The following excerpt came from  the book, "History of Lee Co, Ilinois:

1835 May: "Latter part of May, when not a human habitation marked the landscape, two heavily laden wagons, each drawn by two horses, and containing household goods, a tent, two men, two women and four children, moved slowly onward until they reached some rising ground, sheltered by trees near the banks of Green River, just east of the present locality of Binghamton. . .Their little Thomas, five years old, and Mary, three, with the twins Matthew and Mark, complete the group of the first white inhabitants of Amboy, Lee Co, IL--THE DEXTER FAMILY." (p.25-26.)"

"They first reared a cabin 12 feet square with a shed roof, and in this they lived for some time before building the addition as represented in the engraving. (Pictured in the attachment.) The country around seemed inexpressibly beautiful and Mr. Dexter named the place Palestine, because it seemed to him the Promised Land.  If not "flowing with milk and honey", it yielded wild honey and fruit, and every kind of game in abundance."

"About six miles from Mr. Dexter's cabin lived " a near neighbor" Adolphus Bliss, who had settled there the year before. Mr. Dexter planted a garden and some sod corn and with cows and chickens. . the nearest grist mill was 50 miles away. . .spring. . .Ingals settled three miles east.  (

We hear of Mrs. Dexter lending books, among them the "History of the Reformation" and an ancient Bible in which Mr. Dexter wrote:

"The Bible is the best of books with which this world is blest. 
Take that away and do but look, What nonsense is the rest.
Therefore that Book, the Bible true,
My heart shall ever prize.
And when despise it's truths I do,
May darkness close my eyes.
JOHN DEXTER is my name,
Great Britain is my nation.
Vaughan is my dwelling place,         (Vaughan is a township in what is now Toronto, Canada.)
In Christ I hope for salvation.

March 17, 1833."