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URBANA TOWNSHIP. This town is bounded on the north by Somers, on the west by Champaign, on the south by Philo, and on the east by St. Joseph; being Town 19, Range 9. The first settlers in the township were one Runnel Fielder, who located on what is now the Roe farm, about the year 1822 or '23, and one Tompkins, who settled about the same time, near where the Union Mills now stand in Urbana City, but which of the two settled first is not known. They were not only the first in the town but the first in the county, as has been stated in the first pages of this work. The Big Grove, which lies mainly within this township, is one of the finest bodies of woodland in the West, and is situated north of the city of Urbana, in the northern portion of the town. Through this grove, and through the town from west to east, runs the Salt Fork, an important tributary of the Vermillion and Wabash rivers, which furnishes unsurpassed facilities to the stock-grower or feeder. The prairie lying mainly in the southern portion of the town, presents to the husbandmaii that variety rarelyfound in the same breadth of territory, from the high rolling lands, through all the grades of undulating surface, to the level orfiat lands, noted for their depth of soil and exhaustless fertility. The first land entered here was by Runnel Fielder, June, 1828, the east half of the north-west quarter of Section 12, Town 19, Range 9, now known as the Roe farm. We have been unable to learn at what time Mr. Fielder left the county, but prdbably about 1830. It was on this farm that the first orchard was planted in the town, and the first house supposed to have been built, and here, too, the first furrow was turned in the county. Prominent among the agriculturists of the town is the name of A. G. Carl, whose fame as a horse breeder extends beyond the limits of the State, and in this department has no superior in the land, and few equals. The farms of Wallace Silvers, Samuel Douglass, George Burton, Thomas Arnold, George Webber, and others, all devoted to mixed husbandry, are models of their class, giving ample proof of the thorough business qualities of the owners.

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