term of the circuit court held at Tremont was in September, 1836, Judge Stephen T. Logan presiding. This did not put an end to the strife, but only seemed to add fuel to the fire. The spirit of dissension was still active. Criminations and recriminations were rife and threats of vengeance were frequent. Further conspiracies were formed. On January 20, 1841, another act went into force, cutting off the County of Mason. In the same session, on February 27, 1841, a similar act, cutting off the County of Woodford, was passed, reducing the parent county to nineteen townships, and poor old Tazewell was suffering the pangs of internal dissension and decimation. On February 26, 1841, an act went into force, directing the county commissioners' court to rent some unoccupied portions of the court house at Tremont, and placing the care and custody of the court house in the county commissioners' court, "any law to the contrary notwithstanding." The draftsmen of that act had some motive that is not revealed in the act itself. It meant trouble for somebody. On February 17, 1843, an act of the General Assembly went into force directing that the townships of Washington and the larger portion of Fond Du Lac be cut off from Tazewell and attached to Woodford, and that the seat of justice be removed from Tremont to Pekin. This act provided that it should not be effective unless endorsed by the majority vote of both counties. The scheme turned out to be like a certain oblate spheroid and was "flattened at the poles." This transaction reveals the desperate straits to which the county had been reduced in the struggle and makes plain the bane of special legislation, which was possible under our first Constitution. The final contest on this question came in 1849, when an act of the General Assembly went into force on February 2 of that year, changing the seat of justice from the town of Tremont to the town of Pekin, on condition that the act be approved by a majority of the vote of the county, and that the town of Pekin and vicinity erect a good and sufficient court house for the use of said county on court square in said town, without cost to the county, within two years from the time this art shall take effect; the county sest not to be removed mut the court house is erected and approved by the direnit juice. The at provided that Thompson 1. S Flint David Mark, William Mans, Thomas N, Gill and James Haines be commissioners to receive subscriptions and build the court house, if the county seat was changed under the act. The election was held on the first Saturday of April, 1849. The law was sustained by a majority vote of the county; the court house erected on court square in the town of Pekin, by the citizens of that town and vicinity, without eost to the county. The work was approved by David Davis, circuit judge, in the latter part of July, 1850, and as provided by the act, the town of Pekin became the permanent seat of justice. The last term of circuit court held at Tremont was in April, 1550. The officers and records were removed to the new court house at Pekin, August 26, 1850, Judge David Davis held the first session of circuit court there in September following. The last case tried in it was C. A. Fluegel, for the use of J. Carver vs. Margaret Dorence et al.; an action in replevin heard before Judge T. N. Green and a jury, which returned its verdict for plaintiff, May 19, 1914. This court house has stood as a monument to justice in the county sixty-four years. It has served well its day and generation and now gives way to the progress of the twontieth century. It has remained, while the men who battled for and against its location, like the leaves of their native trees, have fallen from the bough and been gathered to their fathers. The animosities of the conflict have been buried with them and now only remain as tradition to the men of the present day. This is one of the last monuments of the pioneer days to fall beneath the march of time. To us, who have spent the major part of our professional life within its courts, its passing brings a note of sadness. There are pictures in our minds connected with it that will only fade with conscious memory. The only thing that can make the change tolerable is the necessary requirement to keep pace with the improvements of the age; the necessity of keeping step with progress, "It is weary watching wave by wave, The rear shall rest tomorrow." This county was a large factor in the old eighth judicial circuit of Illinois. David Davis, one of its circuit judges, became an honored chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a tribunal long since recognized as the greatest in the world. Stephen A. Douglas, a member of its bar, was not only a great lawyer and a great judge, but also the leader and ideal of a great political party, and was chosen by his partisans to represent them in the greatest mental combat of modern times. Abraham Lincoln, another member of its bar, was not only a great lawyer, but a founder and leader of a great political party; the choice of his faction to meet the great senator in debate; the choice of the Nation as President, and in that office became the saviour of the Union and the emancipator of slaves. These men were familiar figures on the bench and at the bar in the old court house at Tremont and in the old court house at Pekin. They are reminders to us of a great host of other men, many of whom were of equal ability, if not of so wide a fame, who in the time that is past, constituted the great bar of this circuit and county, who have added lustre and honor to the courts in which they served and honored the Nation in which they were citizens. They are a reminder of those pioneers, who braved the wilderness, alive with beasts of prey and savage tribes, met miasma and unknown diseases lurking on every hand; who endured poverty, privations, hardships, and willingly fought the battles of the wilderness to make homes for themselves and their children, where they might enjoy liberty and the right to serve God, according to the dictates of their conscience. They are our forbearers. We are reaping the golden harvest that they planted, and we may well be glad if we can preserve and pass on to our posterity the heritage that they have left us. If we can perform our duty in our day and generation as well as they performed theirs, we will indeed be happy. They had faults; we write them upon the sands, that they may be forgotten; they had virtues; we write them upon the tablets of our memories, that we may emulate them. THE ISAAC B. ESSEX FAMILY-PIONEERS IN THREE COUNTIES. Read at the Meeting of the Stark County Old Settlers' Association in Toulon, Illinois, 1918. WILLIAM R. SANDHAM, Wyoming, Ill. The State of Illinois was ten years old on the 3d day of December, 1828. At that time the two western townships of what is now Stark County, Illinois, were a part of Knox County, and the other six townships were a part of the then great County of Putnam. There were then no habitations of white people within its bounds. Even the Indians did not have in it a permanent home. It was to them only a good hunting ground, and they did not suspect the incoming of white settlers who were to change their beautiful and prolific hunting grounds of woodland and prairie into cultivated farms. But at the time mentioned-December, 1828-there were very evident indications that a change was soon to take place, for on section 15 of what is now Essex township, an enterprising pioneer, Isaac B. Essex by name, could be seen getting ready to build a home in the wilderness for white. people. He was busy cutting down trees, shaping the logs and preparing other necessary material. In April, 1829, assisted by other pioneers living in Peoria County, Mr. Essex put the prepared logs in place for the walls of the house. A roof was put on and a chimney built. The pioneer home was ready for occupancy and Mr. Essex and his family moved in. It was then that the settlement of what is now Stark County began. Isaac Bowen Essex, son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Bowen) Essex, was born near Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Virginia, January 29, 1800. He attended such |