Among the new arrivals from Virginia in 1785, was Capt. Joseph Ogle. He had been an officer of the revolutionary war, then just closed and was commander of the American forces at the battle of Fort Henry in 1777. His ancestors traced back their genealogy to William the Conqueror, if that is any honor. It is more honor that they were puritans, and fled from a country that persecuted them. The great grandparents of Joseph Ogle emigrated to Delaware in 1666. After the war he removed to the Illinois country. He chose the New Design settlement because he approved of its principles, and because being on the high road between St. Louis and Kaskaskia it had not so much the appearance of being out of. the world. His family was with him, except his oldest daughter Catherine who three years before had married James Lemen. But so favorable was the report sent back that the next season, 1786, his son-in-law and family followed to the new land. These two men became one the first Methodist and the other the first Baptist, in the state of Illinois. And not only first numerically but in moral weight, exemplary character. The two denominations originated side by side, and both at New Design.

     Two centuries ago, in 1708, a young man named James Lemen and his two brothers emigrated from Scotland to Virginia. From these have descended all the families of Lemens in this country. James Lemen's son Nicholas was born in 1725, and married in 1747. His youngest son was born November 20, 1760, and was named James after his Scotch-Irish grandfather. With him begins Illinois Baptist history. He served two years in the revolutionary army, and was in the action of White Plains. In 1782 he married Catherine Ogle. It was a happy union. There was on the part of both of them an impression that they were destined for each other from the first. They decided to follow their friends to Illinois; and in the spring of 1786, with their two little children, Robert and Joseph, they embarked. in a flat boat down the Ohio river. On the way down they tied to the shore one night over a submerged stump, and by a sudden fall of water in the night one side of the boat was caught on the stump and overturned. It was with great difficulty that Mr. Lemen rescued his family, but his possessions were

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[p. 19]
lost. They reached Kaskaskia July 10, and settled at New Design on a beautiful claim in the edge of a maple grove, near a lake which then covered forty acres. From that time New Design has been associated chiefly with his name. The old farm is on the line of the Mobile & Ohio R. R., halfway between Waterloo and Burkesville. The postoffice at Burkesville is still called New Design. The name probably refers to the hope of founding a new commonwealth on free labor rather than on slave labor. It is a name coined by southern abolitionists, for such the Ogles and Lemens and others were. One cause of their willingness to leave Virginia was their desire to get away from slavery. Plainly they saw that it made the rich richer and the poor poorer. A strong antislavery sentiment was rising in Virginia at the time. In the fifteen years between 1782 and 1797 10,000 slaves were liberated in that state alone. Why then did not slavery die out of itself? It was because of the opposition of the large owners, especially when the invention of the cotton gin in 1792 enabled cotton to be raised at an immense profit by slave labor. It was the old story of Demetrius and the silver-smiths: "By this craft we have our wealth." If left alone money will always beat sentiment, for its devotees will stand together and will carry their politics in their pockets; but sentiment is readily divided on minor issues. If those who have the right would be as firm as those who have the wrong slavery would have perished before the 19th century began, and the infamously cruel liquor traffic would have followed before the century closed. The greed for money without honest labor, regardless of human suffering, is the spirit in all evil traffic. The influence of James Lemen was, probably, the controlling factor in making Illinois a free state, though the final battle was not fought until he was in his grave. He died a year and a half before the famous election of 1824 settled the matter forever.
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[Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists - A History, 1930, pp. 18-19. Transcribed and formatted by Jim Duvall]

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