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Dexheimer, Florence Chambers, 1866-1925 / Sketches of Wisconsin pioneer women
([1924?] )
Kent, Frank S., Mrs.
Anne Elizabeth Van Dyke Harris, pp. 125-128
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Page 126
resigned his Captain's commission thereof in 1776 for a seat in the State Supreme Executive Council assembled in Philadelphia. The same year he was elected to a seat in the first assembly held under the State Constitution of Pennsylvania, which he retained through the year 1801. His daughter, Elizabeth Dale, married Aaron Chamber- lain, a Colonel in the War of 1812, and who is buried at Freeport, Ill. He was a son of Colonel William Cham- berlain who enlisted in the Continental Army at the be- ginning of the Revolutionary struggle. His Colonel's commission bore the date September 9, 1777. He was entrusted with many important commissions, as the yel- low, time-stained documents in possession of his descend- ants testify, some signed by General Washington, some by General Wayne, and some by Governor Livingston of New Jersey. These commissions were executed so successfully that the British commander swore that the head of the Rebel who could plan and execute such dar- ing schemes was worth one hundred pounds to King George and the man who would bring him dead or alive should have the money on the spot. Three of his sons served in the war of 1812, and more than a score of his grandsons and great-grandsons laid down their lives on southern battlefields or died from poison in prison, in de- fense of the principles he fought so bravely to establish His son, Aaron Chamberlain, mentioned above, mar- ried Elizabeth Dale, daughter of Samuel Dale and Eliza- beth Futhey Dale. Their daughter, Annie Dale Cham- berlain, born in 1813, married Lambert Van Dyke in 1830 at Lewisburgh, Pa. . One daughter, Anne Elizabeth, (sub- ject of this sketch) was born to them in 1831. In the spring of 1838 this Colonel Aaron Chamberlain came west on horseback to explore the "far off wilderness of Illinois", and to choose a new home. Prior to the Black- hawk War little was known of the "Great West" by people east of the Alleghanies. The western counties of Pennsylvania were "the west" and Ohio was called "the far west". Dr. Van Valzah who accompanied him on this journey bought a tract of land and built the first flour mill near the present village of Cedarville, which later 126
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