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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
latter being an opponent of the scheme to make Illinois a slave State. He was a farmer by occupation and, at the time he was a member of the Legislature, resided in what afterwards became Wabash County. Subsequently he removed to Edwards County, near Albion, where he died. "Frazier's Prairie," in Edwards County, was named for him.
FREEBURG, a village of St. Clair County, on the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad, 8 miles southeast of Belleville. Population (1880), 1,038; (1890), 848; (1900), 1,214.
FREEMAN, Norman L., lawyer and Supreme Court Reporter, was born in Caledonia, Livingston-County, N. Y., May 9, 1823; in 1831 accompanied his widowed mother to Ann Arbor, Mich., removing six years afterward to Detroit; was educated at Cleveland and Ohio University, taught school at Lexington, Ky., while studying law, and was admitted to the bar in 1846; removed to Shawneetown, Ill., in 1851, was admitted to the Illinois bar and practiced some eight years. He then began farming in Marion County, Mo., but, in 1862, returned to Shawneetown and, in .1863, was appointed Reporter of Decisions by the Supreme Court of Illinois, serving until his death, which occurred at Springfield near the beginning of his sixth term in office, August 23, 1894.
FREE MASONS, the oldest secret fraternity in the State-known as the "Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Masons"-the first Lodge being instituted at Kaskaskia, June, 3, 1806; with Gen. John Edgar, Worshipful Master; Michael Jones, Senior Warden; James Galbraith, Junior War-den; William Arundel, Secretary; Robert Robinson, Senior Deacon. These are names of persons who were, without exception, prominent in the early history of Illinois. A Grand Lodge was organized at Vandalia in 1822, with Gov. Shad-rach Bond as first Grand Master, but the organization of the Grand Lodge, as it now exists, took place at Jacksonville in 1840. The number of Lodges constituting the Grand Lodge of Illinois in 1840 was six, with 157 members; the number of Lodges within the same jurisdiction in 1895 was 713, with a membership of 50,727, of which 47,335 resided in Illinois. The dues for 1895 were $37,834.50; the contributions to members, their widows and orphans, $525,038.41; to non-members, $6,306.38, and to the Illinois Masonic Orphans' Home, $1,315.80.-Apollo Commandery No. 1 of Knights Templar-
