The first settlers: three lists, printed against each other

1828 – 1833 · sections from the 1875 atlas

Chapman's list (1880, p. 790): "The first settlers were William and Timothy Moat, who located here about 1828, on section 17. Soon afterward came William Holt, Jesse Skinner, S. L. Cottrell, James Curtis, the Byrkits, Irelands and others." Chapman adds that Nathan W. Young "pre-empted land when the surveyors were at work here, and also carried chain for the Government surveyors," that the first election was held in 1832 with Alpheus Ireland among the first justices of the peace, and that the first church edifice was built in Mishawaka — a pointer the Religion section owns.

Howard's list (1907, vol. 1, p. 294) fixes the Moats' coming "in 1828" and lengthens the roll: William Holt, Jesse Skinner, Samuel L. Cottrell, Jesse Bell, Henry Huntsinger, Jonathan Macy, Jacob, George and Edward Byrkit, James Curtis, John and William Ireland, George W. West, George Eutzler, Joseph Coe, Daniel, David, William and George Hollingshead, Daniel and Samuel Edwards, John McKnight, Braddock and Uriah Chandler, William and Menzo Webster, and Isaac Parks.

The atlas list (1875, p. 89) — the earliest, and the only one with sections: the Moats "came in about 1828 on Sec. 17"; in 1829 William Holt on section 5; 1830, Jesse Skinner and S. L. Cottrell, E. Smith the same year, George Eutzler on section 25; Joseph Coe on section 8; the four Hollingshead brothers on sections 33 and 26; Daniel and Samuel Edwards on sections 5 and 10; John McKnight about 1833 on section 11; Braddock Chandler and his son Uriah, William and Menzo Webster on section 20, and Isaac Parks. The first school-house was built in 1832, and the Pleasant Valley school-house served for church purposes too.

The conflict, printed whole: the Moats arrive "about 1828" (Chapman and the atlas), "in 1828" (Howard), and "in 1829" on the town's history page, which has them coming "presumably… via the St. Joseph River." [TOWN] adds the ground's memory of them: the prairie by the river was Moat's Prairie, after Timothy, and is "now the Eberhart Farm"; and it places George West and his son-in-law Thomas Babcock near Osceola on the Baugo. The township those men settled was organized over them on 6 May 1832 — Penn, one of the county's three original townships, then holding everything east of range 2 east, later cut down by Harris, Madison and parts of Clay, Center and Union until Penn as it stands remained, still the county's largest township at 65½ sections. The settlers without sketches — Moat, Holt, Skinner, Cottrell, Bell, Huntsinger, Macy, West, Coe, Edwards, Chandler, Parks, Young — are carried at this roll size because the record carries them no deeper; the sketched families follow.

Sources:

1. Chapman, p. 790; Howard, vol. 1, pp. 291–295; 1875 Atlas, Penn footnote, p. 89 (OCR-degraded at points; bracketed readings in the evidence).
2. [TOWN] — the town history page's first-settlers passage and Moat's Prairie note.