chapter 10 cont. WINFIELD TOWNSHIP. In addition to what has already been written of Winfield township by Mr. Barrows, the following is appended:  John Quinn, who was the first permament settler in this townshp, struck out further west from his home in Meigs coutny, Ohio, when a young man, and landed in Chicago, then nothing but a frontier village.  Here he worked at his trade of blacksmithing for one year.  He had located a claim in the windy city, but by some chicanery he was dispossessed of it and losing all faith in the people there, he left and went to Galena, arriving there in 1832.  Being joined by his brother William in 1835 he went to Clinton county, and after remaining there awhile he and his brother finally settled in Winfield township, where they improved a farm which afterwards came into the possessiori of John T. Mason, who lived on it for over forty years.  It is said that had Mr. Quinn remained in Winfield township he would have become wealthy, for at one time he owned large bodies of timber land on the Wapsipinicon bottoms, which brought him good prices at their sale, but being of a wandering disposition he left the locality and returned to Ohio.  Not being contented there he once more found his way back to Iowa, from whence he went to Kansas, and then to Oregon, where he died at the age of seventy years. Leonard Cooper, one of the first settlers, left a large family of eight sons and two daughters, none of whom are now living in Winfield township.  One son lives in Davenport, one in Dubuque, A. A. Cooper, whose celebrated wagons find a market in a number of states.  Charles Elder, a pioneer of this township, left two sons and one daughter, of whom the daughter and one son are dead; Joseph Elder, the other son, is a resident of Long Grove.  At the time of the settlement in Winfield township of the four Quinn brothers, the township was nine miles square and included parts of Lincoln, Sheridan and Butler townships.  It was on the creek north of Walnut Grove that George Daly, mentioned by Mr. Barrows, built a grist mill, which was also arranged to saw logs.  Burrs in those days were expensive and difficult to obtain.  In his perplexity Mr. Daly, the "honest miller," as he was called, went to Alexander Brownlie who assisted him in making a set of millstones out of a large bowlder found on the prairie.  It is said that much of this grist was gournd on those bowlder millstones, and that the only reason that the mill did not perform its work more steadily and regularly was because of the lack of water at times.  H. M. Thompson married the youngest daughter of Mrs. Robertson, a widow of seventy years of age, who had come from Scotland and settled in this township in 1844.  Mr. Thompson became quite prominent in the affairs of Scott county.  He was selected as the first president of the Scott County Agricultural Society and remained in that office for seven years, when he resigned.  He was also for a number of years superintendent of Agricultural college farm at Ames and was also a representative from this county in the general assembly of Iowa.  He died in 1887 at the age of seventy-six years.  At his death his wife was living at the age of ninety-two years.  The Brownlies are still prominent and quite numerous in Winfield township.  Of the second generation there are three members still residents of Long Grove, A. W. Brownlie, son of James Brownlie, who was a little over a year old when his parents settled in the township; he is doing business with his brother, R. K. Brownlie.  A. D. Brownlie, only son of Alexander Brownlie, is living on the original homestead where his father settled when he came to the state of Iowa. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L