FREEMASONRY 



2324 



FREE-SOIL PARTY 



awkward gallantry; children with their little 

 pleasures and heartaches, and so on. Pembroke 

 (1894) is regarded 

 by literary crit- 

 ics as Mrs. Free- 

 man's best work, 

 although The 

 Portion oj La- 

 bor, a story of 

 a labor strike in 

 a mill town, is a 

 masterly produc- 

 tion. She was 

 married in 1901 

 to Dr. Charles 

 M. Freeman, of 

 Metuchen, N. J. 



See MASONRY, OR FREE- 



MARY E. WILKINS 

 FREEMAN 



FREEMASONRY 



MASONRY. 



FREE METHODISTS, a religious sect, an 

 offshoot from the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

 The Free Methodist Church was organized at 

 Pekin, in Western New York, August 23, 1860. 

 Its founders were preachers who believed that 

 the parent Church was departing from fidelity 

 to the clear doctrines and simple usages of 

 Wesley. The Free Methodists were distin- 

 guished for a time as Nazarites, which indicated 

 an assumption of higher piety and holiness than 

 the members of the parent Church. They in- 

 sisted on plain dress and address, and that the 

 members should shun what are commonly 

 known as worldly practices, vices and pleasures. 

 They prohibited the use of intoxicating liquors 

 and tobacco, and tried to get back to the old 

 fountain-spring of Methodism. In these re- 

 spects they are more radical than members 

 of any other Protestant body. The zeal of the 

 Free Methodists is shown in their shouting, by 

 lengthy addresses at religious meetings and in 

 giving "testimony" to the saving grace of the 

 Redeemer. In 1889 their preachers numbered 

 600, traveling and local. Their membership 

 is now about 30,000, and their churches about 

 1,000 in number. They have two seminaries, 

 one at North Chili, N. Y., and one at Spring 

 Arbor, Mich. 



FREEPORT, ILL., the county seat of Ste- 

 phenson County, in the northwestern part of 

 the state, is twenty-eight miles west of Rock- 

 ford and 113 miles west by north of Chicago. 

 It is on the Pecatonica River and is served by 

 the Illinois Central; the Chicago & North 

 Western, and -the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint 

 Paul railroads, and by an electric interurban 

 line to Rockford. In 1910 the population was 



17,567; it was 19,568 in 1916, by Federal esti- 

 mate. 



The city has a Federal building, a Y. M. 

 C. A. building, erected at a cost of $110,000, a 

 library and Saint Vincent's Orphanage. The 

 manufactures include automobiles, buggies, 

 gasoline engines, hardware, windmills, agricul- 

 tural implements, pianos, organs, medicines and 

 toys. 



Freeport was settled in 1835 and incorpo- 

 rated in 1859, and it became a city in 1885. 

 One of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates 

 was held here in 1858. 



FREE PORTS , a name given to certain cities 

 on the seaboard where no customs duties are 

 levied and where no customs supervision exists. 

 Ships may enter, on payment of a moderate 

 toll, and may load and unload in these ports. 

 Cargoes are deposited and handled, and goods 

 are bought and sold without action on the 

 part of taxing authorities. 



In Great Britain free ports have never ex- 

 isted; in 1552 it was planned to place Hull and 

 Southampton on this footing, but the plan 

 was abandoned. In Denmark, an area of about 

 150 acres at Copenhagen was opened as a free 

 port in 1894 to attract the trade of the Baltic 

 seaports. In Germany, since 1888, only Ham- 

 burg remains a free port. An area of about 

 2,500 acres is exempt from customs duties and 

 supervision. Sulina, in Rumania, is a free port. 

 In 1895 free ports were opened at Kola, in 

 Russian Lapland. Malacca, Penang and Singa- 

 pore have been free ports since 1824, Hong- 

 kong since 1842, and Weihaiwei, China, since 

 it was leased to Great Britain in 1898. Macao 

 has been a free port since 1845. 



In the United States there are no so-called 

 free ports, but Congress has passed laws 

 whereby customs duties need not be paid when 

 imported goods are unloaded. Such merchan- 

 dise, if not needed at once by consignees, may 

 be placed "in bond" in government ware- 

 houses, and the duty may be paid when it is 

 removed later. 



FREE-SOIL PARTY, a political organiza- 

 tion in the United States in the decade preced- 

 ing the War of Secession, founded on opposi- 

 tion to the extension of slavery in the Terri- 

 tories and opposed to their later admission to 

 the Union as slave states. It was organized 

 in 1848 in Buffalo, N. Y., was strengthened 

 by the support of Martin Van Buren and the 

 Barnburners, and in the same year nominated 

 Van Buren for the Presidency. The party 

 polled nearly 300,000 votes, on the platform 



