seminary; to young women of energy and character, to work their way, earning their own education. There are, at this writing, above forty in this department doing all the manual labor of the institution, except the work of one laundry woman, one cook, and a matron. Thus, with the "Teachers' Provision," giving time to those needing, and the manual labor provision, the way is open at this institution for any young lady of good ability, with energy and perseverance, to secure an education to fit herself for a sphere of usefulness.

A Department of Telegraphy was established in January, 1878, largely for the benefit of a class of young women who wish to prepare for something that may enable them to be self-sustaining. A competent and experienced telegraph operator has charge of this department, and makes the course not only complete, but thoroughly practical, thus fitting a class for some other sphere of usefulness of business than teaching.

In 1859, the Neosophic Society of the seminary established the first literary periodical of the school. It was to be sustained by the voluntary contributions of the students and conducted by a corps of editors elected by the students, and to be issued monthly; eight pages, each page 14 by 16 inches, of four columns to each page. The printing was done in the office of the county paper for about a year, at the end of which time the principal bought the office and complete fixtures and removed the same to the seminary, where the Seminary Bell was printed by the students, George R. Shaw, of Galena, a practical printer and student of the school, being foreman. The war was in progress, and during 1862 the call for volunteers took away the foreman. The expenses of running a paper were largely increased. War news was about all the public cared for, and a complication of circumstances led to the suspension of the Seminary Bell. The war still raged and there was no certainty when it could be resumed. The press and material would deteriorate in value if kept, and the principal decided to sell the entire office while prices were high. For six years the school was without a printed paper. In 1868, the Oread Society established a monthly journal, quarto form of 16 pages, which has steadily grown till it now comprises 28 pages, including a neat cover. The exchanges furnish ample matter for a reading room.

A fact worthy of note is that this school has never resorted to the practice of nearly all others, in employing agents to solicit pupils and funds. Never have the principals asked a person for his or her patronage. Never has an agent been employed for such a purpose. Never has a dollar been donated to the enterprise by the public except the sum of about one thousand dollars in stock, elsewhere noted, and the original five acres of ground where the seminary stands. Of this the principal and present proprietor really had very little benefit, except of the five acres of ground, from the fact, as elsewhere shown they paid the full cost of the furniture.

Industry and economy were necessary to these accomplishments. These were exercised without stint. Not a tree, a shrub, or a vine, was planted on the grounds that was not planted under the supervision of the wonderful genius, whose magic touch made the Mount Carroll Seminary rise from chaotic confusion unto magnificence, splendor and usefulness.

PRESENT BOARD OF INSTRUCTION

F A Wood Shimer, principal; A. C. Joy, associate principal and teacher of senior classes; H. Shimer, A.M., M.D., lecturer on natural sciences, anatomy and physiology, and teacher of taxidermy; Caroline White, German and English; Ruth C. Mills, A.B., Latin, French and literature; Fannie L. Bulkley, A.B., mathematics; Virginia Dox, English; Sarah Clark, penmanship and class drawing; S. B. Clark, painting, drawing, etc.; L. M. Kendall, musical director; B. F. Dearborne, principal of vocal department; Denise Dupuis, Clara A. White, Isabella F. Jones and Elizabeth A. Barber, music; Virginia Dox, singing class; C. A. White, elocution. Additional teachers in music employed during the year. Mr. W. F. Browning, department of telegraphy; Mrs. F. A. W. Shimer, financier; Mrs. S. M. Howard, matron; Mrs. A. M. Faulkner, housekeeper.

GENERAL REVIEW
Description of Buildings, Etc.

There are four buildings, as has been elsewhere described, all so connected as to give the appearance of one building, presenting a west and north front of 256 feet. The first or original building gives a dining room, 42 by 46 feet, on the first floor. The second floor is used for library, office, reception room, and music room. Third floor for society and reading room, and private rooms. Fourth floor for private and trunk rooms.

The second and third buildings give, on the first floor, school and recitation rooms, 32 by 70 feet, and four private rooms for young men, some six or eight being received in the manual labor department, for the convenience of their work about the buildings and grounds, all the advantages of the school being afforded them, the same as to the young ladies. The second and third floors are occupied for private rooms, and the fourth floors for studio and for music practice rooms.

The fourth building, which is just being completed, has on the first floor a kitchen, wash room, dry room, ironing room, furnace room, foul air room, work shop, private rooms for employees, six dry earth closets, slop closet, and dry earth vault and closet, the whole ventilated by the same system as the entire building, and thus kept perfectly free from offence, as any part of a well ventilate building need be. The value of these arrangements, in a sanitary point of view, can not well be overestimated. The second floor has conservatory, principal's rooms, sick and nurses' rooms, bath rooms, and water closets and slop closets on one side of main hall. On the opposite side, the entire length of the building (100 feet) is devoted to parlors and rooms for the musical conservatory, the space being divided into five rooms, each communicating by folding doors, making a most spacious music hall, when thrown into one room. The third and fourth floors are devoted to private rooms for students, all of which are neatly furnished, carpeted throughout with Brussels and three-ply carpets, beds (all with best woven wire mattresses), and all the possible conveniences of drawers, closets, cupboards, etc. Bath rooms, water and slop closets on each floor. The fifth floor has eleven practice rooms for music, a sun-bath room, five trunk rooms, and tank rooms, furnished with a thirty-five barrel tank for hard or well water, and the same for cistern water. The water supply is complete, and of the best and purest water. The hard water is from a well one hundred and thirty feet deep, about fifty feet being in solid rock and the remaining eighty feet tubed with heavy galvanized iron. Thus there is no possibility of surface water or any impurities whatever getting into the well. The cistern water supplied to the soft water tank is from nine very large cisterns, connected by pipes at the bottom. The two cisterns receiving the water from the different buildings are furnished with the most complete filters, built in of brick covered with charcoal, gravel, sand, etc. Thus the soft water tank is supplied with pure filtered water. The water is raised by pumps worked by wind power. The wind mill, with a sixteen feet wheel, is built immediately over the well, and near the line of the cisterns. The pumps are so set that the mill works both pumps at the same time, thus quickly forcing an abundant supply of water to the fifth floor of the building described. The wind-mill house is a neat octagon structure, all enclosed, with siding painted, and furnished with windows and blinds. It is separated into three stories, making convenient rooms for tools, etc. From the tanks in the attic, the water, both hard and soft, is carried to closets on each floor, thence to the basement, where the soft water is heated in two eighty-gallon circulating boilers, connected with the kitchen range, and, by its own pressure, returned (both the hot and cold soft water) to the bath rooms on each floor and to the rooms of the first building erected. The different bath rooms are furnished with metallic and rubber tubs for plunge baths, wood tubs for Sitz baths, Brown's steam tub for electrical vapor baths, and a complete shower bath, hot or cold, as may be desired. The system of plumbing is complete - no lead or galvanized pipes being allowed, to convey impure water to poison stealthily, but surely, those using such water - the warming, ventilating and sewerage all being as nearly perfect as is often found. The well water is also carried under ground to the gardens, supplying fountains and hydrants for all needed garden uses. The warming and ventilating is on the Ruttan improved system. The furnaces being so constructed, it is impossible to make the outer casings red-hot, and consequently the air is never "burned," thus obviating the objection urged against heating by furnaces.

The supply of pure air from direct outside flues is abundant. This is amply warmed (not burned) by contact with outer cases of furnaces, and from this goes direct to an iron reservoir, about eighty feet long by five feet wide and two feet deep, and from this reservoir supplied to the nine stacks of brick flues, each stack having seven or eight independent flues, each of which supplies heat to a room. Every flue has a damper in the basement, which system of dampers, in connection with the registers in each room, gives perfect control of the heating of the building. Every room is furnished with a thermometer, which the occupants are expected to observe, and when the temperature is seventy degrees Fahrenheit, the register is to be closed. If it falls to sixty-five degrees with register open, the occupant can report to fireman and more heat will be supplied. Thus, a very nearly even temperature (conducive alike to health and comfort)
May with very little air be enjoyed at all times.

The system of ventilation deserves special mention. All the floors through the building are hollow, as also the main partitions from attic to basement. Under every window is a space of perforated base, which gives an opening from every room and hall to the hollow under the floor, which communicates with the hollows in the partitions, and is thus carried down to the foul air room in the basement, which opens directly to a ventilating chimney, some three by six feet in capacity, opening out at the apex of the roof. Thus, the draft of this great chimney upon the entire volume of air in the building naturally tends to exhaust the same from the building. The ventilating openings being at the base of room, where the coldest air and foulest air tends to accumulate, this is of course, the first to be drawn off, and the pure air from outside, freshly warmed, is drawn upon to supply the air exhausted.

Thus, as the rooms warm, which they do very rapidly (almost instantaneously on opening the register), and warm air is drawn off by this great chimney draft and passes through the hollows under the floors and down the hollow partitions, the warmth is given out to the floors and partitions, till the entire building is of an equal temperature, the floors and ceilings of the rooms being within a degree or two of the same temperature - a great improvement on the old plan of stove-heated, unventilated rooms, where the "head is baked and the feet frozen." With this system of complete ventilation, capable of changing the entire atmosphere of the building every thirty to sixty minutes, it is apparent that there is no need to open windows, exposing to cold currents, but on the contrary, however closely the windows and doors are kept closed, the more perfect will be the ventilation. Hence, every means are used to make the building close. The walls of brick are thick and hollow, and then furrowed and lathed, to secure warmth and dryness. The windows are all furnished with double sash and outside blinds, all of which contribute to the warmth. In short, this system of warming and ventilating can scarce be improved upon.

The sewerage, as well as closet arrangement, should be noticed, as the healthfulness of a large number together is so directly dependent on the successful arrangement of these details. The slops from kitchen, laundry, bath rooms and private rooms are all emptied into iron sinks in the different closets, etc. suitable, and thence conveyed by iron pipes down from the building into cement sewer pipes laid deep under ground, and thence to a ravine some fifty rods from the building. The waste water pipes are all abundantly supplied with stench traps, and, to make the whole more secure, ventilated by carrying a tin flue from the upper end of the waste pipe out by chimney to top of building. Thus, there is no possible offence, no poisoning the air or earth to be conveyed into the water, at some remote time to cause epidemics, etc.

With such complete sanitary arrangements, may not the Mount Carroll Seminary continue to enjoy the immunity from sickness it is already noted for? An elevator conveys all baggage from basement to any floor required. Clothes flues and dirt flues convey all clothes to the laundry, and all dirt to the dirt closet in the basement. Thus, with the added conveniences of water and slop closets on every floor, very much of the running up and down stairs, often objected to, is avoided. The entire buildings are fitted for gas. The gas house of brick is about eight rods from the seminary, where the gas is manufactured for lighting. It may be added that the first (oldest) building is also fitted with furnace and with water supply, and it is the principal's plan to have either furnaces or steam introduced into the first and second additions, another year.

For exercise, in addition to the ample grounds and the floored grape arbor 300 feet long, we will notice the piazzas running the length and width of the first building, and length and width of last building, giving 500 feet for promenade, which is thoroughly enjoyed by the young ladies.

We have been thus minute in our description, because it is all, except the first of the four buildings, the work of a woman, she being the financier, the architect, the contractor, the builder, or superintendent of the entire work from day to day, nothing done "by contract," all by day's work, in every department, from the quarrying the rock for the foundation to the finishing stroke of the painter and the final furnishing. No board of trustees to advise - no male adviser in any department or any way. Let women learn to be self-reliant, and go and do likewise. In addition to the buildings, the same woman has made the grounds what they are. Beginning with five acres of naked ground, not a tree or shrub upon it, not even a fence to enclose it, she added to it till now there are 25 acres, enclosed with hedges and ornamental borders of evergreens and varieties of deciduous trees; planted with vineyards and orchards, embracing every variety of fruits grown in this latitude; flower gardens laid out and planted; walks, play-grounds, game grounds provided for; macadamized and graveled drives laid; arbors, with shady seats; fountains set; all projected; material procured, and work done under the immediate supervision of this same woman. Her own landscape gardener, orchardist and planter, every tree and shrub and plant passed through her hands, placing nearly every root in the ground herself, with, in most cases, inexperienced boys to do the digging, etc. During these years of laying out grounds, and planting hedges and trees, being at all times financier, book-keeper, secretary, treasurer, steward and general overseer, this same woman must carry on her improvements out of doors through the day, and attend to the duties of her various other offices at night, thus much of her life taking only four or five hours' sleep of the twenty-four. If a change of cooks was necessary at any time, this same woman filled the vacancy for weeks, or till suited with a new one. If the cook was sick, as sometimes may happen, this same woman became cook and nurse. Such was the experience of the many of the early years of this enterprise. Say not that women are dependent. Every girl in our country should be educated to be self-reliant, and capable of being self-sustaining. Till this is the aim of every school for young ladies, our institutions are sadly deficient.

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

Have never been encouraged or fostered to any extent. The organization of the Hydraulic Company, about 1851-2, had for its object the manufacture of alcohol. About that time spirit lamps were generally in use, and it was claimed by the projectors and managers of the Hydraulic Company, that an alcoholic distillery here would afford the farmers a profitable market for their surplus corn, while the distillery would prove a regular "bonanza" (the term was not in use then, however) to those who would invest therein. Investments were made, and the distillery was started, but by some sort of hocus pocus arrangement, the alcohol manufactured was not confined to the purposes claimed when the company was being organized. There were a few good men, among them Father Irvine, who had a suspicion from the start that it would not end well - that the distillery would be diverted to other uses than the making of alcohol - or, that at least the alcohol would not all go towards supplying the spirit-lamp demand. So a watch was kept on the establishment, and some of its barrels tracked away from the distillery and back again, and it turned out that the alcohol was taken to distant refineries, re-handled, turned into a good article of corn whisky, brought back and sold to different individuals - some of it, perhaps, returning to the farmers who had raised the corn from which it was made. This discovery created a furore of excitement. Good men - members of churches - were interested in the concern as stockholders, and to excuse themselves, they claimed that after the production left the distillery, and was sold to other parties, they were not responsible for the uses to which it was put. But the excitement could not be controlled. It increased and extended. Friends of long standing became alienated, and finally the concern was abandoned, after having involved the Mill Company and some others in financial troubles that bore them down.

In 1853, John Tridel started a foundry and commenced the manufacture of stoves, plows, etc. in 1854, a Mr. Kellogg became a partner, and afterwards John Nycum and Henry McCall, Senior, were admitted as partners. The business was continued up to 1866, when the enterprise was abandoned.

Messrs. Widney and Walker started a fanning mill factory, in 1855, and did a good business for five years, when, the outlook becoming somewhat clouded, they "shut up shop."

The old mill is now under the proprietorship and management of Jesse M. Shirk, Owen P. Miles, and Nathaniel Halderman, under the firm name of Shirk, Miles & Co. This firm was organized in September, 1864.

J. P. Smith, wagon maker and blacksmith, commenced operations 1854 or 1855, and with the exception of the time he was in the army - going out with the first company and coming back with the last - has been in the business all the time. He is a good workman, employs none but number one mechanics, and turns out the best of work.

J. W. Miller, carriage maker, commenced operations about the year 1872. He is said to be a superior workman, and that carriages of his make bear favorable comparison with those of any other establishment in the state. His shops are small, but steadily increasing in size and capacity.

H. C. Blake, a son of Orleans County, Vermont, came here in 1864, and after engaging six and a half years in carrying the mail and staging it between Mount Carroll and Polo, in 1870, commenced a general blacksmithing business, making to order any thing needed in that line. His business is steadily increasing, and enlarged shops, greater capacity, and more workmen, are necessities of the near future.

P. B. Cole is well established as a blacksmith and woodworker, and when times were good conducted a large and lucrative business. At one time his business was the largest in the Plum River country. For the last few years his attention has been more directed to the improvement and culture of his farm than his shops.

Brickmaking - This is the largest manufacturing industry prosecuted in Mount Carroll. James Hallett, practical brick maker and mason, came here in 1847, and at once engaged in the business of making brick, and has continued in the business to the present without interruption. In the Spring of 1848, his brother B. H. Hallett, became a partner with him, and until 1867, they remained together as brickmakers and builders. In April, 1867, the partnership was dissolved, B. H. Hallett withdrew from the business, and James continued to operate in that line. His kilns are located in the northern part of the city, where an abundance of good clay is of easy access. All of the prominent buildings in the county are built of Hallett's make of brick, including the Seminary, Court House, Public School Buildings, etc. In 1863 and 1864, he operated a yard at Lanark. Since the last-named date, he has confined his operations in Carroll County to his Mount Carroll yard. His average productions amount to 500,000 per year. In season he gives employment to twelve to fifteen operatives.

THE PRESS

The first newspaper started was the Mount Carroll Tribune, by Dr. J. L. Hostetter in 1851. It was printed at Freeport, although it bore date and purported to be published here. It only lived a few months.

In 1852, J. P. Emmert started the Mount Carroll Republican. Emmert sold out to H. G. Grattan, in the Winter of 1853. Grattan was a good newspaper man and gave the people a most excellent news journal. To his sagacity the people are indebted for the inauguration of many of their early enterprises and their prosperity. In 1855, Grattan sold the Republican establishment to D. H. Wheeler, and is now a successful and prosperous farmer in Alamakee County, Iowa. Wheeler continued the paper until 1857, when he sold out to D. B. Emmert. Emmert in turn sold to Dr. J. L. Hostetter, and emigrated to Kansas [where he again embarked in the newspaper business - his first venture in that line after arriving there being the Auburn Docket. Subsequently, he became editor of the Fort Scott Monitor, and a member of the Kansas Legislature, and in 1869-70-71 was Receiver of the United States Land Office, at Humboldt]. Dr. Hostetter sold an interest in the Republican office to Dr. E. C. Cochran. In the meantime, George English had started the Home Intelligencer, and soon after Hostetter and Cochran became associated as partners in the Republican, and arrangement was made by which that paper and the Intelligencer were consolidated. Dr. Hostetter retired from the business, and was succeeded by Messrs. English & Cochran, who named the consolidated papers the Republican and Intelligencer. This arrangement did not last long, the partnership was dissolved. English renewed the publication of the Intelligencer, and Dr. Hostetter returned to the Republican. Mrs. Shimer and Miss Gregory bought the office of the Republican from Dr. Hostetter, and one of their teachers, named Silvernnail, and a printer student, named Ladd, edited the paper a while, when it ceased to exist.

Mr. English kept his paper alive during the election campaign of 1860, during which time Volney Armour, Esq., was its editor. Soon after the election, however, its light died out, and the Intelligencer became a part of the history of the past.

The Carroll County Mirror was commenced in 1858, by Alexander Windle and I. V. Hollinger. Soon after the close of the war, Windle & Hollinger sold out to Captain J. M. Adair, who continued to publish the Mirror up to Sept., 1874, when he sold out to Joseph F. Allison, county treasurer. On January 14, 1875, Mr. Allison sold the office to W. D. Hughes and A. B. Hollinger. In a few months thereafter, Mr. Hughes, who was a practical printer, and who had been foreman for Adair & Allison, bought out the interest of Mr. Hollinger, and has since continued to manage the paper in the interest of the republican party. The Mirror is a very excellent news journal and advertising medium. It maintains a large circulation, and is devoted largely to the local interests of the community in whose midst it is published. Mr. Hughes is not only an industrious man, but a worthy representative of the "art preservative" - a republican in whom there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. He deserves and should receive a largely remunerative support. Mr. Hughes has been ably assisted in his editorial duties since Jan., 1877, by D. R. Frazier, Esq., a young man of more than ordinary ability and energy. September 4, 1875, Frank A. Beeler, started the Mount Carroll News. This venture did not turn out well, and the 6th of April, 1876, the establishment passed into the hands of J. William Mastin, who changed the name to the Herald, and hung out an independent banner. At a later period, he issued a democratic pronunciamento, and gave the support of the Herald to the candidates of that party, in 1876. January 1, 1877, Mr. Mastin sold the office to Messrs. Hollinger & Sessions, who made it republican in politics, and by whom it continues to be managed. The Herald is an eight-column folio journal and is managed with creditable ability. Mr. Hollinger is a practical printer of large experience, while Frank J. Sessions, the editor, is a young man of brilliant promise for usefulness in the journalistic and political fields. In all matters pertaining the public good, the Herald is fearless and outspoken. Locally, it is spicy and vivacious. The energy and enterprise of its management has commanded such respect as to secure for it a very large circulation, which steadily increases with the Herald's age. Mr. Sessions commenced newspaper work as local editor of the Cedar rapids, Iowa, Daily Times. From that paper he went to the Weekly Times of the same city, so that he brought with him to the Herald valuable experience. With Hollinger at the case, the make-up, the press, the stone, and Sessions to editorially shape the Herald's ends, the people of Carroll County have only themselves to blame if they do not have a newspaper that would do credit to any county in the state.

Banking Interests - In the Spring of 1853, Emanuel Stover and J. P. Emmert, under the firm name of E. Stove & Co., commenced a brokerage business. They transacted a small exchange business up to some time in 1856, when the firm was dissolved and the business discontinued.

The first banking house proper, was commenced by Dr. A. Hostetter, in 1855. Dr. Hostetter was a graduate of the Pennsylvania Medical College, and came here in 1845, bringing with him a large stock of drugs, and opened the first (exclusively) drug store in Mount Carroll, occupying a two story frame house on the site now occupied by the Minor Block, the lumber for which was hauled from Galena. After his bank had been in operation about one year (in 1856), he admitted a man named Riest as a partner, and the firm was known as Hostetter, Riest & Co. the business was discontinued in 1863.

The third bank was started in the Fall of 1856, by H. A. Mills and M. L. Hooker, under the firm name of Mills & Hooker. It was called the Carroll County Bank. It was a private bank of exchange, and its transactions were confined exclusively to that line of business. About 1860, Mr. Hooker retired, but the bank continued under the firm name of H. A. Mills & Co., the "Co." being Mills' wife. This arrangement continued until April, 1864, when it lost its individuality in the First National Bank.

This bank was organized April 2, 1864, with a capital of $50,000. James Mark, president; H. A. Mills, cashier, and W. H. Long, teller. April 8, 1865, the capital was increased to $60,000, and in October of the same year to $70,000.

January 11, 1870, D. Mackay was elected president, and H. Ashway vice president. January 10, 1871, the capital was increased to $100,000. August 1, 1874, H. Long was elected assistant cashier.

Present capital, $100,000; surplus, $20,000. The average deposits range from $50,000 to $60,000.

Present Officers - D. Mackay, president; H. Ashway, vice president; O. P. Miles, acting cashier; D. R. Miller, teller; Miss R. E. Roberts, book-keeper. Directors - D. Mackay, H. Ashway, Uriah Green and John Kridler.

Hotels - The Chapman House, a stone building, is the oldest hotel building. It was built in 1844, and has been so often mentioned in these pages that further mention is unnecessary. It is now owned by Mrs. James E. Taylor, J. F. Chapman, lessee and manager.

The Pratt House was built about 1845 or 1846, by James O'Brien. The original building was not large - in keeping with Mount Carroll's outlook at the time. In 1856, the present proprietor, A. L. Pratt, bought the property, and about 1870 built an addition, increasing it to its present size and capacity.

The Jones House, in the Bank building, was opened in 1877 by A. Jones. For two years previous to this date, Mr. Jones had occupied a part of the rooms now used as a hotel, as a restaurant and boarding house.

Mount Carroll was first incorporated under the general law of the state, in December, 1855. February 26, 1867, the present city charter was granted. The first election under the new charter was held in April following. Nathaniel Halderman was chosen mayor.

The temperance question was the dividing issue - license or anti-license. The anti-license ticket was elected by 33 majority. In 1868-9 the license people controlled a majority of the votes, and saloons were opened. In 1870-1-2 the anti-license people gained a majority, and the saloons were closed. In 1873-4 the license party again triumphed, and saloons were permitted. Again, in 1875-6-7, the anti-license people came to the front, and the saloons were compelled to close up.

Charles Phillips is the present mayor.

Suspension Bridge - Straddle Creek - Carroll Creek to ears polite - cuts a deep channel from east to west, through the northern part of the city. On the north side of it are handsome residence grounds, and when they began to extend out that way where the deep, rock-bound channel cuts off a near approach from the business part of town, the residents over there were forced to go down Main Street via the mill, cross the creek below the mill dam, and then climb a bluffy pathway to their homes. When J. F. Allison became circuit clerk, and settled over there, he proposed to remedy the inconvenience, and inaugurated measures that secured the building of a suspension foot-bridge. Together with Mr. M. A. Fuller and H. C. Blake, they raised means, these three men providing the most of it, and built the footway, shortening the distance between business and their homes nearly half a mile. The bridge is 267 feet long, 40 feet above the water, 4 feet wide, and is suspended by two galvanized iron wire cables one and a half inches in diameter. Its original cost was about $800. It is kept in repair by private subscriptions, assisted in part by the city.

Market Fair - A monthly market fair association was organized in the early Fall of 1877, and the first fair held on the 15th of December, which was a very fair success, both in point of numbers in attendance, stock shown, etc.