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A Brief History of St. Clair County
The earliest settlements of the country were so thoroughly French that up to the beginning of the nineteenth century only one American settlement was to be found within the limits of the present St. Clair County. This was the Turkey Hill colony, numbering about twenty people. A little later a number of American families settled in Ridge Prairie, west of O'Fallon. Soon the log cabin of the pioneer made its appearance beyond Silver Creek and in a few years more every part of the county was brought under the domain of the adventurous frontiersman. It seems appropriate to mention some of these valiant leaders who did their share in taking the country for civilization. Turkey Hill is a beautiful eminence a few miles southeast of Belleville. Tradition says that the Tamaroa Indians once had a large town on this hill, and that the Great Spirit sent an old Indian, a wise and good man, with seeds of all good vegetables, such as corn, beans, peas, and potatoes, and that he taught the Indians how to plant them. He also advised them to be peaceful and never to go to war. As long as this counsel was followed, the Tamaroas did well and were a happy and prosperous people. But at last they disregarded the sage instruction and disaster followed.
William Scott, the first American settler in Turkey Hill, was born in Virginia of Irish parents, in the year 1745. He grew up and was married in his native state. All his children, six sons and one daughter, were born in Virginia. He then moved to Kentucky, and in 1797 he moved with his family to Illinois and became a permanent resident. The family included, besides his six sons, his daughter, Elizabeth and son-in-law, Franklin Jarvis. They made the journey by wagon from Fort Massac on the Ohio River to the New Design settlement, where they arrived late in the fall. About Christmas they located at Turkey Hill and made the beginning of what afterward became a prosperous community of white people. Scott located several claims in the present counties of Monroe and St. Clair, one of which included Turkey Hill, where he established his home. Jarvis, the son-in-law settled a little further north, at the foot of the hill. At the time the Scotts came to Turkey Hill the Indians were numerous in the vicinity. Some of them hunted and lived near him for most of the year, but exhibited only a friendly spirit. The Kickapoos were the nearest neighbors. Mr. Scott's large family of sons were of assistance in enabling him to sustain himself in a location so far in advance of other white settlers. Eventually they all married and settled in the neighborhood and the family resided together for many years in that part of the county. He was known far and near as "Turkey Hill Scott." He was a man of high character, and for many years a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He possessed sound judgment and much practical experience, and was ambitious for neither wealth nor worldly distinction. He served some years as Justice of the Peace. Toward the close of his life, after the business of making a living ceased to occupy so much of his time, he turned his attention to books and study and passed his advanced years in the pleasures of meditation and reflection. He was intelligent and communicative, and was fond of discoursing on philosophical subjects. He died in Shiloh Valley in the year 1828, at the age of eight-four. His sons became useful citizens, and many of his descendants still reside in the county.
Joseph Scott, one of the sons of William, began the manufacture of powder in the year 1809, four miles and a half east of Belleville. For many years he furnished the best powder made in the west. He supplied the rangers in the War of 1812. He procured the nitre which he used in its manufacture from the caves on the Gasconade River in Missouri. He spent much time during the winter months exploring that country, then filled with Indians, with Joseph Dixon as his sole companion. The next year, after William Scott and family started the Turkey Hill settlement, Hosea Rigg, Samuel Shook, and some others joined them there. By 1800 there were about twenty persons living in the settlement.
Hosea Rigg came from Kentucky and settled first in the American Bottom in 1796. But after two years he moved to Turkey Hill. He was born in West Virginia in 1760 and had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War. He was deeply interested in Methodism. He was an exhorter and later a local preacher in the Methodist Church. In 1803 he went to Kentucky to attend the Western Conference and solicit a preacher for the Illinois country. Rev. Benjamin Young was sent. Rigg lived in St. Clair County until his death in October, 1841, at eighty-one years of age. At that time he was said to be the oldest man in the county. Among the other American settlers were Samuel Shook, George Stout, Moses and Jacob Short, and Joseph Carr.
The Shook family was from Virginia. They located about a mile from the home of William Scott. Samuel Shook was a good farmer and a useful citizen. He died in the year 1827.
The Short brothers were sons of John Short, who came from Kentucky and died soon after settling in Illinois. Jacob Short was a man of some influence. He was captain of a company of rangers during the War of 1812, and was also elected to the Legislature under the territorial government. In his later years he moved to Morgan County. Moses Short for a number of years held the office of Justice of the Peace, and also served against the Indians in his brother's company of rangers. He is said to have built the first hand mill in that part of the country.
The Carr family, Joseph, Henry, Conrad, and Abner, settled in Turkey Hill Prairie, two or three miles to the southeast of the original settlement, in 1803. They were from Virginia, and before coming to this locality had lived for a time in the New Design settlement in Monroe County. Joseph Carr died in the year 1817 and his sons lived in the same neighborhood for many years after.
David Phillips became a resident of the county in the year 1803. He was born in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755. After serving thru the Revolutionary War, he moved with his family to Kentucky in the year 1800. After three years he emigrated to Illinois and settled on Richland Creek, a short distance south of the present city of Belleville. He was a natural mechanic and possessed great genius for working in wood. It was said that he could make anything that was to be made of wood from a "fiddle" to a farm wagon. He supplied his neighbors with furniture and implements of many kinds. A chair made by him over a century ago is still in the possession of one of his descendants now living in Belleville.
In the year 1806 the settlements were increased by the arrival of the families of Elijah Rittenhouse, Isaac Quick, and John Woods. The Rittenhouse family settled on Turkey Hill, which up to that time had been occupied only by William Scott. There were four sons in the family, Cornelius, Peter, William, and Elijah. The elder Rittenhouse entertained the idea that his location would be an ideal place for the county seat when its removal from Cahokia was agitated. He laid out his farm in town lots and invited the cooperation of the county authorities, but eventually the site of Belleville was chosen instead. He served as constable and was a good and loyal citizen.
Isaac Quick had a son, Moses, who was an enterprising young man. In company with Major Jacob Short he built a flat boat, below the present town of New Athens, which was loaded with beef cattle and successfully floated down to New Orleans. This is said to have been the first flat boat that ever navigated the Okaw River.
John Woods and John Jarvis, a brother of Franklin Jarvis, both settled in the Turkey Hill community, in the year 1806. After that year there were no considerable additions to the settlement for some time. It was considered one of the best in the country and was generally composed of good, honest and industrious citizens. The Scott family was connected with the Methodist Church, while the Shorts and Carrs were Baptists. Baptist meetings were held one month at the home of Squire Moses Short, and the next at Joseph Carr's house. One of the earliest Baptist preachers was the Rev. Joseph Chance.
In the years 1801 and 1802, settlements were made southwest of Belleville by John Teter, Abraham Eyman, William Miller, Martin Randleman, and Daniel Stookey. The founders of this colony were of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, and were industrious, moral upright citizens. Stookey and Eyman, in company with some others, came to Illinois in 1796 to explore that country, with a view to selecting a future location for their families. Traversing the country in the vicinity of the present city of Belleville, Stookey and Eyman selected the locations where afterward they settled in the prairie west and southwest of Belleville. Abraham Eyman brought his family to Illinois the next year. He first lived in the American Bottom, near Piggott's Station, then moved to New Design, and in the spring of the year 1801 settled four miles west of Belleville. He was a good citizen and once represented the county in the Legislature. He died in the neighborhood where he settled. He was preceded a few months by John Teter, who had a house already built when Eyman arrived. Teter once served as County Commissioner. Daniel Stookey, who was a brother-in-law of Eyman, came to the county in 1802 and settled on what is now the Stookey farm, two miles west of Belleville. He died in 1835, leaving nine children.
John Primm, a native of Stafford County, Virginia, came to Illinois in the year 1803, and about a year afterward settled seven miles west of Belleville. In 1817 he moved to a new location three miles southwest of the county seat. He died in 1836, at the age of eighty-seven. For a time he carried the mail between Cahokia and Edwardsville. In August, 1814, one of his sons, while carrying mail from Cahokia to Clinton Hill, was struck by lightening in the Derush hollow. He and his horse were both instantly killed. His body was burnt black by the electricity. Mr. Primm had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. During the latter part of his life he received a Federal pension. The year 1822 was marked by general prosperity of the colonists in Illinois. Accessions were made to the population and new settlements were formed.
Prominent among the pioneers was the Ogle family. Captain Joseph Ogle was born in Virginia in 1741. He commanded a company of Virginia troops during the Revolutionary War, holding his commission from Governor Patrick Henry. He came to Illinois in 1785 and first settled in what is now Monroe County. In 1802 he moved to Ridge Prairie and located a short distance west of where O'Fallon now stands. He is said to have been the first Methodist in Illinois. During the early years of his residence here he took part in several Indian fights. In May, 1791, John Dempsey was attacked by the Indians, but escaped. Captain Ogle and his son, Benjamin, were two of the eight who went in pursuit of the Indians. The others were Captian Nathaniel Hull, James Lemen, James Ryan, William Bryson, John Porter, and Daniel Roper. The Indians were double the number of the Whites. A hot battle was fought in the timber at the big spring in Monroe County, not far east of the road which ran from Waterloo to Whiteside Station, which was about midway between the present towns of Waterloo and Columbia. A running fight was kept up till dark, from tree to tree, the Indians running and the whites pursuing. Five Indians were killed, but the whites all escaped unharmed. Captain Ogle died on his farm in Ridge Prairie in 1821, at the age of eighty. He left several children, and many of his descendants are still in St. Clair County.
Benjamin Ogle, his oldest son, took part in several of the early Indian contests, in one of which he was wounded. He lived on a farm near the present town of O'Fallon, and died at a good old age.
Another son, Joseph, married Lucinda Pulliam, daughter of John Pulliam, in 1804. They lived on a farm east of O'Fallon. He served in the Blackhawk War. In died in 1846.
Still another son, Jacob, married Elizabeth Teter and settled west of O'Fallon. He was a man of considerable intelligence and popularity and served for a number of years as Justice of the Peace. He and the Rev. James Lemen built a mill for grinding wheat and corn. This mill was situated on Ogle's creek, three miles north of O'Fallon and was run by water power. Owing to the scant supply of water, the milling business was carried on for only a short time. Later he had a mill on his farm which was run by horse power.
Of the daughters of Captain Ogle, Nancy married Larkin Rutherford, Prudence was the wife of Peter Casterline, Drusilla married William Porter, Polly became the wife of General James Moore, and Jemima married the Rev. Charles Matheny, a resident of St. Clair County and a member of the Methodist ministry. He afterward moved to Springfield, where he occupied several responsible public positions.
Among the settlers in Ridge Prairie were Robert, Joseph, and James Lemen, sons of the Rev. James Lemen, one of the pioneer Baptist preachers of Illinois.
James Lemen, Senior, was born in Berkley County, Virginia, in the year 1760. He served two years in the war of the Revolution, after which he went to the vicinity of Wheeling, West Virginia, where he married Catharine Ogle, an older daughter of Captain Joseph Ogle. He came to Illinois in 1786, the year after his father-in-law. His trip to the new country was an eventful one. He came down the Ohio River with his family and household goods on a flat boat. One night while the boat was tied to the shore, the river fell consdierably, and the boat lodging on a stump, was overturned and sunk, and thus all his provisions and goods were lost. His oldest son, Robert, then three years old, floated out in the stream on the bed on which he lay. By strenuous effort he was rescued and his life was saved. Notwithstanding this discouraging misfortune, the family proceeded on their journey, and arrived at Kaskaskia, July 10, 1786, and shortly afterward settled at New Design, in the present county of Monroe. In after years he was a citizen of prominence and usefulness. He served in the office of Justice of the Peace and County Judge. He was also a prominent religious leader among the Baptists. His religious labors are referred to elsewhere.
Robert Lemen, the oldest son of James, was reared at New Design. In the year 1805 he married Hester Tolin, and settled in Ridge Prairie, about four miles north of where O'Fallon now is. Under the administration of John Quincy Adams he acted as Marshall for the State of Illinois. He also served as Justice of the Peace. In early times he acted as clerk of the Richland Baptist Church, and he was an original member of the Bethel Church, organized in 1809, of which he was clerk until 1845. He died in 1860.
Rev. Joseph Lemen was born in September, 1785, and was less than a year old when the family came to Illinois. He became a minister of the Baptist Church and settled in Ridge Prairie, north of the site of O'Fallon, and near his brother, Robert. His wife was Mary Kinney, the youngest daughter of Josephy Kinney, and a sister of William Kinney, who was once Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois. It is said that she went to school and learned to read and write after she was married, but these educational effots did not hinder her from rearing a large and respectable family. Joseph Lemen was active in ministerial labors. He travelled over this part of the country extensively, and organized a number of Baptist churches. He died in 1861.
Rev. James Lemen, Jr., was born in the New Design settlement, in 1787, and received a good education for that time, under the instruction of Rev. John Clark, who was one of the most active and useful of the pioneer preachers of Illinois. Mr. Lemen was said to be the first ordained preacher in Illinois, born in the territory. He married Mary Pulliam in 1813, and settled in Ridge Prairie. He was a member of the Territorial Legislature at Kaskaskia, and also filled the same office after the organization of the state government. Twice he was a member of the state senate. He was also a member of the convention which framed the first constitution of the state. He died in February, 1870.
It should be mentioned that one cause of the removal of the Ogle and Lemen families to Illinois was their opposition to slavery. This was also the case with a number of other prominent families of the county who came at a later date. At that early day, half a century before there was any general agitation of the question, they became opposed to the system, liberated their slaves, and moved to a place where they believed they would be forever free from the curse of slavery.
John Pulliam, who emigrated to Illinois in 1795, was the head of a large family, many of the descendants of whom are still to be found living in the county. He was born in Virginia and removed to Kentucky immediately after the Revolutionary War, and came to the New Design settlement a few years later. In 1797 he crossed into Missouri and settled at Florissant, west of St. Louis. Two years later he returned to Illinois and lived for a time in the northern part of Randolph county. From there he moved to what is now Monroe county and established a farm home on the Prairie Du Long Creek, in 1802. He sold this farm in 1808 and moved to another location on the Kaskaskia river near the present site of Fayetteville in St. Clair county. Here he finished his varied career and died in the year 1812. His nine children were Robert, Nancy, Elizabeth, John, Lucinda, James, Thomas, Ruth and Mary. Several of these lived and died in St. Clair county. Nancy married William Lot Whitesides, who shortly after 1800 settled three miles each of Belleville. John Pulliam settled near the present city of Belleville at an early day. Lucinda became the wife of Joseph Ogle, son of Captain Joseph Ogle. James Pulliam who was about nine years of age when he came with his family to Illinois, married Judith Whitesides and settled two miles east of Belleville. He was a well-informed man for his day, and an able Baptist preacher. He was liberal in his support to religious and educational institutions. He died in 1854.
Thomas Pulliam became a minister in the Methodist Church, but was also a farmer. He was the founder of the present town of Fayetteville where he was living at the time of his death in 1852. Mary the youngest daughter of John Pulliam was about a year old when she came with the family to Illinois. Her mother died when she was but a child and she was reared by her sister Nancy, the wife of William Lot Whitesides, who lived east of Belleville. In December, 1813, she became the wife of Rev. James Lemen, Jr., previously mentioned. They established their home on Ridge Prairie where she died in 1876 at the age of eighty-one, having spent eighty years of her long life in St. Clair county.
Larken Rutherford was one of the soldiers under Colonel Clark who took part in the conquest of Illinois. He was a large man of athletic frame and was bold and fearless. He returned to Illinois in 1781 in company with James Moore, Shadrach Bond, Robert Kidd and James Garrison. This was the first colony of American families to settle in Illinois. Moore and Rutherford chose a location near Bellefontaine, a short distance southwest of the present town of Waterloo in Monroe county. Bond, Kidd and Garrison settled in the Bottom.
Soon after 1800, Rutherford moved to St. Clair county and settled north of Belleville. He was a good citizen and a zealous member of the Baptist Church.
One of the gallant soldiers of Colonel Clark who lived a long and eventful life in Illinois was William Biggs. He was born in Maryland in 1755. At the age of twenty-three, he enlisted as a soldier in the Revolutionary War and became a member of Clark's famous expedition. He was hardy, energetic and brave. He withstood the perils and hairbreadth escapes incident to the Clark campaign with the heroism of a veteran warrior. He received no bounty in land in the grant made to Clark and his soldiers, but later the Congress of the United States, recognizing the valuable services rendered to the colonies by Lieutenant Biggs, granted him in the year 1826 three sections of land. This was tardy justice rendered so late in life that it could be of little use to him for he was then seventy years of age. But it was no doubt a great satisfaction to him that the U.S. Government had finally recognized his eminent service.
Soon after the close of the war he went back to his old home in the east and married a wife who formerly lived in Virginia. Soon after his marriage he, with his two brothers, emigrated to Illnois and settled at Bellefontaine. In the spring of 1788 he and a neighbor named Vallis started one morning on horseback to take a supply of beaver fur which they had caught to Cahokia to market. They were proceeding along the road which is now route three of the Illinois road system, but at that time much of the way was a trail through the wood, tho the main road to Cahokia. When they were near Piggot's Fort in the Bottom, they heard the report of two guns. Biggs supposed the shots to be fired by some hunters, but in a few minutes they saw sixteen Indians armed with guns. Biggs and Vallis immediately whipped up their horses, but it was too late. The Indians fired a volley at them and several of the bullets took effect, tho it might have been expected that both the men and the horses would be killed immediately, yet it did not so happen. Vallis' horse carried him to the Fort with a severe wound of which he died after lingering six weeks. Biggs' horse was shot dead and four bullets went thru the rider's coat but he himself did not receive a single wound. Abandoning his horse and his furs he started to run. But with his winter over coat and boots he was not equipped for racing and the Indians soon caught him and made him prisoner. When Vallis reached the Fort, signal guns were fired to alarm the community, and the Indians hearing it began a hurried march to get away with their prisoner. They started on a run and kept their prisoner going at that gait for five or six miles. They were Kickapoos and started at once for their village called Weastown on the Wabash river, a long distance above Vincennes. They travelled about forty miles the first day and that seems a good record for travellers on foot with no well-established road. They must have passed near where the towns of Belleville and Lebanon are now, but at that time there was not even a settlement at either place. The whole distance was somewhere about three hundred miles but they reached the village in ten days, with their prisoner. One of the Indians tried to kill Biggs, but the others seeming to have in mind a large ransom which they hoped to obtain kept the prisoner safe and killed the Indian who seemed to want to deprive them of the benefit of their successful capture. The Indians were rather severe in their treatment of him and tied him at night so securely that he had no chance of escape. Biggs was a fine specimen of physical manhood and unusually handsome. His manly beauty had its attraction for the feminine portion of this group of untutored savages. He claims that several of the Indian Belles of the Wabash offered him their hearts in wedlock, but he, hoping to return some time to his family remained true to the wife who was suffering the agonies of uncertainty as to the fate of her husband for she only knew that the Indians had carried him off and she had no means of knowing whether he was dead or alive. But he had been in the camp only a short time when negotiations were begun at Vincennes for his ransom. These negotiations were carried on partly by John Rice Jones, who is mentioned elsewhere in this history and was then living at Vincennes. An agreement was finally reached by which the Indians received the equivalent of two hundred and sixty dollars for the freedom of the prisoner, besides which Biggs had to promise thirty-seven dollars more for the means necessary to accomplish the journey back to Bellefontaine. He went down the Wabash in a canoe to the Ohio and thence to the Mississippi and up that river to Kaskaskia, whence he had only a few miles to travel overland to reach his home. His return to his family can better be imagined that described. They had mourned him as dead. At that day there was no way of sending word that he was coming so he walked unannounced one day into this grief-stricken home and brought hope and happiness and restored lasting-good cheer to his loved ones who had been sitting in the shadow of a great sorrow. Years afterward Mr. Biggs wrote an account of his experiences in captivity and had it published in the year 1826. In 1790 when St. Clair county was organized, Governor St. Clair appointed him sheriff, and he held the office for many years, as the records testify. He had received a common school education which had been supplemented by much experience including the dangers of war and pioneer life. He was popular with his fellow citizens and was twice elected to represent St. Clair County in the Legislature of the North West Territory. At the time when he and Shadrach Bond were serving together in Clark's expedition they said in a joke one day that they would like to represent this country in the legislature. Twelve years later their dreams were realized for they were both members of the first General Assembly of the North West Territory. Biggs also served as Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, for many years and made a safe and acceptable officer of Justice. In 1808 he was elected to the Legislature of the Indiana Territory, and helped to secure the division of the Territory which was effected in the following year. In 1812 Biggs was elected to the Legislature of the Illinois Territory and held the office for four years. He made a solid and useful member of the Legislative Body as long as he was a member. Few men have had the good foretune to live in an age when they had so many opportunities to serve their fellow-men as he had. But in all these years of public service he did not allow his private interests to interfere with his duties to his country. He was never wealthy, but possessed only a reasonable competence. Towards the close of his life he engaged in an enterprise of manufacturing salt on Silver Creek within the present limits of Madison county. He died in 1827, at the home of Colonel Judy, aan aged and well-respected pioneer of the first county of the great state of Illinois.
George Blair came to Illinois in 1796. He first lived between the old Whitesides station and the town of Waterloo, in the present county of Monroe, and had a distillery there. He was appointed sheriff of St. Clair county and held that office for several years. In 1802, he moved with his family to the site of the present city of Belleville where he owned two hundred acres of land. On his land the town of Belleville was located in 1814. He is said to have suggested the name Belleville for the new town and county seat. The "Sugar Loaf" tract of land south of Cahokia near the Monroe county line was first improved by George Lunceford and Samuel Judy. Shortly after the year 1800, Judy sold out to Lunceford and went to Madison county where he spent the remainder of his life. The "Sugar Loaf" was a well-known land mark in the early settlement of the country. A small mound rises on top of the rocky bluff. In early times a peach tree stood on the summit of the mound which had the reputation of never failing to bear fruit. Its resemblance to a sugar loaf gives the name to the place. It is about five miles south of Cahokia.
Among the distinguished citizens of St. Clair county in the early days was William Kinney, who was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the state in 1826. He was born in Kentucky in 1781 and in 1793 came with his father Joseph Kinney to the New Design settlement in Monroe county. He was gay and social in his disposition and a leader in the festivities and amusements then common on the frontier. He inherited a strong well-balanced mind and sound judgment. He had a retentive memory and boundless energy and activity, but his opportunities for school training were very limited. It is said that he went to school regularly only three months. After he was married at nineteen, he received private instruction in the common branches from John Messinger. For a short time he attended a school located at the junction of the Collinsville road with the Belleville and Lebanon plank road, which was held in a log house with a wooden chimney without ceiling or windows and without a glass in the house. The floor was of puncheons and the door made of clap boards. With this foundation and a large inheritance of native intelligence and energy, he became a well-informed man and was one of the most influential characters of his day. He possessed a fund of wit, excelled in satire and sarcasm, was always ready with a pertinent and appropriate anecdote, while his sound judgment and accurate knowledge of human nature taught him how to use these gifts in the most effective manner. At the time of his marriage he was practically destitute of worldly goods, and had little disposition to accumulate property. But he soon adopted a more sober and industrious course of conduct. In the year 1803 he settled on a beautiful eminence a few miles northeast of Belleville and devoted himself energetically to the task of improving his farm and making a desirable home. In this undertaking he was ably assisted by his wife, who was an excellent and amiable woman. The surplus produce from his farm he sold in Cahokia or St. Louis. One day a merchant in St. Louis named Von Phul persuaded Kinney to take a few articles of merchandise home with him and try to sell them, promising that if he could not sell them he might return them. After some hesitation Kinney took the goods, consisting of a few bols of cotton cloth which he carried on his horse from St. Louis to his farm. At that time he could barely write, and knew nothing whatever of bookkeeping, but his strong natural talents enabled him him to invent a system of bookkeeping of his own. With this humble beginning he embarked in a prosperous business career, in which he acquired a large fortune. He also traded in lands, as well as in merchandise, and in everything was successful. He erected a comfortable house which was almost always crowded with his friends, and in which he exercised an unsparing hospitality. In 1809 he joined the Baptist Church. He was later authorized to preach the gospel, and became a distinguished and influential Baptist minister. After reaching middle life he entered the field of politics. He was a staunch and uncompromising Democrat, and at all times maintained the doctrines of his party with sincere enthusiasm. He was elected a member of the first general assembly after the organization of the state government and assisted in putting the political machinery of the state in operation. He was several times subsequently chosen to represent St. Clair County in the State Legislature, and always acquitted himself with credit as an efficient business member. In 1826 he was a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor against Samuel H. Thompson, a minister in the Methodist Church. Both candidates were good men, with character above reproach, but Mr. Thompson had scruples about electioneering and refused as a matter of conscience to make any effort to secure votes, therefore the strange result of the election as that Ninian Edwards was elected Governor, as a representative of the Whig party, William Kinney was elected Lieutenant-Governor from the Democratic party. In 1830 Kinney was a candidate for Governor, in opposition to John Reynolds, of Belleville. Both were Democrats, but Kinney was supported by the ultra-Democrats, or followers of Andrew Jackson, while Reynolds was favored by the more conservative elements in the Democratic party, and also received in general the vote of the Whigs, who preferred his election to that of such an uncompromising Democrat as Kinney. The campaign was a spirited one and resulted in the election of Reynolds. During the administration of President Jackson, Mr. Kinney had much political influence in the west, and was regarded as the chief representative in Illinois of the straight-out Jackson party. Toward the close of his life he was appointed Commissioner of Internal Improvements, a position which gave him much trouble and caused serious injury to his private fortune. He died in 1843 on his farm where he had lived for forty years. This place later became the home of Hon. James L. D. Morrison, who erected on it a residence which in grandeur might almost rank with some of the baronial castles of the old world, and called it "Glen Addie." In recent years it has become the property of the Catholic Church, and the commodious buildings and grounds are utilized as an orphanage.
John Messinger, who was an early settler at Clinton Hill, two and a half miles north of Belleville, kept the first post office in the county outside of Cahokia. Messinger was an accomplished surveyor and surveyed a large portion of the land in this and adjoining counties. He was born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1771. He was raised on a farm and was taught the science and practice of agriculture, and at the same time was able to secure a good education. He was particularly fond of the study of mathematics. In 1783 he removed to Vermont and learned the carpenter's trade and also became a millwright. He had a high degree of energy and activity and much aptitude for mechanical pursuits, but it is said that in his maturer life his chief delight was found in the science of mathematics and the various branches arising out of it. He whole life seemed to be "tinctured with mathematics" and for many years he was believed to be the most profound mathematician and the best land surveyor in Illinois. He came to Kentucky in 1799, and from there to New Design, where he lived a few years and then settled permanently at Clinton Hill. There were few men in the country at that time as well educated as he. He was an excellent English scholar and gave instruction in surveying to a number of young men who had no other opportunity for education in this line. He was one of the surveyors who, in 1806, surveyed this section of the state into townships. He surveyed much of the public domain in both St. Clair and Randolph Counties. He wrote and published in 1821 a book entitled, "A Manual or Hand-Book of Practical Surveying." It is claimed that he taught mathematics in Dr. Peck's Seminary at Rock Spring. In 1815 he was made a deputy under the Surveyor-General of Ohio, with authority to survey the military tract in the forks of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. He did survey much of this tract. Later he was appointed to assist in the survey of the northern limits of this state, and he made a part of the astronomical and mathematical calculations by which the line dividing the states of Illinois and Wisconsin was located. He and Philip Creamer, whose skill as a mechanic has already been referred to, made surveyors' compasses that were as well calculated and as well finished in workmanship as any made in the United States. He did not care to take any part in political affairs, but was several times prevailed upon to represent St. Clair County in the Legislature. He was a member of the convention that met at Kaskaskia and framed the first constitution of Illinois. He was also a member of the first general assembly of this state, which convened in 1818, and on its organization was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. His death occurred in the year 1846. He had no enemies, but a large number of friends mourned his departure.
The Badgleys, who were among the early settlers of St. Clair County, are the descendants of Anthony Badgley, of New Jersey, who later settled in Virginia and died there about 1800. Rev. David Badgley, a Baptist preacher, visited Illinois in 1796. He preached in the New Design settlement and founded there the first Baptist church in Illinois. He also visited Missouri, and on his return from there he preached a sermon from a rock in the Mississippi River, the people gathering to hear him from either shore. This was a most unique way of dispensing the gospel. Returning to Virginia, he gave such a favorable account of the country that his sons and a number of other people decided to emigrate to Illinois. The colony which came to Illinois at that time included a large number of families, among whom were the Teters, Carrs, Millers, Strouds, and Eymans. They floated down the Ohio River from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, to Shawneetown, and thence made their way across the country to Kaskaskia, where they arrived on July 4, 1797. Their journey across Southern Illinois was full of difficulties. Nothing but an Indian trail at that time led from Shawneetown to Kaskaskia. They were compelled to swim streams swollen with recent rains. Their household goods, with the women and children, were ferried over on temporary rafts. No trace of a white man was seen till they reached Kaskaskia. They saw animals running off in the distance which they thought to be buffalo. David Badgley settled in the American Bottom, west of Moredock Lake, in the present county of Monroe, in the year 1797, but after a few years, he moved in 1804 to a place a few miles north of Belleville, where he improved the farm on which he spent the remainder of his life and died December 16, 1824, at the age of seventy-six. Anthony Badgley, a younger brother of David, came with him from Virginia and settled first at New Design, but about the same time that David moved to St. Clair County, he also came and the two brothers settled near each other a few miles north of Belleville, in the year 1804. At that time he built a log house which was for many years a well-known land mark in the country. One of his sons, Hiram, was a soldier in the war of 1812. His son, Simeon, lived on the same farm where his father settled until his death, near the close of the nineteenth century. Aaron Badgley, one of the sons of David, came with the original colony to Illinois in 1797 and settled in Horse Prairie, west of Red Bud. There his wife and two children died. In 1800 he married Catherine Stroud and settled on the bluff south of Waterloo. But in 1804 he moved to the neighborhood of the other Bdgleys, north of Belleville. In 1812 he became a ranger and was an orderly sergeant thru Edward's campaign. On his return he visited Virginia in company with his father, but coming back to Illinois he rejoined the army under Captain Stuntz and served till peace was declared. In 1830 he was chosen Justice of the Peace, and afterwards reelected. He and his son, Adam, hauled the first goods from Belleville to Springfield for Governor Edwards. It was in winter and they were obliged to sleep out on the prairie and came near perishing with cold and exposure. Aaron Badgley died in 1858 at the age of eighty-five. His wife survived him several years and died at ninety-one. His three sons, Elijah, Adam, and Strander all lived to a good old age in St. Clair County. Aaron Badgley's four brothers, Ichabod, David, Job, and Abraham, all sons of Rev. David Badgley, were among the early pioneers of the Illinois country. Ichabod had a farm north of Belleville, and served as Justice of the Peace; David was killed by accident while riding horse back; Job built an ox mill near Unity Church; and Abraham repeatedly held the office of Assessor, Treasurer, and County Commissioner.
Among the early settlers connected with the development of manufacturing interests in the county is the Harrison family. Thomas Harrison was born in South Carolina in 1779. His father emigrated to North Carolina and later came with some others to Illinois, arriving in July, 1804, and settled about four miles southwest of Belleville. Here he improved his farm, and in 1813 erected a cotton gin, which was one of the first in Illinois. It was propelled by horse power. At that time a considerable amount of cotton was raised in Illinois, but the price became so low that both the gin and the cotton business were abandoned. It is claimed that the first cotton gin in the Illinois country was built by James Gilbreath, who settled on Silver Creek where it is crossed by the road from Belleville to Shawneetown. Mr. Harrison afterward purchased an ox-tread mill in Belleville; then built a small steam mill, and then later a larger one which finally burnt, and with it more than sixty thousand bushels of wheat. It was a heavy loss but did not discourage him. His unfailing enterprise gave the first impulse of growth to the milling interests of Belleville, which afterwards became very important. His descendants are still largely connected with the manufacturing interests of the town.
A farming community was started near the mouth of Silver Creek when Abraham Teter, his sister, Mrs. Shook, and Peter Mitchell settled there in 1804. Mitchell afterwards served as Justice of the Peace and County Commissioner. Another settlement on Silver Creek was made by the Bradsby family about three miles north of the present town of Lebanon, at the edge of the Looking Glass Prairie. Willliam H. Bradsby, the oldest son, came from Kentucky with two other young men and raised a crop of corn in the spring of 1804 on the land which they entered. The rest of the family followed them from Kentucky in the fall. Mr. Bradsby taught school for several years. In 1806 he had a school in the American Bottom, almost west of the present town of Collinsville. The next year he taught in the Turkey Hill settlement. His two sons, William H. and James, were in the ranger service during the War of 1812, and made good soldiers. William H. returned to Kentucky and qualified himself for the practice of medicine and then came back to Illinois. He was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1814. He was a resident of Washington County when it was organized and filled a number of public offices in that county. Among the settlers on Silver Creek was Thomas Higgins. His name deserves a place in history for his heroic adventure with the Indians in 1814 at a block house on Shoal Creek, about eight miles south of the present town of Greenville. This story is told in another chapter. Higgins was related to the Bradsbys and settled near them north of Lebanon on coming to Illinois.
Abraham Varner settled east of Belleville about the year 1804. He established himself in the blacksmithing business on the main road leading from Vincennes to Cahokia and St. Louis. His shop was four miles east of Belleville.
Rison Moore was one of the early settlers and one of the prominent citizens of St. Clair County in the early day. He was born in Sussex County, Delaware, Nov. 20, 1760. He was the son of Charles and Mary Cooper Moore. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the father and three sons, William, Thomas, and Risdon enlisted in the colonial service in 1776. Thomas was killed in battle, William was captured and died on a prison ship at New York, but Risdon went thru the war unharmed. The father served thru the war and became paymaster before its close. The Moores had been engaged in the carrying trade on the high seas. Their three vessels were captured during the war and they were financially ruined. After the Revolutionary War the family, attracted by the stories of new lands being opened up in Georgia, sent Risdon on horseback to explore them. The next year, 1790, the family moved to Hancock County, Georgia, where they remained for twenty-two years. On his way to Georgia, Risdon had visited the home of a cousin at Guilford Court House, North Carolina, where he met Anna Dent, daughter of Colonel William Dent and Virlina Bell, natives of Maryland. In 1790, as the family were on the way to Georgia to make their home, Risdon Moore and Anna Dent were united in marriage at Guilford Court House. They reared a family of nine children. Moore engaged in farming during his twenty-two years' stay in Georgia. He was quite successful and acquired several large plantations. He was also active in the political life of Georgia, and served two terms as a member of the Legislature. He was an ardent opponent of the institution of slavery, and because he saw no prospect of its abolition at any near date, he decided to leave his Georgia home and move to some free state. Accordingly, in 1811, he sent his son to the Northwest Territory to find a suitable home for the family on free soil. The result of that quest was the determination to locate in the Illinois Territory, and the son selected the beautiful Shiloh Valley as the most desirable location. They came to Illinois in the spring of 1812, a company of thirty-three persons, seventeen white people and sixteen negroes, for they brought their slaves with them, in order that they might set them free. He purcahsed land of John Jarvis and settled on the farm four miles east of Belleville, where he spent the remaining sixteen years of his eventful life. His death occurred in 1828, when he was seventy years of age. Mr. Moore served two terms in the Territorial Legislature and three after Illinois became a state. The enduring services of Mr. Moore to our state relate to the question of slavery. He opposed it with all his might. The following address to the citizens was prepared by him and published in 1818. "The undersigned, happening to meet at the St. Clair Circuit Court, have united in submitting the following address to the friends of freedom in Illinois: Feeling it a duty to thsoe who are sincere in their opposition to the toleration of slavery in this territory, to use all fair and laudable means to effect that object, we therefore beg leave to present to our fellow-citizens at large the sentiments which prevail in this section of our country on that subject. In the counties of Madison and St. Clair, the most populous counties in the territory, a sentiment approaching that of unanimity against it seems to prevail. It the counties of Bond, Washington, and Monroe, a similar sentiment seems also to prevail. We are informed that strong efforts will be made in the convent to give sanction to that deplorable evil in our state. Lest such should be the result at too late a period for anything like concert to take place among the friends of freedom in trying to defeat it; we therefore earnestly solicit all true friends of freedom in every section of the territory to unite in opposing it, both by the election of a delegate to Congress who will oppose it, and by forming meetings and preparing remonstrances to Congress against it. Indeed so important is this question considered that no exertion of a fair character should be omitted, to defeat the plan of those who wish either a temporary or unlimited slavery. Let us also select men to the Legislature who will unite in remonstrating with the general government against ratifying such a constitution. At a crisis like this, thinking will not do. Acting is necessary. Signed Risdon Moore, Benjamin Watts, Jacob Ogle, Joshua Oglesby, William Scott, Sr., William Biggs, George Blair, Charles Matheny, James Garrettson, William Kinney, from St. Clair County."
Mr. Moore was a man of strong religious faith. He was a Methodist and during his sixteen years of residence in Illinois was a member of the church at Shiloh, which was organized five years before he came to Illinois and has maintained a continuous existence up to the present time. Both he and his wife found their last resting place in the beautiful Shiloh Cenmetery. In 1925 the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a tablet to his memory, which was unveiled with suitable ceremonies and an address by Hon. Charles S. Deneen, who is one of the direct descendants of this remarkable man.
William Moore was the eldest son of Risdon and carried on well his father's reputation for service, efficiency, and loyalty. He was a soldier in the Blackhawk War, with the rank of Captain. He also served in the Legislature and was a local preacher in the Methodist Church. When he died in 1849 he was the President of the Board of Trustees of McKendree College. Another son of Risdon Moore was Jonathan, who married Elizabaeth, daughter of George Lunceford, and for some time resided on the "Sugar Loaf" farm, south of Cahokia. In 1833 he purchased his father's farm east of Belleville, and in 1850 he moved to Lebanon. He also served in the Blackhawk War and was an officer in the same company of which his brother was Captain. One of his sons was Colonel Risdon Moore, who was Professor of mathematics in McKendree College at the opening of the Civil War and was the Commander of the McKendree Regiment. A further acount of him is given in the History of McKendree College. One of the daughters of Jonathan Moore, Mrs. Mary Fitzgerald is still living at an advanced age at her home in Lebanon.
Another Risdon Moore, very distantly related, if at all, to the one before mentioned, came to St. Clair County in 1817, and settled in the east side of the county, not far from the other Moores. This family were Baptists, instead of Methodists, and like the others, furnished some of the leaders in the community, both politically and religiously. One of the sons, Atlas Moore, was for many years a Missionary Baptist preacher, while another, Daniel T., represented St. Clair County in the Legislature.
John Beaird was a prominent citizen of Knox County, Tennessee, which county he represented in the Tennessee Legislature. He was usually selected as leader when the community had trouble with the Indians. He was brave, energetic, and a successful Indian fighter. He came with his family to Illinois in 1801 and settled four miles from Kaskaskia. His son, Joseph, lived for some years in Cahokia, and was a member of the Legislature for several terms. The family was related to that of Governor Reynolds, and when John Reynolds, afterward Governor, started out to practice law, he made his home for a time with Joseph Beaird, at Cahokia. William A. Beaird, another son of John Beaird, naturally possessed a good mind, but obstinately refused to get an education or to receive any information thru the medium of books. However, by observation and experience, he did acquire much practical knowledtge. He never married. He served as Sheriff of St. Clair County from 1815 to 1830. He died in Belleville in 1843.
One of the most prominent citizens of St. Clair County for nearly four decades was Rev. John Mason Peck, who occupied a distinctive position of leadership among Illinois Baptists. He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the year 1778. His early education was limited. In 1809 he joined the Baptist Church. In 1813 he was licensed to preach, and a little later ordained to the Baptist ministry. A few years later he spent a year in a theological seminary at Philadelphia. In May, 1817, he was chosen a missionary of the General Baptist Convention for the West. He set out with his family in a one-horse covered wagon, and reached St. Louis in December of that year. For the next nine years he was an itinerant missionary ranging thru Missouri and Illinois, residing in St. Louis, then in St. Charles, and ultimately fixing his home at Rock Spring, in St. Clair County, Illinois. He was a man of deep convictions and determined disposition. Rev. Justus Bulkley, long a professor in Shurtleff College, in a sketch of Dr. Peck, characterizes him as follows: "Tall, athletic, bright-eyed, very energetic in speech and manner, he was a marvel of strength and endurance, possessing implicit faith in God, fearless self-reliance, and an absolutely invincible will; so that his very presence was a recognized power and inspiration among men. When addressing the Illinois Baptist General Convention or any other august body, John M. Peck might be rung down repeatedly, but he never failed to keep the floor till he had presented his cause and finished his speech, however long it might be." In 1820, when the Missionary Board ordered him to move to Fort Wayne, Indiana, he did not comply, but with his characteristic independence decided to choose his own field of labor. In April, 1822, he moved to Rock Spring, where he acquired a considerable tract of land, on which he made his home for the remainder of his life, and where he died March 15, 1858. He was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, in St. Louis. In 1852 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard College. April 25th, 1829 was the date of the first issue of "The Pioneer," which was the first religious paper published in Illinois. This was edited and published by Dr. Peck, at Rock Spring. His frequent travels over the country brought him into such prominence that he received many inquiries by letter from persons who proposed to emigrate to the west and desired definite knowledge of certain localities. To meet this demand for information he published the "Guide for Emigrants." In 1834 he published the "Gazeteer of Illinois," in which was contained a concise and accurate description of each county, town, settlement, stream, and prairie in the state. He was also the author of several other volumes. All this time he was busy with his ministerial labors. He was the founder of Rock Srping Seminary, which will receive more extended notice elsewhere in this volume. He organized Sunday Schools, established churches, and preached the gospel continually. He was gifted by nature with a strong and vigorous intellct, and in addition, possessed an indomitable energy that shrank from no labor. He was admirably fitted for western pioneer life. He was hardy, self-denying, courageous, and independent. Few men of his day were more influential in guiding the thoughts and forming the institutions of the West. He gave his whole power, physical and intellectual, to his work. His devotion to his work seemed at times to take precedence over everything else, even his love for his family. A story is told of him to the effect that having been absent from his family several months while serving as Secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia, he reached home by stage one morning, and unnoticed by any of the family, went into his study. There he found a great accumulation of letters and papers which the mail had brought during his absence. He at once became absorbed in their examination, and late in the afternoon some member of the family was surprised to find him in his study peering over his papers.
Among the settlers who came about the time Illinois became a state were the Mitchell brothers, Edward and Samuel. They were born in Maryland, served in the Revolutionary War, lived in Virginia for a time and were among the early Methodists of that region. They both became Methodist preachers. Samuel settled about where Rentchler Station was afterward located, and Edward at Turkey Hill and lived there till his death in 1837, at the age of seventy eight. Samuel later moved to Galena and lived to a good old age. It is said that he still sometimes preached after he was eighty years old. Three of his sons were preachers. When the brothers came to Illinois they found religion much neglected, so they, with the help of a few neighbors, built a house of worship that was used for many years both as a church and a school house. Here the ordinances of religion were administered without money and without price. Edward Mitchell brought with him to Illinois his two sons-in-law, John Henry Dennis and Major Washington West, and a number of negro slaves, the whole group constituting a colony of fifty-seven people. Dennis settled in 1883 on a farm three miles south of Belleville. He was a gentleman of the old school and had obtained a thorough education at Hampden-Sidney College, in Virginia. He abandoned his farm in 1824 and moved to Belleville. At the request of Governor Ninian Edwards, a great patron of learning, he engaged in teaching, to which profession he devoted the remainder of his life. Many of his pupils attained distinction at the bar and in different walks of life. The school which he started in Belleville in 1824 was the first in the state in which there was opportunity for the study of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages and the higher mathematics. In this it antedated McKendree College by four years. For a number of years it continued to draw students from St. Louis, and as far east as the Wabash, but it was only a private school and never became permanently established. Mr. Dennis later served as County Superintendent of Schools.
Major West, who settled in what is known as West Prairie, a mile south of Belleville, was the son of Benjamin West, a native of Maryland and for seven years a soldier of the Revolutionary War. After the Revolution the family moved to Virginia. On coming to Illinois, Major West was accompanied by his parents, then nearly eighty years of age. He had acquired his military title by service in the War of 1812. He commanded a company of Virginia troops stationed for a while at Norfolk. He died in 1863, at the age of eighty-five. Several of his descendants have since been prominent citizens of Belleville. Joseph McClintock, a native of Bourbon County, Kentucky, reached St. Clair County with his family, including eight children, in November, 1818. He settled four miles south of Belleville and died there in 1846. Among his sons, William and James have held office in St. Clair County, and were always well-respected citizens. The southeast part of the county was settled in 1810 by the families of Hecox, Stubblefield, Perkins, Beasley, Nat Hill, and James and Reuben Lively. When the Indian troubles began during the War of 1812, they built a block house for protection against the dangers of Indian warfare. Other early settlers in this part of the county, who came about the year 1817 were William Pendleton, Andrew Free, and Isaac Rainey. The Lands, Dials, and Cooks came about the same time. Isaac Rainey laid out the town of Darmstadt, made his home there while he lived and died there in 1871. Jefferson Rainey, born in this county in 1820, was elected to the State Senate in 1875. A number of families came from the East and settled in the county in 1817 and 1818. Among them were those of Caleb Barker, William Fowler, Abel Thompson, Timothy Higgins and Deacon Samuel Smith. Caleb Barker settled in what is now West Belleville, and William Fowler on the east branch of Richland Creek, three miles south of Belleville. He afterward engaged in the carpenter's business and did the wood work for the first brick Court House at Belleville. Later his health failed and he moved to California. Deacon Samuel Smith settled on Richland Creek, and lived and died there, leaving numerous descendants in the county. In the year 1817 the English settlement of Prairie du Long was formed by the families of Bamber, Winstanley, Threlfell, Coop, Newsham, and others. The Woods came to that part of the county in 1806 and the Wildermans in 1808. Samuel Ogle, the father of David and Joseph Ogle, settled in 1819 four miles northwest of Belleville, purchasing an improvement first made by George Blair. The farm which he improved is now along the paved road leading from Belleville to St. Louis. For several years he served as County Commissioner.
When Illinois became a state in 1818 the settlements were still sparse. There were barely forty thousand people in the territory, which was the number necessary for statehood. Indeed, it is claimed that in some cases transients passing thru were counted in order to make up the required number, so anxious were the people for Illinois to become a state. It was not always easy for the immigrants to become acclimatized sufficently to maintain good health in the new country. Many of the people from Virginia and Kentucky had been accustomed to abundance of cold spring water and the invigorating air of the mountains. To them the change to the indifferent water from shallow wells, or sometimes stagnant pools was neither agreeable nor healthful. In summer the suffocating heat, and especially in the American Bottom, the air laden with malaria from the decay of the season's growth of exuberant vegetation caused sickness to hold its enervating sway in almost every household till the frosts of autumn and the snows of winter could restore the conditions of good health. The best physicians had difficulty in dealing successfully with the malarial malady known as "fever and ague." For years parts of Illinois had the reputation of being unhealthy regions.
But later science solved the problem and now malaria is almost unknown, even in the American Bottom. The prairies that were still unsettled were of vast extent, and in the summer season were covered with native prairie grass, which often grew as high as the head of a man on horseback. When the frosts of autumn had followed the bleaching rains and heat of summer, the prairie fire often swept over vast areas with the speed of the wind, leaving them black and desolate. Often the wild animals and sometimes people had their lives endangered by the raging death-dealing prairie fire. But that danger, too, has disappeared. Wild game was still abundant. In fact, some of the early settlers came to the country chiefly that they might enjoy the pleasures of hunting. Altho there were very few, if any, buffaloes east of the Mississippi, bears had not entirely disappeared, and deer sometimes in droves of half a hundred could be seen in the Spring, feeding on the luxuriant wild prairie grass. Wild turkeys were plentiful and grouse or prairie chickens were evident in such countless numbers that when they would fly into the fields of an evening, in lighting or rising they would produce a sound like distant thunder. Also in the autumn wild pigeons in countless myriads would visit the settlements. Sometimes flocks in their flight could be seen extending more than five miles long, as they passed to other feeding grounds or to their nightly roosting places. In those days the settler who was so inclined could easily furnish meat for his table the whole year thru, with no other implement than his gun and a little of his time both used in a way that the modern resident would regard as the finest kind of sport. In fact, the city man of these days has been known to travel thousands of miles and spend hundreds of dollars for the privilege of shooting a single deer or bear and thought it was well worth the outlay. This is merely one of the changes that a century of development has wrought.
Shadrach Bond was born in Frederick County, Maryland, in the year 1773. He was the son of a pious father who gave scriptural names to his boys. Shadrach's brothers were named Nicodemus and Joshua. He was reared on a plantation and educated as a practical farmer, and farming was his business in life except when he was engaged in public service for his country. His school training was very limilted, but he was a close observer and in the school of life he acquired a good knowledge of mankind and the various springs of human action. In mature age he was an intelligent practical citizen and servant of his fellow men. Governor Reynolds says of him, "He was not a lady parlor scholar who read the novels of love-sick swains and fainting girls, nor did he ever wash his face in cologne water, but he was nature's nobleman, educated in the wide world of the human family, and his conscience and sound judgment were his unerring preceptors. The whole creation should be a man's school house and nature his teacher. Bond studied in this college and Providence gave him a diploma."
He came to Illinois in 1794 and lived with his uncle, Shadrach Bond, senior, for some years, and then purchased a farm for himself in the American Bottom and improved it well. By his example and influence he was a leader in a movement for the improvement of farming and social conditions among the farm people, that began about 1800. He labored on his farm with his own hands, with such help as he could obtain in that early day. He felt an honest pride in being dependent on no one for support except Mother Earth and "God that giveth the increase." He spent the happiest part of his life on the farm. He possessed warm and ardent feelings and when in the society of his friends around the festive board he was not only happy himself but made all around him happy also. In personal appearance he was large and portly, six feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds, erect and symmetrical, in manner and bearing noble, dignified, and commanding; his features were regular but strong and masculine, his hair a glossy jet black, he had large brilliant hazel eyes, his forehead was prominent and his countenance indicated superior intellect. Such was the person of "Farmer Bond." In early life he was a member of the Gernal Assembly of the Indiana Territory, which met at Vincennes and he was a good, substantial member. In 1812 he was the first delegate to our national Congress. There he secured the passage of a law to grant the right of preemption to early settlers so that they might acquire a clear title to the land they occupied, and thus secure the improvements they had made upon it. This proved a great stimulus to the settlement of Illinois lands. When the settlers felt that they could hold the immprovements they made, they were encouraged to make more. This brought public lands into market and started a stream of immigration which was strong, deep and constant. It was the keystone to the arch of prosperity in Illinois. This one achievement entitles Bond to the lasting gratitude of his fellow-countrymen. He remained in Congress only one term. In 1814 he was appointed Receiver of Public Moneys at Kaskaskia. He then moved from his farm in the American Bottom to Kaskaskia and established a farm near that town. In 1818, when the first state officers were chosen for Illinois, he was elected Governor without opposition. The office of Governor was especially important during that first term in the time of transition from Territorial to State government. He performed the duties of the office in a satisfactory manner and retired with the good will of the people. Some time later he was appointed Registrar of the land office at Kaskaskia, in which office he continued till his death in 1830.
John Edgar was a native of Ireland and a subject of King George III. In 1776 he was in the British naval service and commander of a vessel on the Great Lakes. When the colonies raised their standard of freedom and independence, he was in full sympathy with them. His own people had chafed under English oppressions. He could not bring himself to fight for a country which in his heart he despised, and against a people that he admired and loved. He considered the matter carefully and made his decision to cast his lot with the Americans. He resigned from the army of King George, and in 1784 he came to Kaskaskia with a stock of merchandise and established a store in that town. He lived there almost half a century, until his death in 1832. He was an active business man, extensively engaged in land trade, and also in the milling business. He erected a fine flour mill on the same site on which M. Paget had built one sixty years before. This mill was a great benefit to the public and very profitable to the proprietor. Before the year 1800 he manufactured large quantities of flour for the New Orleans market, which would compare favorably with the flour made on the Atlantic coast.
Mr. Edgar was the owner of a splendid mansion in Kaskaskia, where the traveller and the stranger always found a hearty welcome. No one ever displayed more real hospitality than he did in his home. For many years he was the wealthiest man in Illinois. He held real estate in many quarters and paid more taxes than any man in the territory. But with all his wealth he was kind and benevolent. Nor did it ever change his deportment from that of a true American gentleman.
He was elected from Illinois as a member of the Legislature of the Northwest Territory. This General Assembly convened at Chilicothe, Ohio, and was held under the administration of Governor Arthur St. Clair. At home he served as Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Edgar County, Illinois was named in his honor.
CHAPTER II - Under British Rule
CHAPTER III - The Transition to American Rule
CHAPTER IV - Settlers of the Early Period


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Team Ninja and Tecmo KOEI have finally unveiled details on the cross-device functionality of Dead or Alive 5 Plus. Below we have some screenshots and details about how all this works.
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- Using the PS Store, DLC purchases will be shared across both platforms so players can pay a single price while getting dual platform use
- Over 100 costumes have been delivered to date as DLC, and the cross-platform transfer allows players to preserve their collection while getting new gameplay options with DEAD OR ALIVE 5 PLUS on PS Vita
DEAD OR ALIVE 5 PLUS brings the signature DOA fighting style to PS Vita with all-new system-specific features complementing the stunning graphics and new martial arts techniques of the recent console release. Players will take on the roles of the cast of DOA fighters in an action-packed brawler set in visually striking international locales, with each stage featuring interactive backdrops. With a sensual yet realistic style, characters are rendered in incredibly lifelike detail.

subset: commoncrawl


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A team of 22 male performers, assembled especially for the needs of this play, rehearsed for one year from June 2005. This performance itself is a self - examination of the person's need to connect with another person; on the longing of one to become two. At the same time, it is a cynical, yet affectionate, play on the world of men.
The music is by Konstantinos Vita, Stage-design by Lili Pezanou, Art Direction and costumes by Aggelos Mentis and Maria Ilia, Video by Athina Tsaggari and Matt Johnson, and Lighting by Alekos Giannaros, who together collaborate on the first solo post-Olympic project of Dimitris Papaioannou.
A Production of ELLTHEA
Konstantinos Giannakopoulos,
Christos Delidimos,
Nikos Dragonas,
Evaggelos Zarkadas,
Manolis Theodorakis,
Nikos Kalogerakis,
Tasos Karahalios,
Konstantinos Karvouniaris,
Giorgos Kotsifakis,
Giorgos Kopsidas,
Evripidis Laskaridis,
Giorgos Matskaris,
Marios Mettis,
Savvas Mpaltzis,
Giannis Nikolaidis,
Foivos Papadopoulos,
Christos Papadopoulos,
Aris Servetalis,
Diogenis Skaltsas,
Drosos Skotis,
Pavlos Stathakis,
Symeon Tsakiris,
Altin Huta.
Assistant Director: Tina Papanikolaou.
Sponsored by: MEGA TV, NOVA Art, BEST RADIO, LOVE RADIO, "INVESTOR'S WORLD" newspaper
Days: 24/11/2006 - 17/03/2007
| Pictures


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Teaware: the Gaiwan — materials
A hand-thrown porcelain gaiwan is a good choice when heat management is concerned. The rim of the bowl can be kept quite thin (around or less than 0.5 mm) while the thickness towards the bottom can be 2.5 mm or more for effective heat retention. The thinness of the rim makes it easy for the material in that area to cool down quickly for handling. A 160 ml hand-thrown one with thin rim can hold the heat one time better than the 130 ml, 1.5 mm one, because of the gradual thickness of the bowl wall and a slightly larger size.
One drawback is its relative higher price. Semi-mould-made ones are way more affordable.
Porcelain is my ultimate recommendation whether it is hand-thrown or semi-mould-made. It is easy to clean, lightweight, and most effective for managing heat during infusion. It is also very affordable.
I always go for a white one for minimum distraction. If you prefer colour glazes or decorations, make sure the inside of the bowl is white or white with minimal decorations. That way the colour of the infusion can be easily observed.
Mould-made ones are not as desirable, especially those with so heavy glazed decoration that the rim becomes too thick and the lid clumsy to handle. They may be higher price than semi-mould made ones, but they are much lesser utilitarian values.
Yixing Clay
Since a gaiwan is made for versatility in the first place, I realy don't see the point of using a Yixing gaiwan, unless you use only one choice of tea with it regularly. As I shall mention in the chapter for Yixing pots, a piece made of Yixing has to keep to a particular tea variety.
Glazed Stoneware
Stoneware ones are usually mould-made and because of the nature of the material, usually quite thick. With the thickness, heat does not dissipate too readily at the rim, where you have to hold for decanting. If you are comfortable handling the heat, the thickness and the weight, however, a stoneware one is a good consideration when you prefer long infusion time, because of its superior heat conservation capability. Make sure it is well glazed for easy cleaning.
Glass does not hold heat so well, particularly towards the bottom, where it is the thinnest — mould-made ware is limited by the method of production. Heat gathers undesirably at the rim and the button of the lid and makes handling uncomfortable. The only advantage of it is its transparency for show reasons.
These are basically bowls and not suitable for infusion use. Most popularly available ones are artificial lacquer and smells quite bad on contact with heat. Most designs are with lids that have a small height of vertical wall at the rim. The rim of the bowl is also quite straight. These are not gaiwan designs. <<back to Gaiwan main page
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Progressive Jews Spearhead UK Equal Marriage Push
UPDATE: An edited version of this post has been published in The Forward headlined, "Pushing for Gay Marriage Across The Pond".
David Cameron is setting himself up for the most almighty clash with the British religious establishment this week, as he prepares to amend the laws on marriage.
The leaders of all three main parties support government plans to afford same-sex couples the right to civil marriage, plus permission to wed in churches and other religious buildings. While the proposed law is designed to allow churches and congregations the flexibility of opting in or out of officiating same sex ceremonies, it is nonetheless opposed by the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
Orthodox Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and the London Beth Din also oppose any alterations to the traditional definition of marriage. The United Synagogue, of which Rabbi Sacks is the spiritual leader, maintains that "marriage from time immemorial has been that of a union between a man and a woman", and as such "any attempt to redefine this sacred institution would be to undermine the concept of marriage."
Yet progressive Jewish denominations – along with Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Quakers – have been leading the push to host same-sex weddings in their places of worship. Liberal Judaism was the first branch to back the Coalition for Equal Marriage – the umbrella organisation lobbying in favour of same-sex marriage – asserting that, "as Liberal Jews, we want to support positive celebrations of life that help the individual to revel in life's joys as well as to support them through life's difficulties."
The Law Must Not Permit Christian Homophobia
Closure, almost. The Christian owner of a bed and breakfast has, The Guardian reports, been ordered to pay £3,600 in damages after a court found Susanne Wilkinson's refusal to let Michael Black and John Morgan, a gay couple, stay in one of her double rooms. This act was deemed to have amounted to direct discrimination and a breach of equality law — and, rightly so.
I say closure, almost, because Ms Wilkinson and the good people at the Christian Institute — an organisation of charlatans and blaggards which seeks to send the United Kingdom back into the dark ages via "the furtherance and promotion of the Christian religion" and promotes the teaching of lies to children in schools — are considering an appeal, her religious rights supposedly having been infringed. And, their new found ally and BNP leader Mad Eye Griffin, the last crusader against the forces of heterophobia, has weighed in too, tweeting Mr Black and Mr Morgan's home address, threatening them with violence, and moaning, "Why don't left & gay activists confront Muslims instead of picking on meek & forgiving Christians?" That's always how I've thought of Mr Griffin — meek and forgiving.
This sort of nonsense has to stop. Liberty, an organisation I don't usually care for a great deal, had the right line on this issue. James Welch, legal director of Liberty, said in a statement the following:
Liberty defends the rights of religious groups to manifest their beliefs, even when we disagree with them. But it is simply unacceptable for people running a business to refuse to provide a service because of someone's sexual orientation. Hopefully today's ruling signals the death knell of such 'no gays' policies – policies that would never be tolerated if they referred to a person's race, gender or religion.
If Ms Wilkinson doesn't want to let homosexuals — or indeed blacks, Muslims, or atheists — into her home, then fine. Be prejudicial in private, for all I care. Indeed, if Ms Wilkinson wanted to stand out in the street, ranting and raving with a cardboard sign reading, "God Hates Fags", then she is well within her rights to do so. Her right to speak, in such an instance, would be and must be protected.
But as the legal proceedings concluded, Ms Wilkinson was exercising her free speech nor her right to religious freedom. She was operating a business, and under the law in this country as a service provider, she is not entitled to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation. The law of the land is paramount and at unity, and all are equal under it. Ms Wilkinson is not entitled to an exemption nor to be bigoted in his manner merely because of the fantastical claims of holy books, and the aura of respectability believing in them seems to grant people.
Salman, The Messenger [September 13, 2012]
Protecting Free Inquiry from Religious Bullies [September 24, 2012]
Romney's Problem with the First Amendment
I always think it odd when any religious American starts up about the perils of having a strict separation of church and state. In spite of having a secular constitution, nowhere in the Western world — indeed, the world entire — are the rights of the religious afforded greater protection than in the United States. As a consequence, the inhabitants of the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific are far more religious, and overtly and militantly so, than in any European nation.
So, here's Mitt Romney on the role of faith in American political life:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes that "some" Americans have taken the separation of church and state too far, "well beyond its original meaning."
In an interview released Tuesday with the Washington National Cathedral's magazine, Cathedral Age, Romney said those who "seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God" aren't acting in line with the Founders' intent.
Odd that such a keen constitutionalist should have such a problem with one particular passage. The First Amendment could not be more clear on this issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Thomas Jefferson expanded on this point in a letter of 1802 which assured the American people that there shall be a "a wall of separation between church and State", adding that "the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions". Nobody is stopping Gov. Romney or anybody else from discussing religion in the public square, then. Rather, it is the role of government to stay out of the religion business — thus, no prayer in public schools — unless there is the possibility of harm.
I, Nephi
by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, August 13, 2012
Mormonism remained more or less theologically whole, with its holy book and its distinctive doctrines. But this sublimation of the energy of the faith into the energy of commerce seems always to have marked it afterward. Many faiths know a moment when a territorial practice gets pointed toward a symbolic and indoor activity: thus, most famously, the move from the Temple Judaism of ancient Israel to the Talmudic, rabbinical Judaism that arose after the destruction of the Temple. Less noted, perhaps, is the retrenchment of Roman Catholicism in France from the aggressive political role it played as recently as the Dreyfus affair toward the inward-turning N.G.O. it is today: the energy that produced Sacré Coeur in Montmartre now expresses itself in the number of water wells dug in Africa. For Mormonism, the intensity of the faith got sublimated into missionary zeal and commerce. Joanna Brooks explains this nicely: "Being Mormons we were taught never to go in for the bamboozle of mysterious sacraments of grace embraced by the rest of apostate Christendom… . No, no, we Mormons were taught that our works must carry us there." The emphasis on works is a Protestant standby, but in this case it is without the grim Calvinist suspicion that maybe the works won't get you to Heaven. Mormons know they will. Work and grace are not in tension but in neat accord. A mercantile church and a missionary church move in the same holy direction, and the vector that points both forward is the energy of enterprise.
Scientology Is Not a Religion
by James Kirchick, Tablet Magazine, July 24, 2012
Around the world, a handful of politicians have urged their governments to prosecute Scientology as a criminal conspiracy. Three years ago, a Paris court found the Church guilty of fraud and fined it $900,000. That same year, a member of the Australian Senate, Nick Xenophon, delivered a speech in which he described Scientology as "criminal organization that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs." After calling for an investigation into the Church's tax-exempt status during a television interview, he began to receive letters from ex-Scientologists across Australia detailing what he described as "a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality," including torture, forced confinement, and coerced abortions. (Xenophon's call for a parliamentary inquiry into the Church was ultimately rejected by the Australian government.) In 2007, following a 10-year investigation, a Belgian prosecutor called for the Church to be labeled a criminal organization and recommended that up to 12 Church officials face charges for the illegal practice of medicine, violation of privacy, and use of illegal contracts. The State Department criticized the move, stating that the United States would "oppose any effort to stigmatize an entire group based solely upon religious beliefs and would be concerned over infringement of any individual's rights because of religious affiliation."
But it was not long ago that the U.S. government came close to cracking down on Scientology. In a New Yorker profile last year of Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning director of Crash who recently defected from the Church, Lawrence Wright reported that the FBI was investigating Scientology on charges of human trafficking. According to Tony Ortega, the editor of the Village Voice who has long written about the Church, the bureau was preparing to raid Scientology's California international headquarters—using footage it had shot with drone aircraft—based upon evidence that a defector had given them about "an office-prison made up of two double-wide trailers where fallen officials were kept day and night, sleeping on the floor and being forced to take part in mass confessions." The probe was ultimately called off for unknown reasons.
…For obvious reasons—beginning with the Constitution, and the fact the United States was founded by Europeans seeking religious persecution—most Americans are loath to do anything that would appear to infringe upon someone else's religious liberty. Though some of us may find each other's religious convictions, or religion itself, strange, few believe that it should be the government's role to tell other people how, if at all, to pray. And so while the consensus in the United States may be that Scientology is a bit nutty, the general attitude, owing to Americans' dedication to individual liberty, seems to be: live and let live. The problem with Scientology is that it is not content to let other people "let live," certainly not those who join the Church or criticize it from the outside.
The differences in historical traditions of American individualism and European communalism should not be used to discourage a tougher American approach to dealing with the Church of Scientology. Revoking its ill-gotten tax-exempt status is the obvious first start, followed by an end to criticism of foreign governments, such as Germany's, for doing precisely what the U.S. government should be doing: investigating Scientology as a harmful enterprise, with the ultimate aim of shutting it down. Congress should establish a commission, as have many other governments, to investigate the Church and its activities and actively warn citizens about its dangers. Such policies should be seen as no different from a public-health measure, like long-existing, widely popular government campaigns to discourage smoking.
Confessions of an Ex-Mormon
by Walter Kirn, The New Republic, July 13, 2012
On down the river we drove, into Missouri. The buses pulled over in a parking lot overlooking a leafy summer cornfield bordered by a tangled hardwood forest. We filed out and were made to stand in silence before what one chaperone, balding, tall, and stern, declared to be Eden, man's childhood home. It was also the spot where Jesus would return to rally the elect, he said. We were shown the broad rock where, according to our guide, the Savior would stand and speak. We were encouraged to stand on it ourselves. The boy who preceded me in line was crying when he stepped down off the stone, one hand pressed on his stomach as though it ached. As Mormons, we'd learned that a burning in our bellies meant we were in the presence of the Spirit, whose job was to confirm for people in doubt the truth of propositions their minds resisted. This was one of those. Eden in a cornfield? It had to be planted in something, I supposed, but then there was the matter of its size. For Adam and Eve it was spacious enough, perhaps, but could it hold all the Mormons who'd be left after the tribulations of the Last Days? Only if they packed in awfully tight.
As Carla and the others watched me, I mounted the rock in my untied tennis shoes and awaited intestinal confirmation of a story I suddenly found preposterous. Other tales from the trip had strained belief, but I'd strained back and managed to accept them. This one was different, though. This one hurt to think about.
What happened next surprised me. As I gazed at the field and struggled to imagine a sea of faithful saints gathered to take instruction from God's son as nuclear mushroom clouds billowed on the horizon and vultures circled above the woods, my stomach cramped. Not a strong cramp, but a cramp. Was this the same as a "burning"? Well, say it was. What prompted it, though? I feared I knew: pure tension. The tension of glancing over at my friends and wondering if I could conceal the look of emptiness that comes from finally losing one's spiritual innocence.
David Miscavige: A cult figure in the fame game
by Jamie Doward, The Observer, July 8, 2012
Once it was the case that the church could rely on its internal disciplinary mechanism to ensure negative publicity was kept to a minimum. According to lawsuits, contested by the church, followers were threatened with manual labour if they spoke out about harsh treatment. The ever-present threat of being rejected by the church and having all links with it broken off, was enough to make even sceptical Scientologists stay silent.
But this fear no longer holds sway – even among Miscavige's own family. "My experience in growing up in Scientology is that it is both mentally and at times physically abusive," his niece, Jenna Miscavige Hill, told the Hollywood Reporter. "We got a lousy education from unqualified teachers, forced labour… not to mention the mental anguish of trying to figure out all of the conflicting information they force upon you as a young child… As a mother myself, I offer my support to Katie and wish for her all the strength she will need to do what is best for her and her daughter."
Even those who are supportive of the church are tired of Miscavige's influence. Last New Year's Eve, Debbie Cook, a high-profile Scientologist, emailed the church's followers, urging them to reject its demands for money. Under Miscavige, Cook said, Scientology had become too focused on luxury buildings and was holding more than $1bn in reserve instead of spending it on spreading the religion, claims denied by the church. Miscavige, Cook claimed, had dismantled the internal checks that were supposed to prevent the church from being led by a single person.
There are claims that several of Scientology's former followers have briefed the FBI on Miscavige's lifestyle. It is alleged that he owns numerous vehicles, flies in corporate jets and has five stewards and two chefs at his disposal – claims denied by the church.
The thinking man vs. the theocrat
by Carlo Strenger, Ha'aretz, June 24, 2012
I believe that it is time for Israel's liberal seculars to learn from Dawkins and Hitchens, counter-attack and show that our position is intellectually and morally superior to that of our latter-day theocrats. We must show that modern science is vastly superior to any alternative attempt to understand the universe. We must not be afraid to say out loud that archaeology shows that the famed kingdom of David and Solomon was nothing but a small tribal state with no relevance to running a modern state.
We must replace timid political correctness with an attitude of civilized disdain and expose the incoherence of a modern theocratic state. We must show that liberalism has always been the condition for scientific, technological and social innovation, and make clear that all theocratic regimes in modernity end up as primitive backwaters, no matter what the religion.
We must expose the theocrat's ignorance of deep thought grounded in modern political philosophy - from Spinoza, Hobbes and Locke, to Kant to John Stuart Mill - which is the foundation of liberal democracy. We must show that liberal democracy is the only framework that allows peaceful coexistence between groups with different beliefs; and that, with all its failings, it is vastly superior to any other form of political organization that has so far been attempted.
If they say that most modern political philosophers are not Jews, we must tell them that they think in tribal terms that are totally anachronistic today. We should say that we are proud that Jews have contributed enormously to world culture in the sciences, arts and technology. But we believe that our children and students should know the best of human thought - from everywhere - and that far from emptying our cart, our openness makes it much richer than theirs.
If we don't forcefully defend liberal values, including the separation of religion and state, now, we will soon lose the right to voice them at all.
My So-Called Ex-Gay Life
by Gabriel Arana,The American Prospect, April 11, 2012
The ex-gay movement has relied on the Spitzer study as the single piece of objective evidence that therapy can work. The need for that evidence became more pressing in the early 2000s, when a cadre of gay-rights bloggers began to scrutinize the movement, ready to expose any hint of hypocrisy. There was plenty of material.
John Paulk, Love Won Out founder, chair of the board of Exodus International, and husband of Anne Paulk, was spotted and photographed at a Washington, D.C., gay bar. Richard Cohen, the founder of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)—intended as the ex-gay counterpart to PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)—was expelled from the American Counseling Association for ethics violations. Michael Johnston, the founder of "National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day," was revealed to have infected men he'd met on the Internet with HIV through unprotected sex.
A member of NARTH's scientific advisory board ignited controversy by suggesting that blacks were better off having been enslaved, which allowed them to escape the "savage" continent of Africa. Shortly thereafter, the board of NARTH removed Nicolosi, who was still president. In 2010 it was revealed that NARTH's executive secretary, Abba Goldberg, was a con man who had served 18 months in prison.
Therapists associated with NARTH and Exodus were accused of sexually assaulting clients or engaging in questionable therapy practices. Among them were Alan Downing, the lead therapist of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality), who made his patients strip and touch themselves in front of a mirror; NARTH member Christopher Austin, who was convicted of "unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly caus[ing] penetration of" a client; and Exodus-affiliated Mike Jones, who asked a patient to take off his shirt and do push-ups for him.
An American Education, or Why Peter Beinart is Wrong
I choose to believe, given Peter Beinart sends his own children to a Jewish day school, that his recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal is well-meaning. Beinart's angst seems heartfelt and altogether sincere when he observes that parents who elect to send their offspring to privately-funded Jewish schools in the United States "are often asked to pay top dollar for schools with makeshift gymnasiums and antiquated science labs".
In order to plug the funding gap which philanthropy alone cannot fill so that religious schools might "flourish", Beinart's solution is for the federal government to provide "substantial aid to religious schools", picking up "pick up part of the tab" for those who wish to give their children a Jewish or indeed any sort of religious education. This approach strikes me has highly irregular, counterproductive, and in the longer term a grave threat to the unique American separation between church and state.
Beinart praises the Jewish schools of Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Indeed, here in the United Kingdom we do possess many first-rate Jewish schools, such as the Jews' Free School in north London or Beis Yaakov High School in Manchester, which receive government monies (38 in number as of 2011, or 0.19% of all state-funded schools in the country). The schools cited are labelled as voluntary aided schools, where the state employs the staff and sets admissions criteria, but the buildings are owned by the charitable foundation which has a great deal of influence regarding how the institution is run – a model I sense Beinart may favour.
In the United Kingdom, faith schools are largely Christian in character: 22.88% of state schools for run by the Church of England; 10% by the Roman Catholic Church. Places in these schools are oft in great demand in catchment areas across the country. Regarded for their academic attainment and educational rigour, the phenomenon of competitive secular parents appearing at Sunday Mass for the sake of their kids is sadly not uncommon.
But above-average levels of accomplishment or an ostensible sense of religious pluralism does not make the funding of faith schools by national governments correct or just. The very notion of state funding for religious schools is antithetical to the basic principles of public education, which ought to be accessible to and actively encourage interaction between children of different races, religions, and social strata. By their very nature, faith schools are exclusionary, since they discourage admission of those who do not share in the faith of that institution.