We also organized meetings outside of the village. School houses and private dwellings were used for this purpose, and these meetings not only accommodated the people of the several neighborhoods adjacent to the village, but gave the needed religious employment to the Local Preachers and other members of the Church. The meetings were held in the afternoons of the Sabbath, and sometimes, to hold the plan in countenance, the Pastor himself would go out and deliver a sermon. At first it was feared by some of the good brethren that these side meetings would detract from the regular services of the Church, but the result proved that, on the contrary, they gave an increase of both interest and attendance. For the people, thus edified and interested, came into the village and thronged the Church. But the year was now drawing to a close. By request of the preceding Conference, the Conference session had been changed to spring. The year had been one of severe labor, but its compensations were abundant. I was able to report a membership, including probationers, of three hundred and six. Two events in my own family clothed the year with special interest. The one, the conversion of our eldest daughter, then nine years old, and her reception into the church, the other, the birth of our son. They were both occasions of devout thanksgiving to God. During this year I made a visit to Evansville, a charge that seems to hold a central position in the Conference west of Janesville. The first settlement was made in this vicinity in the fall of 1839, when six families came into what was then called the town of Union. These early settlers were Rev. Boyd Phelps, Rev. Stephen Jones, Erastus Quivey, Samuel Lewis, Charles McMillin, and John Rhineheart. During the winter and spring religious meetings were established in private houses, Rev. Boyd Phelps preaching the first sermon. In the following spring and summer, the settlement was enlarged by the arrival of Ira Jones, Jacob West, John T. Baker, Rev. John Griffith, Hiram Griffith, David Johnson, John Sale and their families. The heads of all these families being members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, they applied to Rev. Samuel Pillsbury, in charge of the Monroe circuit, for recognition. He visited them, established an appointment and formed them into a class in August, 1840. The class was organized at the residence of Hiram Griffith, located about one mile northwest of the present site of Evansville. At the first organization the members were: Jacob West, Leader, Margaret West, Boyd Phelps, Local Preacher, Clarissa Phelps, Stephen Jones, Local Preacher, Isabel Jones, John Griffith, Local Preacher, Belinda Griffith, John T. Baker, Jemima Baker, Ira Jones, Sarah J. Jones, John Rhineheart, Deborah Rhineheart, Alma Jones, Samuel Lewis, Sarah Lewis, Charles McMillan, Miriam McMillan, Jane Brown, Erastus Quivey, Sally Quivey, Hiram Griffith, Sally Griffith, David Johnson and Kizziah Johnson. Soon