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Show 1836- 1837] F/ agg's Far West 307 trines of the sect which worships here, there is an air of severe, dignified elegance about the whole structure, pleasing as it is rare. Hie number of Congregational churches in the West is exceedingly small; and as it is always pleasant for the stranger in a strange land to meet the peculiarities of that worship to which from childhood- days he has been attached, so it is peculiarly grateful to the New- England emigrant to recognise in this distant spot the simple faith and ceremony of the Pilgrims. Jacksonville is largely made up of emigrants from [ 53] the North; and they have brought with them many of their customs and peculiarities. The State of Illinois may, indeed, be truly considered the New- England of the West. In many respects it is more congenial than any other to the character and prejudices of die Northern emigrant. It is not a slave state; internal improvement is the grand feature of its civil polity; and measures for the universal diffusion of intellectual, moral, and religious culture are in active progression. In Henry county, in the northern section of the state, two town-plats have within the past year been laid off for colonies of emigrants from Connecticut, which intend removing in the ensuing fall, accompanied each by their minister, physician, lawyer, and with all the various artisans of mechanical labour necessary for such communities. The settlements are to be called Wethersfield and Andover. 1" *•* In June, 1835, Ithainar Pillsbury, with two associates, sent out under the auspices of the New York Association, entered a large tract of land and selected a site for a town to be styled Andover, which was eventually platted in 1841, in the western portion of Henry County, fifty miles north and northwest of Peoria. The first settlers were principally from Connecticut, but soon several Swedish families migrated thither, and in time the settlement was composed primarily of that nationality. On returning East in the autumn of 1835, after planting the Andover colony, Pillsbury had an interview with Br. Caleb J. Tenny, of Wethersfield, Connecticut. At the latter* s instigation a meeting of CongregationaWsts was held, and a group of influential New Englanders organised themselves into the Connecticut Association. Shares were sold at $ 950 each, which entitled the holder to one hundred and sixty acres of prairie land, twenty acres of timber land, and a town |