The Beckwith History states that the Juvinall family was the second to settle in Pilot Township. They arrived in 1827 from Ohio--John, already an old man of sixty-six or seven, with his wife Polly and five unmarried children: David, twenty-seven, his wife Elizabeth and their three children; and Andrew, with his pregnant wife, Mary Jane. Where they settled was an oft-debated questions until recently, when Russ Jarvis called attention to a hole on his property.

They lived along Middle Folk where timber was available. There is only one discription of the original homesite. That is in the biography of James Juvinall, the third son of Andrew, who remembered "how the Indians held meetings at the foot of the hill upon which they lived."

On March 19^th of this year the author, the Claude Juvinalls, and the Virlon Juvinalls, went out to the Jarvis place to look at the hole. As we went up the bluff, it was obvious that it was a perfect place for a pioneer home. Any house built on the bluff was safe from flood, and a level field stretched out behind it to the north. Moreover, the hole was obviously a basement, long since caved in. It would not have been large, perhaps only a dozen feet square originally, but the home-baked bricks were a sure sign of human occupancy. Also, there was a smaller round depression near the most likely location of the door, which would logically have been the well.

……

The recorder's office in the courthouse gives proof that John Juvenall (as he spelled his name then) had purchased that quarter…on July 30, 1828, for $1.25 an acre….

John Juvinall was not the first settler on that land. It had previously occupied by the husband of Anna Johnson. He had not filed on the land, probably because he lacked the money. But he had squatter's rights, and those were highly regarded…. [which led to a lawsuit demonstrating that the above property was the first homestead of the Juvinall family, not the house built c. 1836 higher on the hill].