BRINK, Hezekiah
Source: Sterling (Illinois) Gazette 6 April
1872 Sat p 2
The Black Hawk War closed in the spring of
1833 and until the next year Sterling was without an inhabitant. The first
settlement was made on the northeast quarter of Sec 22, Township 21, Range 7
East of the fourth principal meridian now block 34, east of Broadway about the
last of June 1834, by Hezekiah Brink, who lives on the same quarter section.
Brink was born in Vermont in 1809; came West and settled in Fountain County,
Indiana. The first year after arriving in Sterling he built a cabin and raised
40 acres of corn. In May 1835, his wife and two children joined him in his new
home. He was a hatter by trade. In 1836, he opened a grocery and provision
store at his cabin. It was a small stock, not more than would be sufficient to
supply the wants of many families now. He was a natural pioneer, always busy
doing something, and so managing that others would often reap the harvest he
had sowed.
In 1836, the population increased by the
addition of Samuel S. Geer and family, Samuel Geer, Jr. and John Ogle, a son-in-law,
all from Fountain County, Indiana and Elijah Worthington and Julius D. Pratt
from Luzerne County, PA. Both of these, also John Ogle died in the winter of
1839-40, of an epidemic fever then prevailing in the neighborhood.