Nora: Almost one-half of this party died within a few months after their arrival. The book Arrowheads to Aerojets (history of Monroe Co.) states: In the years 1796 and 1797, important additions were made to the New Design Settlement. Solomon Shook and a man named Borer arrived from Virginia in 1796. In 1797 a large group came from the country adjacent to the south branch of the Potomac River in Hardy County, Virginia. A year earlier, David Badgley, Leonard Carr. Daniel Stookey, Abraham Eyeman, Abraham Stookey, and a man named Whetstone. made the journey to Illinois from Virginia on horseback and thoroughly explored the country with the view of selecting a good location for their neighbors in Virginia. On the first trip, David Badgley, who was a Baptist preacher, held religious meetings in the American settlements. The summer of 1797 was uncommonly wet and rainy and the streams between Fort Massac and Kaskaskia were all swollen beyond their banks. After arranging their wagons and horses and making all things ready for the journey, the colony from Virginia set out from Fort Massac for New Design. The ravages of disease carried off almost half of this colony during the first summer and fall of their arrival. The prevailing sickness was a malignant fever supposed to be contagious. Scarcely a household failed to mourn the loss of one or more of its members. After 1797 the country was healthy and that part of the colony which remained furnished many valuable citizens. Of that colony, the Carr, Stookey, Eyeman, Shook, Mitchell, Clark, Badgley, Teter, Miller, and other families left numerous descendants. David Badgley was one of the earliest Baptist ministers in Illinois. During his first visit in 1796, he preached in the settlement from May 4 to May 30. During that time he baptized fifteen persons. Among the settlers was Joseph Chance who had been designated lay elder in Kentucky. Badgley and Chance organized, with twenty-eight members the first Baptist Church in Illinois. It was called the New Design Church. Prior to that time James Smith, the Baptist, and Joseph Lillard, the Methodist, had preached to the settlers but no formal congregations were organized. John Clark, a Scotchman by birth, followed the seas in early life. In 1781 he was pressed into service on board a British man-of-war which lay off Charleston harbor. He swam ashore at the risk of his life rather than fight the Americans. He came to Illinois in 1797 and both preached and taught school at New Design. He is said to have been the first preacher of the gospel to cross the Mississippi River and preach to the Americans west of the river. This was against the regulations of the Roman Catholic Spanish government of Upper Louisiana. The unfortunates who died soon after arrival are probably in New Design cemetery. If you have specific names, I'll do a look up. I am a LEMEN descendant and a descendant of Abraham CLARK of the Hardy Co. party. I am suspicious that my TOLIN ancestors may also have originated from Hardy Co., but have not yet been able to prove this. I know they were from VA, as were all of our first Americans. Our VP is an IMAN/EYMAN descendant. There are many descendants of these Hardy Co. families. Most of the early SHOOKs are in Eagle Cliff-Miles cemetery as they eventually settled in the American Bottom. I believe my 3rd great-grandfather's (Joseph W. HILTON) second wife's maiden name was BADGLEY. Since she is not my direct, I've not spent a lot of time proving this. Elizabeth STARR was her name when she married Joseph. Janet Flynn, Secretary Monroe Co. Genealogical Society Monroe Co. Historical Society ,