The Jefferson-Lemen Compact | Page 2

of whom at
least were found on the side of Cromwell and the Commonwealth.
Catherine's family at one time lived on the South Branch of the
Potomac, although at the time of her marriage her home was near
Wheeling. Captain Ogle's commission, signed by Gov. Patrick Henry,
is now a valued possession of one of Mrs. Lemen's descendants. James
and Catherine Lemen were well fitted by nature and training for
braving the hardships and brightening the privations of life on the
frontier, far removed from home and friends, or even the abodes of
their nearest white kinsmen.
During, and even before the war, young Lemen is reputed to have been
the protégé of Thomas Jefferson, through whose influence he became a
civil and religious leader in the pioneer period of Illinois history. Gov.
Reynolds, in his writings relating to this period,[2] gives various
sketches of the man and his family, and his name occurs frequently in
{p.08} the records of the times. He was among the first to follow Col.
Clark's men to the Illinois country, where he established the settlement
of New Design, one of the earliest American colonies in what was,
previous to his arrival, the "Illinois county" of the Old Dominion. Here
he served, first as a justice of the peace, and then as a judge of the court
of the original county of St. Clair, and thus acquired the title of "Judge
Lemen."[3] Here, too, he became the progenitor of the numerous
Illinois branch of the Lemen family, whose genealogy and family
history was recently published by Messrs. Frank and Joseph B.
Lemen--a volume of some four hundred and fifty pages, and embracing

some five hundred members of the family.
True to his avowed purpose in coming to Illinois, young Lemen
became a leader of anti-slavery sentiment in the new Territory, and,
undoubtedly, deserves to be called one of the Fathers of the Free State
Constitution, which was framed in 1818 and preserved in 1824. His
homestead, the "Old Lemen Fort" at New Design, which is still the
comfortable home of the present owner, is the birthplace of the Baptist
denomination in Illinois; and he himself is commemorated as the
recognized founder of that faith in this State, by a granite shaft in the
family burial plot directly in front of the old home. This memorial was
dedicated in 1909 by Col. William Jennings Bryan, whose father, Judge
Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, was the first to suggest it as a well-deserved
honor.
James Lemen, Sr., also became the father and leader of the noted
"Lemen Family Preachers," consisting of himself and six stalwart sons,
all but one of whom were regularly ordained Baptist ministers. The
eldest son, Robert, although never ordained, was quite as active and
efficient in the cause as any of the family. This remarkable family
eventually became the nucleus of a group of anti-slavery Baptist
churches in Illinois which had a very important influence upon the
issue of that question in the State. Rev. James Lemen, Jr., who is said
to have been the second American boy born in the Illinois country,
succeeded to his father's position of leadership in the anti-slavery
movement of the times, and served as the representative of St. Clair
county in the Territorial Legislature, the Constitutional Convention,
and the State Senate. The younger James Lemen was on terms of
intimacy with Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, and {p.09} his cousin,
Ward Lamon, was Lincoln's early associate in the law, and also his first
biographer. Various representatives of the family in later generations
have attained success as farmers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and
lawyers throughout southern Illinois and other sections of the
country.[4]
The elder James Lemen was himself an interesting character, and,
entirely apart from his relations with Jefferson, he is a significant factor

in early Illinois history. His fight for free versus slave labor in Illinois
and the Northwest derives a peculiar interest, however, from its
association with the great name of Jefferson. The principles for which
the latter stood--but not necessarily his policies--have a present-day
interest for us greater than those of his contemporaries, because those
principles are the "live issues" of our own times. Jefferson is to that
extent our contemporary, and hence his name lends a living interest to
otherwise obscure persons and remote events. The problem of free
labor versus slave labor we have with us still, and in a much more
complex and widespread form than in Jefferson's day.
According to the current tradition, a warm personal friendship sprang
up between Jefferson and young Lemen, who was seventeen years the
junior of his distinguished patron and friend. In a letter to Robert,
brother of James Lemen, attributed to Jefferson, he writes: "Among all
my friends who are near, he is still a little nearer. I discovered