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EARLY SETTLERS

The first settler was John Edgington, who came from Jefferson county, Ohio., and located on. section 11, in 1834. and lived to become one of the old aud substantial farmers of the township. Peter Carr came from Ohio, in 1835. settling on sections 11 and 12; in 1836.

Daniel Wheaton located ou section 13; Stephen Brayton on section 17; Marlin Tucker on section 28; Jacob Coleman on section 7; Daniel De Graff on section 31; and William Bruner on section 18, all arriving before 1838. The year 1839 brought Samuel Sloan and John Kistler.

The above mentioned were the pioneers who waded across bridgeless streams, through bottomless sloughs, to reach this lovely section of Illinois land. Their houses were log huts, covered with "shakes" riven from forest trees, but in these primitive homes, the people lived ha pily. The children were stowed away at night in the low. dark attics among the horns of the elk and deer, and through the chinks of the '"shakes" they could count the twinkling stars, or be wet to the skin by the rain or snow as it fell.

The chairs and bedsteads were hewn from the forest trees. The tables and bureaus were improvised from boxes in which they had brought their household goods to the new home. The trips to the nearest market, or mill, required more time than is now needed to cross the continent or the Atlantic ocean.

At present, thickly settled communities of intellectual people live in modern homes where once roamed the Indian, the buffalo, deer and other wild animals, including the wild cat, wild hog and turkey. The people of today are surrounded by schools, colleges, churches, thriving towns and cities. Calls are made and answered by telephone. A few muscular movements suffice to transact business with neighbors, or places far distant, which took the pioneers on arduous journeys from home.

These trips involved hours and sometimes days and weeks on horseback, through impassable swamps, and they were forced to run the risk of attack from savage animals. To the average pioneer, a letter was a rarity, a newspaper an oddity.

Now, letters, magazines, country and metropolitan dailies reach the people each day by rural mail delivery. In reviewing the advantages and blessings which are the lot of the people of Buffalo Prairie township today, as compared to those of the pioneer, the impression is strengthened that the early settlers were men of unusual force and character, and that their memories should be held in reverence, for they blazed their way through wilderness and plain to locate the homes that are now the property of their descendants.

All of the real pioneers have passed away, but there are still living, aged persons who came with their parents in childhood. The only person in Buffalo Prairie township, perhaps the only one in the four townships comprising the west end of Rock Island county, who came here in young manhood, is Valentine Fuhr. He was born in Germany in 1821. but has been a resident of the United States for eighty-one years, and of section 14, Buffalo Prairie township for seventy-one years, and is now quite feeble

Thomas Spencer was also one of the early settlers, while George Kendall located a claim in Canoe Creek township while employed in a saw mill at Whitehall, . Finding the work too hard, he left his claim, and worked at his trade at Whitehall until 1844, when he returned to his claim, with his bride.

William and Daniel Leek came from New York in 1837, locating near Rock river, but later on, moved away. "Squire" Sargent came here about this same time, from Ohio, but not being able to make a success of farming, he sold his claim, a good one near Rock river, and returned to his old home.

William and Beverly Beardsley were pioneers from New York, to locate here about 1837.

A saw-mill was built on Canoe creek, prior to 1844, and here George Kendall worked upon his return to that township, where he died in 1801. In 1848 he built the first frame house constructed in the township.

Byron Kendall was the first white child born in a frame house, but Louisa Carter, daughter of Joseph Carter, born in 1836, was the first white child born in the township.

The first death in the township was that of a child born to Samuel Sargent in 1838..

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