Biographies - Elmira Township

James Buswell, born at Peacham, Vt., in 1793, came to Illinois in 1833, brought his family in 1831, and in 1835 came to Elmira township, with ten friends, known as the "Peoria Party," where each entered a quarter section.

Early in 1837 he came here with his family, bought a second quarter section from Governor Duncan, where he built a house in 1815, drawing the lumber himself from Chicago.

He served as Justice of the Peace for many years, as related in other pages, had seen the prairie turned into cultivated fields, and the untenanted wigwams of the Indians give place to pleasant, well ordered villages.

One of his sons, Nicholas C. Buswell, of Princeton, was Lieutenant Colonel of the Ninety-third Illinois Infantry.