Tarleton Lloyd was the first blacksmith, and opened a shop as early as 1822-23, and did the work in this line for the surrounding country. A mill was built by Rev. Mr. Simms, in 1823, the first in this region. It was a primitive affair, and propelled by horse-power, but served to crack corn for hominy, and even wheat was "mashed" on it sometimes, as an old settler informed us. But it has long since passed away, and milling is now done at other points.

The first Justice of the Peace is supposed to have been a man of the name of Syniard, who was among the early settlers. One of the Bones was also an early Justice of the Peace in "Wolf County," as this precinct is familiarly called. In illustration of these early courts, the following is told at the expense of Squire Syniard: Two of his neighbors got into a wrangle over a debt which one owed the other, and which he had promised to pay in hogs. In the fall, when the debt was to have been paid, hogs happened to be a good price, so the debtor sold his fat hogs, and delivered to his creditor a sow and pigs, which he contended fulfilled his obligation, as they were hogs. The creditor demurred, and a suit was the result. It came up before Squire Syniard for trial, and, after patiently hearing both sides of the question, he rendered judgment in favor of the creditor, deciding that, legally, a sow and pigs were not hogs. A post office was established in the precinct in 1877, called Lloyd Post Office, after the oldest living settler. It is on the creek, east of Isaac Cogdall's, and is kept by L. B. Conover.

Politically, Rock Creek is Democratic to the backbone. Farmer's Point is the voting-place. During the late war, it was loyal, and turned out as large a number of soldiers to its population, as any neighborhood in the county. The men of Rock Creek volunteered into the regiments raised in this section, which drew their chief strength from Menard, and among which were the Fourteenth and One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiments, Illinois Infantry.. This precinct receives its name from Rock Creek, which meanders through it from east to west. Whether the creek was named for the rock in and about it, or because all things must have a name, we do not know, but leave it to our readers to find out. This comprises the history of this little precinct. The territory being small, and without villages and towns, there is little history beyond the settlements made within its borders.

HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

BY GEN. JAMES M. RUGGLES.

INTRODUCTORY.

History is but the footprints upon the sands of time, by which we trace the growth, development and advancement of the people constituting a nation. It takes note of the humblest tiller of the soil as well as of the scholar, the statesman, the soldier, and the great and good men and women who build the imperishable monuments of a country's greatness.

Tradition tells us of the glories of the garden of Eden, and the purity and happiness of the first pair, and also of their transgression and fall from their high and happy estate. Of the men and things that existed in the world during the many dark centuries that precede the historic period, we know nothing, except through rude hieroglyphics and vague traditions, handed down through the beclouded minds of unlettered and superstitious people.

Beginning with the age of letters and improvements in the languages of the world, followed by the modern inventions of printing types and presses, and the immense institution of the daily newspaper and telegraph, minute and reliable records of the world's daily doings are chronicled, and out of these veritable history is formulated.

The multiplicity of inventions and discoveries, resulting from a rapid growth of intelligence, during the last half-century, has produced the necessary conditions for the production of a more perfected type of the genus homo, by whom the world is peopled, and through whom history of a still higher order will be furnished for those who may live in the hereafter.

The events that make up the annals of a new and growing country will always be of interest to the seeker after knowledge, who may in them learn who has lived and what has been done in the past ages of the world. The time is approaching when ignorance of the world's historic past will be a reproach, however it may be as to a lack of knowledge of the future!

America constitutes a great nation of people, made up from the populations of many other nations, and Illinois is one of the greatest and most highly favored by nature of all the thirty-eight States; extending as it does over a range of five and a half degrees of latitude, causing a more varied climate than

any other State, and for its fertility of soil is unsurpassed in the world; thus making Illinois the jeweled crown in our glorious Union.

MASON COUNTY.

Mason is one of the hundred and two counties of Illinois, and is entitled to her place in the local history that makes up that of the State, in its intelligence, enterprise and industrial wealth and prosperity. The patient toil and hardships of its pioneers, living in their rude huts and log cabins, as well as the noble and patriotic deeds of its public men in later years, and the gallantry of its soldiers on the battle-field are a part of the pride and glory of the State and the nation.

The territory that constitutes the county of Mason has been subjected to many changes since the discovery and settlement of America. Originally, or, rather, as far back as we know, it belonged to Mr.

"Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind,

Sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind!"

Who Mr. Lo got it from we may never know; that once the red men lived here in their homes we do know. On the bluff banks of the Illinois River, at Havana and Bath, they occupied their villages, and builded their mounds (providing always that they were not built by some other people who lived here. before them) in which they buried their dead and deposited their wares and implements of war, where these trophies of the ages of the past may still be found. Undisturbed in those days by the pale-faced race, beneath the shadows of the rude wigwam,

These mounds, and the relics they contain, are the only historic chapters handed down to us to tell of the people whose moccasined feet once pressed upon the sands that border upon our beautiful river. With those people there were no learned men to chronicle the history they were making, though among them unlettered sages and warriors there may have been.

With us, how different. We know the uses of letters, printing presses, books and telegraphs, and there is no reason why we should die and leave no sign. The history we are making can be handed down to posterity, in the ages that are to come, for thousands of years, when other and higher races of men shall have taken our places in populating and controlling the destinies of the great American continent.

For a long period, the territory constituting the county of Mason and the State of Illinois, was dominated by the French nation, whose brave pioneers were the first of the white race to tread upon its soil and voyage upon its

rivers.