Pages 184-186

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When Peter Cartwright came to Illinois in 1824, and settled seven miles east of Springfield, at what was afterwards known as Pleasant Plains, he found the country very sparsely settled. Sangamon county at that time extended north as far as the northern part of the state, the settlements were few and far between and there was not a church within the boundaries of the county. Springfield was a small village, and the only place they had for public worship was a small frame school house, but in about a year after Mr. Cartwright came to that place the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations joined in building a small brick church, which was the first brick building erected in Springfield. The two congregations used this building alternately for two years when the Methodists sold out their interest in the property and built for themselves a frame church much larger in size.

Mr. Cartwright possessed too much of a missionary spirit, however, to settle down in one place. He looked upon the whole state of Illinois as his field of labor, and would travel from place to place, organizing a church and Sunday school wherever he could find a few families gathered together, and preaching in the homes of the people and in log school houses. But his great forte in carrying on his missionary and evangelical work was his campmeetings. He would hold ten-day campmeetings in every

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part of the country, and people would flock from miles around to attend them.

Mr. Cartwright was not only a great preacher, but it might be said of him, as of Lincoln, that he was a born leader. He was a great organizer, and had held the office of presiding elder ever since he was twenty-two years old. He had a most excellent control over his members, and would allow no drones in his camp. In those primitive times it was not considered necessary that a teacher of religion should be a scholar. It was thought to be his business to preach from a knowledge of the Scriptures and the guiding and controlling influence of the Holy Spirit. Their wonderful success at those meetings might be attributed to the earnestness and zeal with which they pictured the blessings of Heaven and the awful torments of the wicked in fire and brimstone. They believed with certainty that they saw the souls of wicked men rushing headlong to perdition, and they stepped forward to warn and to save with all the self-devotion of a generous man who risks his own life to save that of a drowning neighbor. And to these earnest, Christian people are we indebted for the spread of the protestant religion through Illinois at that early day. At many of those campmeetings there would be from 200 to 300 conversions.

In 1832 the democratic party again brought out Peter Cartwright for the legislature. He was a farmer as well as a preacher, and was very popular with the farmers. He had also given good satisfaction in the legislature, to which he was elected in 1828, having been instrumental in repealing several of the obnoxious laws which had disgraced the state, and the people wanted to send him back. This time he defeated Abraham Lincoln. When he was in the legislature he had two prohibition laws enacted. One was that no saloon or drinking house should be permitted within one mile of Jacksonville, and was known as the "Jacksonville Ordinance." The Jacksonville college had been established, and was then the only college in the state. The other prohibitive law was that no saloon or drinking house should be erected or permitted to run within one mile of a campmeeting.

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Mr. Cartwright had an opportunity to assist in enacting this latter law in Fulton county in 1833. He had erected a campmeeting on the west side of Canton, near where the old Methodist church stood. There was then a handsome grove of timber standing there. They had got their shed and preacher’s stand put up and everything in order for the meeting when a man from Canton set up a huckster’s stand with cigars, tobacco, and all kinds of ardent spirits within a few rods of the campgrounds. Mr. Cartwright went to him and told him he would have to move his drinking establishment, as it was against the law to sell liquor within a mile of a campmeeting. The man told him he had plenty of friends to back him and he would continue to sell, so Cartwright swore out a warrant for his arrest and had him taken before Esquire Stillman for trial. A young lawyer in Canton defended the prisoner, while Cartwright prosecuted the case. The court imposed a fine of $10, which the huckster said he would not pay, so the necessary papers were made out committing him to the county jail. But the man defied the constable, telling him that he could not find men enough in Canton to take him. The constable was completely cowed, as he was afraid of the man’s friends who had promised to protect him, but Mr. Cartwright told the constable to summons him and two of his church members and they would take him. One of the churchmen went into the woods and cut a stout hickory cane for each of the three, and they hoisted the man on a horse and started for Lewistown. He believed that his friends would rescue him from the officers and kept looking back every few miles to see if they were coming, but they never made their appearance, and when they got in sight of Lewistown the man gave up all hope and paid his fine. They all turned back for Canton, but that put a stop to setting up saloons near campmeetings in Fulton county. At the close of this campmeeting Mr. Cartwright reported that ninety persons had been soundly converted and among them were some of the hard cases about Canton.

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