This is my first time on this list and I haven't recognized any messages to me. I hope that this message isn't off-topic. I have a request for help about my Coombs family, and I am including a description of Columbia and Waterloo as Isaiah Moses Coombs wrote about them in his history. My great-grandfather, Isaiah Moses Coombs was born in Columbia, in 1834 to Mark Anthony (sometimes known just as Anthony) Coombs and Maria Morgan. Mark Anthony was born in Maine but Maria was also born in Columbia in 1815. She and Mark Anthony eloped to Carondonlet, Missouri to get married in 1831. My source of information is a journal and a family history left by Isaiah Moses. It appears that he exaggerated some of his information and I would like some confirming data, if possible. Could you please let me know what might still be available for Columbia and Morgan and Coombs families. We think Maria's father, Arthur Morgan came from Kentucky, but I don't have any real records to that effect. What Columbia and Waterloo looked like in the 1850s Columbia, Monroe County, Illinois This is taken from the autobiography of Isaiah Moses Coombs, who was born in Columbia, Monroe County, Illinois, 21 March 1834. His father was Mark Anthony Coombs who was born in Islesborough, Waldo, Maine, and his mother was Maria Morgan, who was born in Columbia on 1 March, 1815. Her father was Arthur Morgan and Sarah Talbot who were from Kentucky. Isaiah describes Columbia as it was in his childhood days (about 1845?): " In those days, Columbia was but a small village and the country in its vicinity was sparsely settled and we had no railroad nearer than St. Louis which was 13 miles distant, and our nearest market. At that early day the subject od education was but little appreciated in out-of-the-way places like Columbia, and it was but seldom that we could boast of a right good school. Good school teachers were not likely to halt there for more than three or four months before they would pass on in search of a more appreciative community and better pay. As a consequence our school was constantly changing hands, a new teacher almost every six months, and with him a new system or more frequently no system at all. . . . When I was about 13 years old an Irishman by the name of P. H. Dixon came to our town and opened a school. He was younger son of a nobleman and had been educated for a Catholic Priest. Through some love intrigue however, his father cut him off with a shilling and sent him adrift on the wide world. To this man and to the one who succeeded him in our school I am indebted for much of my limited education. I must say however that the best ordered school I ever attended was taught by a New England lady, a Miss Cleghorn, afterwards Mrs. Gardner. She was not only a good teacher, but a splendid disciplinarian. She secured the affection of her pupils and ruled them in love. No birch sticks or leather straps disgraced her school room, no angry words or loud threats were heard, all was gentleness, peace, order, and with very few exceptions, hard study. The family lived in Upper Alton and in Monticello for a while; daughter Mary Jones Coombs was born in Alton in 1836, son Hyrum Coombs was born in Monticello in 1838. They were back in Columbia when son John Coombs was born in 1840. "In those days there was but one church in Columbia that could boast a meeting house and that was the Methodist Church. Nearly all my mother's relations belonged to that church, and inface nearly everybody in the country were connected with it. They had their two days' meetings, camp meetings, revivals, etc. and I used to attend all of them. . . . : "Waterloo in those days was a thriving little town considering that it was twney one miles from market and was inhabited almost exclusively by an agricultural community. It could boast of four churches, viz: the Methodist, Baptist, Catholic and Dutch Reformed, five or six stores, about the same number of groc. shops, a printing office, two grist mills and eight or ten lawyers." Om 1854 he was back in Columbia. Columbia by this time was quite a large town; could boast three churches, the Catholic, Methodist and Lutheran; three school houses, two grist mills, three stores, tailor shops, etc. The population was about evenly divided, one half Americans and one half Germans, . . . . I have copie