was that I had to grind before eating. It was either grind or no bread. During one summer the meal that we ground on our little hand mill got to tasting bad and it was a long time before we found out what the matter was. At first we attributed it to the corn, but upon taking up the stone we found furrows of them full of white wood lice that had gone in between them to eat the meal. They had been shortening our bread for a long time. I have heard since that these lice are very good for the yellow jaundice, and I suppose they must be, for we have not to this day been troubled with that disease.

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Among the most prominent settlers when I came to this county, were Alexander McCreery, Henry Yost, Nathaniel Jones, Nathan Clampet, John Crawford, James Aiken, Herrin Taylor and two old men named Webb, living in Webb's Prairie. West of Benton lived John Browning and Mr. Hutson. Frizell and Estus lived in Frizell's Prairie, and Michael RawIing's in this prairie above, which now bears his name, and in Garrett's Prairie lived the man whose name it bears, and in Frankfort a few families, together with Simon Hubbard, who was then circuit clerk, county clerk and probate judge, and I believe, also master in chancery. We were all peaceable, friendly and happy, and neighbored from John Browning's to Frizell's Prairie. We all strove, by all means in our power, to assist each other in business necessarily, attending log rollings and house raisings. Most of these men have passed away but their descendants are worthy their noble sires, and I feel the highest degree of satisfaction in saying that those descendants are, to this day, the pride of our country. Take the Webbs, Brownings, Crawfords and other names I mentioned, and you will find them today the most respected of our citizens, who have kept pace with all the advancement of this progressive age, and I feel happy in the further reflection that all of my own family have been, and are esteemed as honorable men and women.
The first Methodist class meeting was formed at Mr. Nathan Clampet's at the place Dr. Carter now lives, in 1822, and was composed of seven persons. We had rails for seats and one occasion when more came than we expected, Mr. Crawford rolled some large pumpkins and made seats of them. I can remember when the first school house was built. My children went to the Dillon settlement school, a distance of four miles. When I was elected judge, about 1832, the county was $300.00 in debt, and we thought that terrible. We had no court house then, nor was there a bridge in the county, and it was a question of how to raise funds and pay the debt

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and build a court house. We finally raised the taxes from 20 to 25c on the $100.00, which created much dissatisfaction.
You no doubt wonder why the early settlers all made their farms on the high and poorer lands. The reason is obvious. The low grounds were too wet and miry, and on the prairies the green headed flies were so numerous and severe that the cattle could not live on them. At sunup they would rush from the prairies to the woods, and up above here in the prairie, Mr. Rawlings at certain seasons had to build fires to keep the flies from eating up his cattle.
How wonderfully the country has improved, none but the old pioneers can fully realize. Today we are surrounded by all the advantages attendant upon a high state of culture, and more than average degree of wealth. Yet occasionally we see an eastern man who turns up his nose at us and calls this a rough country. He ought to remember that we made this country, while the one he came from was made to his hands a century before he was born. This reminds me of the story I have heard of the eastern woman, who in answer to an inquiry as to the character of this country, said: "It was a paradise for men and dogs, but h-I for women and oxen."
The experience I have detailed is not my own alone, but that, in a degree, of all the early settlers here. Now you have school houses, churches and all the attendant blessings of a highly cultivated people, and we only refer to the past, that our appreciation of the present may be heightened and that when we hear others sneer at our limited advancement, looking back to our starting place, we may see how far we have really traveled upon the road of progress, and how profoundly we have been moved by the impulses of the age. In one thing I think we have not advanced. In the old time, if a man committed a crime, we all turned out to hunt him, a scoundrel was kicked out of decent society. That is not always true now, I am sorry to say. But the old man will not cavil with the age that in so many respects is superior to his own. My friends,

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tomorrow I leave this country to go to my daughter's, and may never see you again, but my kindest wishes will be ever with you. Do not entirely forget the old man, but give him such remembrances as you think his character as a man, a pioneer and a citizen entitle him to.

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Philip Renault, a Frenchman, introduced negro slavery into the Territory of Illinois just one hundred years after it was introduced into Virginia. The purpose of introducing slaves into Illinois was to work them in the supposed gold mines, but the mines being a failure, they were scattered among the settlers.
In the organization of the Northwest Territory in 1787, there was a provision in it that was placed there through the influence of Thos. Jefferson. Rev. James Lemon who immigrated from Virginia to Illinois in 1794 came with the distinct purpose of assisting in making the states that would be carved out of the Northwest Territory free. He claimed he made a compact with Mr. Jefferson, to do all in his power to prevent slavery from entering these states.
Rev. Lemon was a Baptist preacher and began organizing churches in Illinois as early as 1796. He organized the first Baptist Church north of the Ohio River at New Design in the year above mentioned.
He was the champion of the Anti-Slavery party in the framing of the Constitution in 1818, and the credit of Illinois being a free state should be given to him.
Rev. Lemon organized many Baptist churches between the years of 1796 and 1818, and also organized the first Anti-Slavery Society or League in the Illinois country.
Most of the settlers of Southern Illinois were from the south, and consequently favored slavery in Illinois.
Illinois was admitted as a free state, yet slavery was allowed in the Salt Reservation.
Prior to the admission of Illinois, indentured slavery existed in Illinois Territory, as many settlers in Illinois had

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brought their slaves with them to the new state. As the law of the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory they gave bond that they would set them free at the end of a certain period of time. This was called indentured slavery.
In 1820, Missouri was admitted into the Union as a slave state. She asked for admission in 1818 at the same time Illinois asked, but her constitution contained a slavery clause, consequently, there was much opposition to her admission. After more than two years of wrangling and bitter denunciation a compromise was offered by Henry Clay which was agreed upon. Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois presented the points or terms in the compromise.
This discussion in Congress caused the agitation of the slavery question in Illinois. A vote was to be taken for or against a convention to revise our state constitution so as a slavery clause could be inserted. The election of 1824, for the calling of the convention was announced eighteen months in advance of the date. Gov. Coles had been elected governor in 1822, the second governor of the state. He was opposed to the convention and agreed to spend all his salary for the term to oppose the convention. Daniel P. Cook, the county's good friend, was with him, also Rev. J. M. Peck, a Baptist preacher who had lately come into the state. These champions of freedom traversed the state campaigning against the calling of the convention.
The election came as stated above and the result was as follows by counties:

For Convention. - - - - - Against Convention.

Alexander 75 - 51
Bond 63 - 240
Clark 31 - 116
Crawford 134 - 262
Edgar 3 - 234
Edwards 189 - 391

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Fayette 125 - 121
Franklin 170 - 113
Fulton 5 - 60
Gallatin 597 - 133
Greene 164 - 379
Hamilton 173 - 85
Jackson 180 - 93
Jefferson 99 - 43
Johnson 74 - 74
Lawrence 158 - 261
Madison 351 - 563
Marion 45 - 52
Monroe 141 - 196
Montgomery 74 - 90
Morgan 42 - 432
Pike 19 - 165
Pope 273 - 124
Randolph 357 - 284
Sangamon 153 - 722
St. Clair 408 - 506
Union 213 - 240
Washington 112 - 173
Wayne 189 - 111
White 355 - 326

Total 4972 - 6640

These counties settled up by people from the slave states voted for the convention very strong. Franklin, true to instinct, voted for the convention 170 to 113.
Had the results of the election been reversed what a change in the result of later events.
Illinois would have been a slave state which would probably cast its lot with the South in the Civil War. Lincoln could not have been elected president with his anti-slavery ideas. With Illinois casting her lot with the South doubtless

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Grant and Logan would have gone with their state as Robt. E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson did with Virginia. Without the services of Lincoln, Grant and Logan and Illinois and all the other states that were neutral going over to the South our government would have been torn asunder.
We people of this later day feel very grateful that the result though very close was on the side of liberty, and that the great Lincoln was given to the world to proclaim "That a government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth."
At the time the census was first taken for statehood in 1818, Franklin County showed she had fifteen slaves and 52 negroes that were free. The fifteen slaves mentioned above were supposed to be indentured slaves.
The families having indentured slaves were the Jordans, McCreerys, Crawfords, Clarks, and Harrisons.
When the state was admitted, a great many of these slaves were taken to Missouri and sold and some were held there till the election of 1824 which would decide the fate of slavery in Illinois, expecting to return to Illinois if the vote favored slavery. Some were brought back anyway and set free, among those were the slaves of McCreerys, Crawfords and Clarks. After the death of John McCreery, his son, Alexander, went to Missouri and brought back an old negro woman that his father owned, and bought her husband Richmond Inge out of slavery for $300.00 settled them upon eighty acres of land which they paid for by their hard earnings. A settlement of negroes in this locality resulted, and today there are many negroes in this settlement that is familiarly called "Africa."
The history of the county is not complete without mentioning its experience with the underground railroad. Dr. John McLean, of Chicago, who was reared in Franklin County gives the following interesting story: "When I was a boy about ten years of age, I visited my uncle, by the name of Jack Ewing about two miles north of Benton in Rawling's

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Prairie. One early morning I was awakened by the barking of dogs as if baying something. My uncle got up and went out to see what was the matter. He saw a negro boy on the high fence up out of reach of the barking dogs. My uncle brought the run-away negro into the house and discovered that the colored boy had been directed to his house by a friend who was in sympathy with run-away-slaves. My uncle took the negro boy to Benton and turned him over to the sheriff as there was a heavy penalty for assisting a fugitive to escape to Canada yet he sympathized with the negro boy." The sheriff placed the negro boy in jail and advertised the run-away negro, after so many days the owner failed to call for his property. The boy was declared "a free man of color." Walter S. Aiken hired the boy to work for him, taking him to Springfield, Illinois, where he secured a position for him at the State Capitol. The negro lived to be an old man, and died only a few years ago in the city almost a stone's throw of the home of the "Great Emancipator."
The growth of Franklin County from 1824 to 1860 was remarkable and the growth in sentiment for Freedom was also remarkable.
The people as a whole in Franklin County were not quite ready to accept Lincoln's doctrine on the slavery question or his doctrine of democracy in the election of 1860.
The vote for Lincoln for president in this county was 228 to 1391 for Douglas yet when the Civil War came on, and, Douglas supporting the Union, more than 1100 Franklin County soldiers rallied around Old Glory and shouted "Freedom forever."
The county will always regret the stigma of shame made by the disloyal acts of some of her citizens by doing all they could to aid slavery and disunion, during the progress of the Civil War. The order of the Knights of the Golden Circles is not a credit to the good name, now of loyal Franklin County, but cannot be referred to without some feeling of regret.

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Northern Township in Franklin County, is in the northeastern corner of the county. It took its name because of the fact that it originally represented the northern portion of the county.
Herrin Taylor, Eli and Lazarus Webb, doubtless were the first settlers in the Northern Township, settling about 1815.
The large prairie in Northern and Ewing Townships was named after the Webb family.
The Middle Fork Baptist Church was established in 1818 - one hundred years ago.
This was originally an arm of the Sugar Camp Church located in Jefferson County. The charter members of this old church were Chester Carpenter and wife, Eli Webb and wife, Lazarus Webb and wife, Richard Hill and wife, and John Manis and wife.
This church can truly celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary this centennial year. This church is the oldest church in the county.
Jacob Phillips and Jacob Clark settled near Macedonia about 1817. Jacob Phillips established the first water mill in Franklin County in the year 1834, on Middle Fork Creek, near Macedonia. The location of this famous old mill was on the farm now owned by Robert H. Johnson.
The northeast corner of the township was settled by emigrants from Pennsylvania, and were called the "Pennsylvania Dutch Settlement." The McAfoos, Richesons, Sinks, Kerns, Hollowells, Pilsons and Jewarts were of this stock of people.
The Carlton settlement was south of the Pennsylvania Dutch Settlement.

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