1876
Walter Birkett donated some land for the construction of a Catholic church in Washington. Thus the birth of the first St. Patrick's Church in Washington.
In 1875 the Tazewell Independent newspaper was created, originally by British immigrant Henry A. Pallister and George Bondurant. The newspaper was unique because it was a politically neutral publication, a rarity at the time. Pallister was a tremendously educated man who had been a minister at many stops before switching to the newspaper trade. Bondurant and Pallister were fellow elders at the Christian Church in Washington at the time of the paper's inception. Pallister would take over Bondurant's share of the paper soon after its beginning. This paper would later become the Washington Republican and then the Washington News.
Around 1876 a Methodist minister named George Francis Meredith came to Washington. He had been in Peoria and was a wildly popular preacher, barely out of his teens, packing churches with his words and charisma. In Washington he became even more popular but left after one year, moving on to Kewanee. Years later in a much publicized expose it was revealed he had formed multiple relationships with married women at each of his stops.