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 biogr