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Show 1836- X837I Fogg's F* r West 197 and suspicion, and prejudice should have existed. It is not a maxim of recent date in the minds of men, that " whatever is peculiar is false." Madison County, III. XVI " Let none our author rudely blame, Who from the story has thus long digress'd." DAVENAMT. " Nay, tell me not of lordly hallsl My minstrels are the trees; The moss and the rock are my tapestried walls, Earth sounds my symphonies." BLACKWOOD'S Mag. " Sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth; The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." MANFRED. THERE are few lovelier villages in the Valley of the West than the little town of Edwardsville, in whose quiet inn many of the preceding observations have been sketched. 112 It was early one bright morning that I entered Edwardsville, after passing a sleepless night at a neighbouring farmhouse. The situation of the village is a narrow ridge of [ 175] land swelling abruptly from the midst of deep and tangled woods. Along this elevation extends the principal street of the place, more than a mile in length, and upon either side runs a range of neat edifices, most of them shaded by forest- trees in their front yards. The public buildings are a courthouse and jail of brick, neither of them worthy • Thomas Kirkpatrick, of South Carolina, made the first settlement on the site of Edwardsville ( 1805). During the Indian troubles preceding the War of 1812- 15, he built a block- house, known as Thomas Kirkpatrick's Fort. When Madison County was organised ( 1812), Kirkpatrick's farm was chosen as its seat. He made the survey for the town plat in 1816, and named the place in honor of Ninian Edwards. See W. R. Brink and Company, History 0/ Madison County, Illinois ( Edwardsville, 1882).- ED. |