On a small piece of land that was once part of the property owned by Pierce Downer, founder of Downers Grove, the Downer Cemetery became the resting place of 11 members of the Downer family across four generations. The site is said to be where Downer camped on the first night he spent on his land in 1832, and it was first used for burial in 1863 for Pierce Downer and his wife, Lucy Ann Wilson Downer, after spring rains had swollen St. Joseph Creek and made the village cemetery on Main Street impossible to reach. Pierce Downer, born in Vermont Territory in 1782, came to Downers Grove in 1832 at age 50 as its first pioneer, spent his last 30 years there, and died in 1863 at age 80, one day after the death of his wife. Lucy Ann Wilson Downer, born in Windsor County, Vermont, in 1784, was the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier, married Pierce in 1808, raised four children in Vermont Territory, joined him in the West in 1836 four years after he homesteaded there, lived there for 27 years, and died in March 1863 at age 79. Their son Elon Downer, born in New York in 1827, came to Downers Grove as a small boy, inherited the family farm when his father died, married Ellen Knox in 1858, and was remembered as kind, generous, and faithful; when he died in 1908 at age 81, the village closed its stores during his funeral, and he was carried to the burial ground by pallbearers Rogers, Mochel, Wooten, Leibundguth, Nash, and Palmer. He is buried there with Ellen Knox, born in 1837 and remembered as a tireless worker with a kind disposition, who died in 1917; near them are two of their young children, James, born in 1862 and died in 1867, and LucyAnn, born in 1863 and died in 1864. Also buried there are another daughter, Ada May Lindley, born in 1861 and died in 1890, and her young daughter Eva May Lindley, born in 1884 and died in 1890; after their deaths, Elon planted shade trees around the Main Street railroad station in their honor. James Pierce Downer, son of Elon and Ellen, was born on the family farm in 1869, took over the farm after his parents died, married in 1891, and with his wife Nellie Archer Downer, born in 1871, operated a dairy farm on the homestead until the land was sold in 1924; they then moved to Naperville and were later returned for burial after their deaths in 1951 and 1941. James enjoyed raising flowers and listening to the radio, and Nellie was a faithful church attendee and member of the Ladies Aid Society of Naperville. Earl Downer, son of James and Nellie and great-grandson of Pierce Downer, was born in 1895, served in World War I, was the last person buried there when he died in 1972, and donated the burial ground to the Downers Grove Park District so it would be open to the public.