Mary L. Pierce Buell 1820-1912

BUELL, EATON, PIERCE, PEARCE, GASTON, HOBEIN

Posted By: Michael J. Kearney (email)
Date: 11/25/2005 at 16:25:02

The Clinton Herald Friday June 28, 1912 p. 8 One of the most highly respected residents of this city and Clinton county, Mrs. Mary L. Buell, widow of the late Elijah Buell, first resident of Clinton county, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. W.D. Eaton, in Ninth street, Thursday night at 9 o'clock after a lingering illness of about two years of a complication of diseases incident to old age. The Buell family is probably one of the most important in the county and is widely known among the residents in this vicinity. The funeral will probably be held Sunday afternoon from the Eaton residence and interment will be in Oakland cemetery. The deceased was born in Kingston, R. I., March 5, 1820, and when young she accompanied her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan L. and Mary E. Pearce and several brothers and sisters west, traveling overland as the travelers of the olden times did, with ox team and covered wagon. Clinton was known as New York, Iowa territory, when Mary L. Pearce and Elijah Buell, the first settler of Clinton county, were married, May 20, 1841. Mr. Buell had come to Clinton in 1835. He death occurred twenty two years ago. Mrs. Buell has often told of their early trip to Iowa. They left Fall River, June 8, 1838, on a sloop, the Candace. Captain Brown, whose ship, good wife and fair daughter all bore the same name. A stop at Newport, and then the rough trip around Poinit Judith, that made them seasick, and then a four days run to New York. Their "first ride on the cars" was from Amboy to Camden, and then cars and canal boarts alternatively to Pittsburg, from where they descended the Ohio river by steamer to St. Mary's Landing, St. Francisco county, Mo. There they spent the Fourth of July, and several days, as they had to send for a team with which to complete their journey to their destination, fifty miles from the river. The Pearce family stayed a few months near the Iron mountain, and then "trecked" with an ox team, via St. Louis, and up the river on the Illinois side, to Fulton. There they stopped, crossed the river on a scow, and Mr. Pearce bought and in due time entered a claim in the heart of the present city of Clinton. Elijah Buell, the first settler of Clinton county, was from New York state, then of Cleveland, a sailor on the lakes, and was said to have been on the first schooner to enter Chicago harbor; later the second mate on a Mississippi river steamboat running between St. Louis and Galena; selected the promising bottom on the west side of the river at the nearest point to Chicago, setted thereon, and sent for his family - his first wife and son. In a few years he and Dennis Warren platted a town and named it Lyons, where he lived until his death. Mr. Buell was a positive, rugged character, a typical pioneer, with all the merits and some of the faults of his class - fearing neither white man, Indian or wild beast. The town grew, and in time he reaped the reward of those who labor and also wait; and through suffering losses and disappointments, was able through twenty years of rheumatic inaction to enjoy the fruits of foresight and industry, and to leave lands and lots and other property to his heirs. The deceased leaves to mourn her death the following children: Mrs. W.D. Eaton of Lyons; Mrs. A.D. Gaston of Washington, D.C.; George P. Buell of Chlispel, Wash.; Mrs. C.A. Hobein of Estherville, Ia.; L.J. Buell and W.E. Buell of Lyons.