Most persons who have had the temerity to undertake the relation of cotemporary events, and to speak of cotemporary actors, have received more kicks than coppers for their pains. How far the writer will escape their general fate remains to be seen. Knowing the dangerous ground whereon he was treading, he has endeavored to confine himself to the simple relation of undisputed facts, abstaining from all comments and speculation thereon. He has not set himself up as a public censor or a public eulogist. It is not to be supposed that he has been without partisan and prejudiced views of public questions. These he has endeavored to suppress and to "render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsars." Nor has he undertaken to draw a rose colored picture for the benefit of Eastern Capitalists, or those seeking a home in the west--to throw bait to Gudgeons.--In fact, it will be admitted, that his picture is of the soberest and dullest kind of grey. Would that it could be here and there touched with lighter and more cheerful hues; but truth is inexorable, and demands the strictest loyalty from those who worship at her shrine. The people of Peru may be a little curious to know why a person, whose pursuits in life have been hitherto very far removed from those of a writer for the public eye, should have undertaken a task for which previous practice and experience have so little qualified him. He begs to assure them that it was entirely an accident--no literary ambition prompted him at all. To be sure he had heard that "'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print, And a book's a book although there's nothing in't," but that was not it. Having a little leisure, he had undertaken to gather and condense some statistics of the town for the publisher of a Directory of La Salle County. Having commenced the task he became interested therein, and extended his researches and remarks to a length quite too formidable for their original purpose. But he resolved not to hide his light under a bushel--hence the present infliction which he hopes will be borne with commendable fortitude. HISTORY OF PERU. CHAPTER I. Situation of the City--Its early Settlement and Settlers-- Passage of the Internal Improvement Act and Commencement of work on the Central Rail Road--Election of H. P. Woodworth to the Legislature--Election for Organization under the Borough Act--First Census--First Election of Trustees--First Religious Meeting. The City of Peru is situated in the Westerly part of La Salle County, Illinois, on the Northern bank of the Illinois River, at the head of Navigation, and at the Junction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Distance from Chicago 100 miles, and from Saint Louis 230. The territory embraced within the corporated limits, is Sec. 16 and 17, and all those fractional parts of 20 and 21, which lie north of the river, Town 33, Range 1, East of the Third Principal Meridian, comprising an area of 1462 Acres.