(From a letter from Dan Atwood 1980 Salt Lake City UT) Richland County was completely un-inhabited (except by Indians)in 1832 when Chief Blackhawk led his defeated band of Sauk Indians in retreat down the Wisconsin River to what was to be Richland City, and then across Richland County up Pine River to Rockbridge and then up the west branch to near West Lima. In 1836, John R. Coumbe from the lead and zinc mines in southern Grant County crossed the Wisconsin River near Port Andrew and laid out a farm near there, where he lived for the summer. He returned in 1838 with 6 other families to make the first permananet settlement. Richland County Wisconsin was organized as a seperate county in 1850, and when John R. Coumbe too the first census in that year he found 977 population, including the family Solomon Pippinger, his sister, Susannah and her husband Henry Fazel, came in 1853 and settled in Sylvan twp., Henry dying in 1854. Before 1860, another sister, Mary Ann, with husband Dickerson Fazel, settled next door and probably on the land of the Widow Christina Cooper, where he may have worked for her, although he did have a trade that of, strangly enough cooper--barrel maker. Solomon moved to Cerro Gordo IL, in early 1860s and Dickerson and Mary Ann took over his farm, and when Israel Davis and Rebecca (Pippenger) came in 1864, they moved into a house just vacated on the Cooper farm. In 1866, the widow Cooper married my ggf, William Harrison Atwood, and the same year Elizabeth Ann Davis md. Chas.Marshall Atwood. In 1870 census Israel and Rebecca Pippenger Davis were living next door to her sister Susannah Pippenger Fazel in Sylvan Twp. Before 1870 came Elizabeth Pippenger and her husband and cousin, Levi Pippenger settling next door to Dickerson Fazel, probably also on Solomon's Land. In Elizabeth's family was her father Peter. Levi and Elizabeth Pippenger were in Forest Twp in 1880 Census and also her nephew Levi and Susa Caylor Davis. It is interesting tome as some indication of short span of time involved, that when I lived on our farm in Richwood in 1916, the widow of John R. Coumbe was living in the house next door at the age of 95. (the above was written in 1980 by Dan Atwood to our cousin Gene Sawyer) The Pippengers, Fazel, Davis families came from Pyrmont Carroll County IN. I hope that someone somewhere can get a little information out of this letter. Happy Digging Catherine Leinbach