The first public building constructed was of logs, with puncheon floor, and set apart to the double purpose of school-house and church for the use of all denominations. Its site was near the spot where the speaker's stand was now erected for the barbecue which I have mentioned. From the pulpit of this rude building, the early settlers had more than once listened spell-bound to the eloquence of Peter Cartwright, Henry B. Bascom, Nathan L. Rice, Finis Ewing, and Alexander Campbell. In this old church the time-honored custom was for some one of its officers to line out the hymn, two lines at a time, and then lead the singing, in which the congregation joined. Among my earliest recollections is that of my uncle, Squire McKenzie, one of the best of men, standing immediately in front of the pulpit, and faithfully discharging this important duty after the hymn had been read in full by the minister. I distinctly recall the solemn tones in which, upon communion occasions, he lined out, in measured and mellow cadence, the good old hymn beginning: "'T was on that dark, that doleful night, When powers of earth and hell arose." Mr. Sawyer, too, the old-time singing-school teacher, has honored place in my memory. Once a month, in the old church, the singing-school class of which we were all members regularly assembled. The school was in four divisions, Bass, Tenor, Counter, and Treble; each member was provided with a copy of the "Missouri Harmony," with "fa," "sol," "la," "mi," appearing in mysterious characters upon every page; the master, magnifying his office, as with tuning-fork in hand he stood proudly in the midst, raised the tune, and as it progressed smiled or deeply frowned upon each of the divisions as occasion seemed to require. His voice has long been hushed, but I seem again to hear his cheery command, "Attention, class! Utopia, page one hundred!" Looking back through the long vista of years, it is my honest belief that such singing as his, at home or abroad, I have never heard. Upon his tablet might appropriately have been inscribed: "Sleep undisturbed within this sacred shrine, Till angels wake thee with notes like thine." To this old field school came in the early time the "scholars" for many miles around. It was in very truth the only Alma Mater, for that generation, of almost the entire southern portion of the county. My father in his boyhood attended this school, as did his kinsmen, John W. and Fielding N. Ewing; the last named of whom was, at a much later period, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Bloomington, Illinois, and his elder brother was the Mayor of that city. At that early day, and later when I attended the same school, there were no salaries provided for the teachers, The schoolmaster visited the families within reasonable distance of the schoolhouse with his subscription paper, and the school was duly opened when a sufficient number of pupils had subscribed.