1876

Walter Birkett donated land for the construction of a Catholic church in Washington, thus establishing the first St. Patrick's Church in Washington.

In 1875, the Tazewell Independent newspaper was created by British immigrant Henry A. Pallister, as well as 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.  He became even more popular in Washington 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.

A portion of an article from the May 25, 1876, Chicago Weekly Post & Mail describes the train ride from Chicago to Burlington, Iowa: ...Then we ran screaming up to Eureka.  This is the great educational center of the Christian Church, called by the heathen "Campbellites."  The town contains probably three hundred buildings, mostly boarding houses.  There are no saloons, nor any other immoral things going on.  O it is a saintly place, and people's eyes grow heavy, and their faces elongate fearfully, and every generation gets more and more so.  Good.  This town means to try hard for the the Great New Jerusalem Show.  They'll get it, if they pray on.  Here we are at Washington, with its five thousand Teutons (slang for Germans) and five hundred lager beer halls.  Drink on!  Fill up the foaming glass!  Gambrinus loves you, and every night he will brew you some more good beer.  Drink on!...

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