We herewith send the Advocate a copy of a letter of the eminent historian and great Baptist divine, the late Rev. J. M. Peck, to his old ministerial associate, the late Rev. James Lemen, concerning the anti-slavery labors of his father, Rev. James Lemen, Sr., and also his views as to the old Lemen family notes, which will perhaps interest your readers. It seems quite appropriate for the Advocate to print these old pioneer matters, as it is one of the old pioneer landmarks. Rev. James Lemen took the paper when it started, under its first name, and it has come to his family or family members at his old home ever since. By order of the Family. [JOSEPH B. LEMEN.] REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR., AND HIS ANTI-SLAVERY LABORS Rev. James Lemen, Ridge Prairie, Illinois Dear Brother: At my recent very enjoyable visit at your house you made two important requests, which I will now answer. The first was as to my estimate or judgment of your father's anti-slavery labors, and the second was as to what disposition you had better make of your vast stock of old family notes and papers. Considering your questions in the order named, I will write this letter, or more properly, article, under the above heading of "Rev. James Lemen, Sr., and His Anti-Slavery Labors," as the first question is the most important, and then in conclusion I will notice the second. In considering your father's anti-slavery labors, I will proceed upon the facts and evidence obtained outside your old family notes, as it might be presumed that the trend of the notes on that matter would be partial. Not that the facts I would use are not found in your family notes, for they appear to cover about every event in our early state and church history; but that I would look for the facts elsewhere to prove the matter, and indeed I can draw largely from my own {p.43} knowledge of the facts upon which your father's success as an anti-slavery leader rested. Not only from my own personal observation, but scores of the old pioneers, your father's followers and helpers, have given me facts that fully establish the claim that he was the chief leader that saved Illinois to freedom. Not only the state, but on a wider basis the evidence is very strong that Rev. James Lemen, Sr., largely shared in saving the Northwestern Territory for free states. This was the estimate that General [Governor] William Henry Harrison placed on his labors in his letter to Captain Joseph Ogle after his term of the governorship had expired. [17]In his letter to Captain Ogle he said that, though he and Mr. Lemen were ardent friends, he [Lemen] set his iron will against slavery here and indirectly made his influence felt so strongly at Washington and before Congress, that all efforts to suspend the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 failed.