For history documentaries, you don't necessarily talk about a lot of famous historical figures except Frederick Douglas, you did one on him.

Tell us about that one.

- Yeah, Frederick Douglass, when he was on his last speaking tour in 1870, ended up stopping in Elmwood to give a lecture on our common humanity.

It's a fantastic speech.

It was actually covered by the Peoria papers and you can read it if you go down to the library.

But he was there, he was in Elmwood.

He had some friends in town who are abolitionists who had been kicked out of their town in Massachusetts and come to Elmwood because it was such a friendly place to people who were anti-slavery, pro-education.

So he was there visiting, lecturing.

He's walking to the train station with one of these friends, and he's concerned because when he was in Peoria the last time, which was his next lecture stop, he wasn't able to find a hotel that would allow him to stay there.

So his friend said, "Well, when you get to Peoria, if you have any trouble, you go and see our friend, Robert Ingersoll," which of course we all know who that is.

And so he put him on the train, and Frederick Douglas went to Peoria, was able to find a great place to stay.

It all was great.

After that, he went on to his next stop, which was Bloomington Normal.

But that little stop over in Elmwood was really interesting.

And then I started researching that family a little bit more, the Browns, and there were three brothers who moved to Elmwood, the Elmwood area.

One of them ended up marrying into the Bush distilling family and became Bush and Brown.

Another one was a big lecturer writer in Elmwood.

And then the other ended up getting into education in Knox County.

So this Brown family was a big family, but I had never heard of them.

And so it was just fascinating.