"Henry Etnyre and Henry Wagner walked all the way from Washington County, Md., and found the Blair and McClure families already established in 1837. . . . Henry Etnyre went back to Maryland for his family. In 1838 he, his wife, and 10 children started for Illinois.

The journey was begun with a span of horses and a wagon which he drove to Wheeling, W.Va., a distance of 150 miles. At Wheeling, all except Isaac (17 years old) embarked on a boat, steamed down the Ohio, up the Mississippi to St. Louis and via the Illinois River to Utica, LaSalle County, Ill. At Utica they were met by Isaac with a team and drove to this county. Henry purchased a claim on what is now Section 9.

There was a log cabin on the place into which he moved his family. He soon afterward built an addition to the cabin and immediately began breaking his land and improving his place. The first patch of wheat was planted in 1838 by Mr. Etnyre on a prairie near where Forreston was later founded. The crop had been cradled, gathered and stacked when a fierce prairie fire swept the country and the pioneer's summer's work and expectations of a change from the cornbread diet went up in smoke."

Bicentennial History of Ogle Co, 1976, re Maryland Township [p. 330-331]:

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