or brick, for the reason they could not procure them. Their houses were small, consisting of one story, built of logs or poles, unhewed, with the ends projecting from six inches to two feet at the corners, and the cracks between the logs were filled with sticks and daubed with clay. The doors were made of boards fastened in place with wooden pegs and hung with wooden hinges. A wooden latch raised by a string, served as a fastening; the string had one end tied to the latch and the other passed through a small hole above it, and when the door was fastened, one end of the string was hanging out. "The latch-string out" was the pioneers' emblem of hospitality. The fireplaces were from six to ten feet in width, and in them large logs blazed on winter nights, warming the entire household. At one side of these capacious hearths, one article always stood conspicuous, viz: the kettle of "blue dye," with which the old ladies colored their "yarn" for weaving. This kettle being covered with an old barrel head, or something of the kind, often did service as a seat for some members of the family, and even for visitors. Young fellows, when on courting expeditions, sometimes found it a very convenient seat with the objects of their affections in close proximity. "Some of the best men or our country," an old gentleman informed us, who had probably been there himself, "wooed and won their brides, seated on a kettle of 'blue dye,' by the blazing fire of the backwoodsman's rude cabin." On the outside of the houses, it was no uncommon thing to see a goodly number of raccoon and deer skins "stretched" against the wall to dry, and occasionally the skin of a wild cat, wolf or bear. The projecting ends of the logs, at each corner of the cabin, served as places to hang the various utensils used on the farm, such as hoes, rakes, bridles and harness, or "gears," as they were then called.

The first improvement of importance to the

pioneer, after he has erected a shelter for himself and family, is a mill, an industry that always advances with civilization. Judge Shaw tells us in his centennial address on Cass County, that the first mill accessible to the pioneers of the county was Jarvoe's mill on Cahokia Creek, and that in 1821 a mill was erected on Indian Creek, and later a horsemill was erected at Clary's Grove, in Menard County. These mills served the people in this section until able to build mills for themselves. One of the first in this precinct, of which we have any account, was built by a Mr. Street, about 1831-2, on the southeast quarter of section 29, town 18 and range 10. It was a primitive affair, but, as we were informed, was "better than none at all." H. H. Hall built a water grist mill some two miles northeast of the present city of Virginia, about 1838, on Job Creek. It was for grinding corn and wheat, and had but one run of burrs, driven by a horizontal water-wheel with upright shaft. Its capacity was about eight to ten bushels per hour. As population increased, and the community became wealthy, other mills were built for the accommodation of the growing population. Other improvements were male in the precinct. Roads were laid out, and put in order, thus rendering travel a less task than formerly, and where they crossed streams and sloughs, bridges were built. Good roads now pass through the precinct in every direction, diverging from the county seat, and while they do not compare with macadamized roads, they are about as good as Illinois soil will make without artificial aid.

The pioneer fathers were alive to the advantages of education, and lost no time in establishing schools in the different settlements. Mr. Keiling Berry is authority for the fact that a school was taught in the precinct as early as 1830. During the first few years after settlements were made, there were no

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schoolhouses or churches built in the precinct. Schools were taught in abandoned cabins, and conducted on the subscription plan. The teacher made out his proposition on paper, and the parents signed" as many scholars as they had, or could afford to pay for, agreeing to pay a specified sum for tuition a certain number of months. The first school taught in the precinct, so far as we have learned, was taught by William Holmes, in one of these abandoned cabins, at Sugar Grove, Mr. Berry says, about the year 1830. Keiling Berry himself taught a subscription, or on the select school plan, from November 19, 1839, to September 1, 1840, in a log cabin still standing on the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 27, township 17, and range 10. This is doubtless the oldest building now standing in the neighborhood, used as a temple of learning. The Angier school house which stood on the northwest corner of section 4, is believed to have been the first built in the precinct, especially for school purposes. It was erected by the people of the community by their own mutual labor, and afterward became the property of the district. It was burned some eight or ten years ago.

School facilities increased with the advancing tide of immigration, and new houses were built as they were needed. At the present

time there are some half a dozen school houses in the precinct outside of the city of Virginia. These are good, comfortable houses, fitted up with modern furniture, and present quite a contrast to those of fifty years ago. There are at present two churches in Virginia precinct outside of the city. Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church is located some three and a half miles west of the city of Virginia, and was built in 1857. The congregation was organized at the house of Nathan Compton, in Jersey Prairie, in Morgan County, in the fall of 1827, by the Rev.

J. M. Berry. After the congregation was permanently organized, it was attached to the Sangamon Presbytery, and was represented in the semi-annual meetings of that body, from time to time, until about the year 1835. Hitherto the church had been supplied with preaching, chiefly by Revs. Berry and William M Cord, the latter of whom died in August, 1833. Rev. Benjamin Cauby, who moved into the bounds of the church about the year 1830, began to preach to this and neighboring societies after Mr. McCord's decease. Mr. Compton, one of the first elders, had moved away, and the records of the church were either lost or mislaid. Under this state of affairs, Rev. Cauby deemed it proper to re-organize the congregation, which was done in 1837, at the Shiloh meeting house, and which had been built upon land donated by Mr. Cauby for that purpose. The following resolution was adopted: "Whereas, We, the undersigned, believe it to be our privilege and duty to attach ourselves to some branch of the church of God, and, so far a we have read and examined, the government and discipline of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church also believing that it agrees with our views most in accordance with Apostolic mode, do and hereby order our names to be enrolled as members of the Mount Pleasant Congregation of the Presbyterian Church." Following are the names of those who signe 1: Rev. Benjamin Cauby, Joseph Cauby and wife, Abner Tining, Richard Matthews, Sarah Street, Susan and Mary Beasley, Nancy Morgan, D. A. McCord, Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah and Eliza Jane McC rd, Elizabeth Thompson, Sarah Fraesell, James B. Thompson, William and Sarah Lowrance, Margaret Schaffer, Richard D. and John B. Thomps n, Amanda Matthews, Samuel B., Matilda, Matilda J., and Sarah J. Thompson, Catharine Pratt, and H. S. Schaffer.

The present elders of the church are: L.

McNeil, Henry Bierhause, and Daniel Biddlecome. The church has now forty members, under the pastorate of Rev. J. E. Roach, and a good comfortable church building.

A Sunday-school of about twenty-five pupils is carried on in connection with the church. Daniel Biddlecome is the present superintendent, a position he has held for the past twelve years. The school was held at the Union school-house until within the past two years, when it was removed to the church where the church organ adds a pleasant accompaniment to the singing and to the general interest of the school.

Bethlehem Methodist Church is located

about three miles south of Virginia, on the road to Jacksonville. It was built more than thirty years ago, and was originally a kind of union church, being used by several denominations, but for many years has been occupied only by the Methodists.

Virginia Precinct contains the county-seat of the county, and as is usually the case, much of the history of the precinct centers in the county seat, leaving but little to say in the preliminary chapter, beyond the mere settlement of the precinct, and the mention of a few minor topics. With this brief sketch of Virginia precinct, we will close this chapter, and in a new one take up the city's history.

N historic annals we are enabled to measure social progress. Society, as it circles outward from a common centre, has a tendency to degenerate from its original and higher type to one of a lower tone and standard. History reveals the fact that every receding circle of civilization has lessened the forces forming and completing a perfect state of society. On nearly every wave of immigration some good seed is borne to grow up in the opening soil of the new country. The good seed is usually sufficient to begin the work of raising society to a higher level of civilization, and their transforming power counteracts those demoralizing influences which tend to social degeneration. and disruption, as the lawless and vicious seek the frontiers, where there is less restraint from civil power. This good seed becomes the nucleus around which gather those influences necessary to carry society onward to a state of comparative perfection. By a comparison with the rude and rough scenes of the past, we may see how much has been done in this respect. The moral and social standard of the community afford unbounded evidence that much good seed has fallen in this locality.

The city of Virginia, to which this chapter is devoted, and the county seat of Cass County, is beautifully situated in a fine reg on of country, near the geographical cen

tre of the county, and is surrounded by some of the best and most productive farms in the State. The Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad, and the Springfield division of the Ohio & Mississippi, cross here, and furnish the citizens of the place, and the farmers of the adjacent neighborhood, ample facilities for shipping, as well as travel.

Virginia was laid out by Dr. H. H. Hall, who owned the land upon which it is located. It was surveyed by Johnston C. Shelton, May 17, 1836, and the original plat occupied a portion of township 17, range 10, west. The first sale of lots was made August 6, 1836, and the records show that Joel Horn purchased lot 5; E. B. Gentry, lot 6; George Garlick, lot 7; M. H. Beadles, lots 8 and 9; Isaiah Paschal, lot 10; J. B. Gentry, lot 11; Zebedee Wood, lots 12, 18, and 19; Franklin Marshall, lot 20; William S. Horn, lot 21; Henry T. Foster, lot 22; L. S. Saunders, lot 24; Joel Horn, lot 28; William Quigg, lot 33, etc., etc. Dr. Hall made an addition to the town, which was surveyed and platted, July 1, 1837, and on the 25th of August the sale of lots in this addition took place.

A number of them were sold on the day of the sale, and the remainder before the close of the year. The town, for a new place, in a sparsely settled district, grew rapidly, and bid fair to become a place of considerable business.

Dr. Hall, the proprietor and founder of Virginia, was a native of Ireland, and a regular graduated physician. He served for a time as surgeon in the British navy, and in that capacity came here in the war of 1812, remaining in this country after its close, and in 1818 settling in Virginia. He remained a citizen of the Old Dominion until his removal to Illinois in 1835. He first visited the West in 1831, and during his stay entered several hundred acres of land, upon a portion of which the city of Virginia now stands. Returning to his home, he remained there until 1835, when he removed to Illinois and settled upon the lands he had already entered here, and the next year laid out the town of Virginia, which he called after the State he had first chosen for his home after becoming a citizen of the United States. Up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1847, he was the ruling spirit of the growing town, and one of its chief business men, fully alive to its interests, as well as to those of the county, and manifesting his zeal by encouraging all enterprises looking to the development and improvement of the common country and to his own county. He built the first house within the present limits of the city, and prior to the laying out of the place. It stood on what is now Springfield street, one block east of the public square, and was a frame building a story and a half high. He was not only the first settler of the town of Virginia, but was also the first merchant, and opened the first store in the place in 1836, having for a clerk at the time Charles Oliver, afterward a prominent merchant himself. The first sale made from Dr. Hall's store was by Mr. Oliver, and consisted of three pairs of shoes for the family of Wm. S. Berry, and the purchase of which was made by his son, Keiling Berry, still a well known citizen of Virginia.

An addition of public grounds was made by Dr. Hall, surveyed by Wm. Holmes, coun

ty surveyor, on the 21st of June, 1838. Virginia had then become the county seat, and Mr. Holmes drove down a stake in the center of the public square, as the spot whereon the court house should be built. The addition comprised fifteen acres, donated by Dr. Hall, and deeded to the commissioners of Cass County for public buildings. A court house was erected on the square, and after the county seat was moved back to Beardstown, the house and grounds were sold to the town for school purposes, and with the house rebuilt, are still so used. Originally the business section was in the western part of town, and there still remains many traces of the old business houses around the square, now the school grounds, as the laying out of a square and the erection of a court house drew the business around it.

Hall & Thomas made an addition to Virginia, May 15, 1839; surveyed and platted by John Clark, county surveyor. The same parties made another addition June 12, 1856; it was surveyed by John Craig, and acknowledge before Henry Rabourn, a justice of the peace. Robert Hall has made several additions; one surveyed by John Craig, June 26, 1856, and another platted by the same same surveyor August 29, 1859, and acknowledged before Squire Henry Rabourn. Barton & Wood made an addition June 21, 1856; surveyed by R. C. Crumpton. H. H. Hall, Jr., made an addition March 5, 1866, which was surveyed by J. T. Dunbar, county surveyor. Several other additions have been made by different parties, until at the present day, Virginia covers enough ground for a city of ten thousand inhabitants.

When the court house was built in the square now occupied as the city school, the business was drawn around it as it is now around the present square, and as we have said, some of the old business houses are still standing, and there are traces of others. No