Pilgrims and Pioneers: The Pioneer's Prairie Wildflowers

Welcome To Pilgrims and Pioneers!

After many years of researching my family geneaology I have been lucky enough to discover actual information about my relatives that lived in the Pilgrim Era and the Pioneer Era- while many people also have realtives from those eras- many do not know their names or where they lived- actually seeing the proof in print makes you much more aware of who they really were.
After discovering these relatives it of course made me curious to learn more about the eras that they lived in and what their lives were like as, the history I learned in grade school had long since been forgotten.
I decided to start this blog for others who are also interested in these eras.
Some of the information here will be actual facts about my realtives and some will be information about the eras in general that I have found on the web.
I hope you will enjoy traveling back in time with me!

Monday, March 17, 2008

The Pioneer's Prairie Wildflowers

My Pioneer ancestors came from New England and the South to setttle New Trerritory in the wilds of the Illinois Prairie.

My gggrandparents found the land still wild & untamed. When my ggggrandfather Dow took his wheat to be milled he had to tie strips of rags onto the tree branches and tall foilage to find his way back home. Although there were uncleared timbered areas there was also beautiful long grasses that blew in the wind and over 175 species of wildflowers.

Illinios has several types of prairie soil depending on the region.

Northern Illinois where they settled is known as black soil Prairie or Grand Prairie named such because of the great fertility of the soil.

Some of the plants that can still be seen here today are Purple Coneflower, White Morning Glory, Prairie Phlox, and Prairie Snowdrops.

On the right is Purple Coneflower.

To see pictures of the other prairie flowers scroll down on this page.

Photos courtesy of Illiois wildflowers.info