where work was not considered a degradation. Third, I believed I
could better my temporal circumstances, and procure lands for my
children as they grew up. And fourth, I could carry the Gospel to
destitute souls that had, by removal into some new country, been
deprived of the means of grace."

It was the last reason, no doubt, that decided our preacher. Men of his
stamp were needed west of the Ohio. Kentucky was becoming too old a
State for him, and he felt that his true field of labor was still on the
frontier, and thither he turned his steps. Setting out first on
horseback to seek an eligible location, he reached Sangamon County,
Illinois, where he bought a claim on Richland Creek. He then returned to
Kentucky and wound up his affairs there, obtained a regular transfer
from the Kentucky Conference to the Indiana Conference, which then
controlled Illinois, and in October, 1824, set out for his new home in
Sangamon County. A great affliction overtook him on the way, in the
death of his third daughter, who was killed by the falling of a tree
upon their camp. The affliction was made more grievous by the heartless
refusal of the people in the vicinity to render them any aid. "We were
in great distress," he says, "and no one even to pity our condition....
I discovered that the tree had sprung up, and did not press the child;
and we drew her out from under it, and carefully laid her in our feed
trough, and moved on about twenty miles to an acquaintance's in Hamilton
County, Illinois, where we buried her."

Leaving that lonely little grave behind them, they hurried on to their
new home. Springfield, the capital of the State, was but a small
collection of shanties and log huts, and Sangamon County was the extreme
frontier. It was the most northern county of Illinois, and just beyond
it lay the unbroken Indian country. Numbers of Indians roamed through
the Sangamon River bottom, and spent their winters there. It was as wild
and unsettled a region as our preacher could have desired, and one which
gave him a fine field for the exercise of his peculiar abilities. Mr.
Cartwright was promptly received into the Indiana Conference, and he
lost no time in looking about him. He at once established his family in
their new home, and then set about his work. The work was hard, and
money was scarce. The first year he traveled the Sangamon Circuit he
received forty dollars, and the next year sixty dollars, which he says
was a great improvem