George Davenport

George Davenport
George Davenport, circa 1845
Born	George William King 1783 Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom
Died	July 4, 1845(1845-07-04) (aged 62) Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois, United States
Cause of death	murder
Resting place	Chippiannock Cemetery, Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois
Nationality	English-American
Occupation	sailor, frontiersman, soldier, fur trader, merchant, postmaster, Indian agent, city planner
Employer	U.S. Government, American Fur Company, self employed
Known for	One of the first pioneers to settle in Rock Island, Illinois and one of the co-founders of Davenport, Iowa.
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Colonel George Davenport, born George William King (1783 – July 4, 1845), was a 19th-century English-American sailor, frontiersman, fur trader, merchant, postmaster, US Army soldier, Indian agent, and city planner. A prominent and well-known settler in the Iowa Territory, he was one of the earliest settlers in Rock Island and spent much of his life involved in the early settlement of the Mississippi Valley and the "Quad Cities". The present-day city of Davenport, Iowa, is named after him.

George Davenport was born in 1783 in Lincolnshire, England, becoming an apprentice to his uncle, a merchant captain, and went to sea at an early age. During the next several years, he visited ports in the Baltic as well as in France, Spain, and Portugal. In the fall of 1803, shortly after arriving with a cargo from Liverpool, Davenport was arrested with the rest of his crew while in port at St. Petersburg when the Czarist Russian government acceded to Napoleon's embargo on British vessels (the "Continental System"). Davenport was imprisoned until the spring when he was released and allowed to return to his home country.

Davenport arrived, in New York, the following summer. While in port, he suffered a severe leg injury, while rescuing a fellow sailor who had fallen overboard. As the merchant ship was without a ship's surgeon, he was forced to stay in a hospital, while his ship returned to Liverpool.

George Davenport, while recovering in the New York hospital, on his doctor's advice, decided to settle in America, moving to Rahway, New Jersey, for a time, before enlisting in the United States Army, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1806. Accepting a commission, as sergeant, he was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and assisted in recruiting for the army, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as well as, training recruits at the Carlisle Barracks.