Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/590

 It was still a mere spot in the forest marked by a few log huts when, on October 24, 1820, it was made the capital of the territory. On the 4th of July of that year the Rev. Cephas Washburn had preached the first sermon ever heard there, and in the rude cabin there were gathered to listen to him only fourteen men,—no women,—probably all the inhabitants of the place. Yet no one doubted that they were standing upon the site of a future city, or questioned the wisdom of the Legislature when it established the capital in the remote wilderness, far from the Mississippi in whose neighborhood the scanty population of the territory was chiefly gathered.

The town grew slowly. It was far from the centers of population, and the means of travel were slight and precarious. It was made a post-office town on April 10, 1820, but the inhabitants in 1830 numbered only four hundred and fifty, and it was not incorporated until Nov. 7, 1831.

In 1860, the population was only about five thousand. Between 1833 and 1846 the State House was built, a handsome edifice for the time and place; but generally the buildings