of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 60-61
FIRST SETTLER IN THE COUNTY. It was in the spring of 1834 that Benjamin Nye settled at the mouth of Pine Creek, in Montpelier township, and erected a cabin there. Undoubtedly he was the first settler in the county, although the matter has been threshed over times without number that the distinction is not his.
"ERR TOLD ME SO." Other histories of the county have given Err Thornton the credit of being the first settler in Muscatine county and for many years the local historian, J. P. Walton, who came to the county in 1838, and lived here seventy years, employing his leisure time in collecting data relating to the early history of the community and placing it in enduring form, contended that Err Thornton was the first settler and so continued in his contention until upon a certain occasion Err Thornton told him that he did not come until after Ben Nye had taken up an abode on Pine creek. In another part of this book the reader will find that the "fall" Err Thornton came to the county, he and his brother Lott stopped at the Nye cabin a short time. However, the controversy is now practically settled. In his own handwriting, on the margin of one of his "scrapbooks," Walton wrote: "It has recently been proven that Nye was here before the Thorntons came; so Err has since told me. J. P. Walton."
Benjamin Nye and his cousin Stephen settled in Montpelier township, at the mouth of Pine creek, in the spring of 1834; Err, Lott and James Thornton located in the fall of 1834 on the slough in the southeastern corner of Seventy-six township.
John McGrew came to Iowa in 1834, but did not settle at once in Muscatine township. He took up his residence in the Thornton neighborhood, but in Louisa county, near the Muscatine county line. Subsequently, in 1842, he moved on to an eighty-acre tract in Seventy-six township, which he purchased of Colonel George Kincaid. Previous to this, in 1833, a man by the name of Farnham had set up a cabin, on the spot now designated by a marble stone placed in the center of Front street, just where it meets Iowa avenue. Farnham put in the cabin a stock of merchandise, being in the employ of Colonel George Davenport, Indian trader, at Fort Armstrong, on the island of Rock Island. He was never, however, considered as a settler, so that at the beginning of 1835 it is considered that there were none but the Nyes and Thorntons in the county as settlers.
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