Harriet Newell married her second cousin Eldred Thatcher in 1838 in Pennsylvania. Just after the wedding they moved to LaSalle County near Ottawa to take up farming. As the land was swampy and poorly suited to farming, they later moved to the Downers Grove area in 1841. They purchased 40 acres of land here. After Harriet passed away in 1855 her husband moved to town and married two more times. He is buried with his other two wives in the nearby Oak Hill Cemetery.
