This volume is as much autobiography as history. Governor Thomas Ford was a close observer and then a participant in Illinois State politics throughout much of the period covered in this book.

Thomas Ford’s widowed mother took her seven children from Pennsylvania to New Design, Monroe Co, Illinois when he was a small boy. Although the family was very poor, his older half-brother succeeded as a lawyer and politician, and helped Thomas to get an education and, eventually, an appointment as State’s Attorney. In 1835 the State Legislature elected him a Circuit Court Judge, where he remained until his election as a State Supreme Court Judge in 1840. He served as Governor from 1842 to 1846, and wrote this ‘history’ immediately afterward.