George Davenport

Infobox Person
name = George Davenport


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birth_date = 1783
birth_place = Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom
death_date = death date and age|1845|7|4|1783|1|1
death_place = Rock Island, Illinois, United States
death_cause = Murdered
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nationality = English-American
other_names =
known_for = One of the first pioneers to settle in Rock Island; one of the co-founders of Davenport, Iowa.
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occupation = Pioneer and trader
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relations = Colonel George Davenport (1783–July 4, 1845) was a 19th-century American frontiersman, trader and US Army officer. A prominent and well-known settler in the Iowa Territory, he was one of the earliest settlers in Rock Island and spent much of his life involved in the early settlement of the Mississippi Valley and the "Quad Cities". The present-day city of Davenport, Iowa is named after him. [Thwaites, Reuben Gold. "Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin". Vol. XX. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1911. (pg. 357)]

Biography

Early life and military service

Born in Lincolnshire, England, Davenport became an apprentice to his uncle and merchant captain going to sea at an early age. During the next several years, he visited ports in the Baltic as well as in France, Spain and Portugal. In the fall of 1803, shortly after arriving with a cargo from Liverpool, Davenport was arrested with the rest of his crew while in port at St. Petersburgh when the Czarist Russian government laid a Napoleonic-imposed embargo on British vessels. Davenport remained imprisoned until the spring when he was released and allowed to return to his home country. Wilkie, Frank B. "Davenport, Past and Present: Including the Early History, and Personal and Anecdotal Reminiscences of Davenport". Davenport, Iowa: Luse, Lane & Co., 1858. (pg. 145-165)]

He arrived in New York the following summer and, while in port, he suffered a severe leg injury while rescuing a fellow sailor who had fallen overboard. As the merchant ship was without a ship's surgeon, he was forced to stay in hospital while his ship returned to Liverpool. He left the hospital two months later and, acting on doctor's advice to live in the country, he lived in Rahway, New Jersey for a time before enlisting in the US Army at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Accepting a commission as sergeant, he was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and assisted in recruiting for the army in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well as training recruits at the Carlisle Barracks.

He remained in the army for the next several years, later participating in the War of 1812 under General James Wilkinson. At the end of the Peoria War, he escorted the Pottawatomie peace delegation to St. Louis in late-December 1813 where the peace treaty was signed. Those chieftains in the delegation included Black Partridge, Senachwine, Comas, Shick Shack, Crow and Gomo. [Watson, Nehemiah. "Pioneers of Illinois: Containing a Series of Sketches Relating to Events that Occurred Previous to 1813". Chicago: Knight & Leonard Printers, 1882. (pg. 291)] [Watson, Nehemiah, Watson. "French and Indians of Illinois River". Princeton, Illinois: Republican Job Printing Establishment, 1874. (pg. 248)]

Arrival in Rock Island

In the spring of 1816, he accompanied Colonel Lawrence as an army supplier for an expedition to Rock Island where Fort Armstrong was established. After he was discharged, he became a successful merchant and traded with the local tribes in the Illinois and Iowa territories for several years. Soon after his arrival, he built a double log cabin. This was the first permanent residence built in the Rock Island-area from which grew into a small frontier town. The first recorded religious service was held at his home in 1819.

Around this time, Davenport entered a partnership with fellow pioneer and fur trader Russell Farnham. Building a house on the mainland opposite of Rock Island, the two founded Farnhamsburg, a small village from which the present-day Rock Island, Illinois stands. In 1825, Davenport was appointed the first postmaster of Rock Island when the post office was established. [Dury, John. "Old Illinois Houses". Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1948. (pg. 126-128)]

The following year, he resigned his position to became an agent for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company with Farnham and oversaw its interests from Iowa to the Turkey River. During the Black Hawk War, he was made an assistant quartermaster with a commission of colonel by Governor John Reynolds.

In 1833, he moved from his double log cabin and built his home on a lower part of Rock Island near the old fort. Two years later, he and six others (including close friend Antoine LeClaire), purchased a large tract of land along the Mississippi River opposite the island. On this site, the town of Davenport, Iowa was officially founded on February 23, 1836. In 1838, he succeeded U.S. Indian agent Joseph M. Street as a representative of the Sauk and Fox until 1840. [United States War Department. "Report of the Secretary of War". Vol. III. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1877. (pg. 48)] In 1842, he and several others negotiated a treaty on behalf of Governor John Chambers between the Iowa territorial government and the Sauk and Fox for the sale of their lands in Iowa.

Davenport left from the American Fur Company following the signing of the treaty and retired to private life on his Rock Island estate. He often travelled to St. Louis, Missouri, sailing on his keel boat, and resided there or in Washington City during the winter months. He also laid out plans for an addition to the small town of Moline, Illinois.

Murder

On July 4, 1845, Davenport's family went to the mainland to celebrate Independence Day. Davenport stayed behind however and, sometime during the late afternoon, a band of local bandits forced their way into Davenport's home. Accounts differ as to the nature of the assault, as one version claims he was shot by the burglars while another states the elderly Bowman was severely beaten when his assailants found there was far less money in the safe then they had first believed. Davenport was still alive when the men finally left his home and was able to give a description of them to authorities before he died.

The men thought to be responsible were traced to a ruffian gang operating out of Nauvoo, Illinois known as the "Banditti of the Prairie". Detective Edward Bonney volunteered to infiltrate the gang was able to arrest eight men and, although one man escaped while another disappeared, the others stood trial and were convicted of murder. Two received prison sentences [Morgan, Bob. "Biking Iowa: 50 Great Road Trips and Trail Rides". Madison: Trail Books, 2006. (pg. 28) ISBN 1-93159-963-7] while another three, Granville Young and brothers John and Aaron Long, were later arrested and executed for the crime. [Gue, Benjamin F. "History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century". Vol. IV. New York: Century History Company, 1903. (pg. 67-86)] In October, shortly before their execution, the men were photographed by daguerreotypists Thomas Martin Easterly and Frederick F. Webb. [Palmquist, Peter E. and Thomas R. Kailbourn. "Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide: A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865". Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005. (pg. 220) ISBN 0-8047-4057-7]

One of the earliest buildings to be built on Rock Island, Davenport's home still exists and remains one of the oldest residential landmarks in northern Illinois. The house was later used as the temporary headquarters of a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War and is operated by the Colonel Davenport Historical Foundation as a civil war and house museum. [Walker, Patricia Chambers. "Directory of Historic House Museums in the United States". Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 2000. (pg. 81) ISBN 0-7425-0344-5]

References

Persondata
NAME = George Davenport
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Illinois pioneer, landowner and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH = 1783
PLACE OF BIRTH = Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH = Rock Island, Illinois, United States
PLACE OF DEATH = July 4, 1845