Dover

Old home in Dover

Located about 5 miles northeast of Princeton on US Rt. 34 is one of the oldest towns in Bureau County, Dover, a village of fewer than 200 people.  Founded in 1837, Dover was the namesake for the state road that passed through town and connected Princeton farmers with markets in Chicago.

Pictured below is Pioneer Cemetery, which, as the name implies, is the final resting place for many of Dover's first settlers.  However, its history is centuries old as the Sauk Trail, a Native American path that connected what is now Rock Island in the west with Chicago and on into Canada in the east, passed directly through where the cemetery is located now.

Pioneer Cemetery on the south end of Dover

Just to the west of the Pioneer Cemetery is Dover Cemetery, where in 1885, nearly half a century since it was last used by Native Americans, it was reported that the Sauk Trail was still visible for about 30 feet.

Near where Dover is today was also the site of a skirmish in the Blackhawk War in 1832.  Outside of John Ament's cabin by Bureau Creek, one settler, Elijah Phillips, was shot and killed by a group of Indians hidden in the trees.  They then descended on his body but had to retreat after the settlers poured strong gun fire upon them from inside the cabin.  Although not directly related to Black Hawk and his war band, the Black Hawk War was a time when violence reigned on the prairies between nearly autonomous Indian war parties and settler militias.

To see historic Princeton southwest of Dover, click here.  To see other areas of Bureau County, click here.