From 1818 to 1830, the commerce of the State made but small progress.  At this time, there were one or two small steamboats upon the Illinois River, but most of the navigation was carried on in keel-boats.  The village merchants were mere retailers; they purchased no produce, except a few skins and furs, and a little beeswax and honey.  The farmers along the rivers did their own shipping,—­building flat-boats, which, having loaded with corn, flour, and bacon, they would float down to New Orleans, which was the only market accessible to them.  The voyage was long, tedious, and expensive, and when the farmer arrived, he found himself in a strange city, where all were combined against him, and often he was cheated out of his property,—­returning on foot by a long and dangerous journey to a desolate farm, which had been neglected during his absence.  Thus two crops were sometimes lost in taking one to market.

The manners and customs of the people were simple and primitive.  The costume of the men was a raccoon-skin cap, linsey hunting-shirt, buck-skin leggings and moccasons, with a butcher-knife in the belt.  The women wore cotton or woollen frocks, striped with blue dye and Turkey-red, and spun, woven, and made with their own hands; they went barefooted and bareheaded, except on Sundays, when they covered the head with a cotton handkerchief.  It is told of a certain John Grammar, for many years a representative from Union County, and a man of some note in the State councils, though he could neither read nor write, that in 1816, when he was first elected, lacking the necessary apparel, he and his sons gathered a large quantity of hazel-nuts, which they took to the nearest town and sold for enough blue strouding to make a suit of clothes.  The pattern proved to be scanty, and the women of the household could only get out a very bob-tailed coat and leggings.  With these Mr. Grammar started for Kaskaskia, the seat of government, and these he continued to wear till the passage of an appropriation bill enabled him to buy a civilized pair of breeches.

The distinctions in manners and dress between the higher and lower classes were more marked than at present; for while John Grammar wore blue strouding, we are told that Governor Edwards dressed in fine broadcloth, white-topped boots, and a gold-laced cloak, and rode about the country in a fine carriage, driven by a negro.

In those days justice was administered without much parade or ceremony.  The judges held their courts mostly in log houses or in the bar-rooms of taverns, fitted up with a temporary bench for the judge, and chairs for the lawyers and jurors.  At the first Circuit Court in Washington County, held by Judge John Reynolds, the sheriff, on opening the court, went out into the yard, and said to the people, “Boys, come in; our John is going to hold court.”  The judges were unwilling to decide questions of law, preferring to submit everything to the jury, and seldom