Rapids of Fox         November 1^th 1831
Mr David Walker
Sir I autherise you to Ishue a lison to solemnise marraige betwn William L. Dunnaphan & my Daugter Eliza yours with Esteem John Green

On November 6, 1831, John Green’s oldest daughter, Eliza, married William Lair Dunavan in La Salle county, Illinois. Five days earlier, Eliza’s father wrote his permission for her to marry, as she was only 17. At this time they were living on the east side of the Fox river, in Rutland township; Dayton was laid out on the west side only in 1837. Eliza and William lived on a farm in Rutland township, where they raised a family of nine children, Albert, Emma, John, Elizabeth, James, Rachel, Celestia, Jesse, and Noah. Celestia died in childhood, Rachel at age 11, and Jesse at 26, but the others all lived to at least 65 and Albert died at age 80.  In 1881, Eliza and William moved to Denton, Texas, where William died in 1889 and Eliza in 1896.

Among the very early marriages in La Salle county are the marriages of three brothers, William, Joseph, and George Dunavan, with three sisters, Eliza, Nancy, and Katherine, the daughters of John Green, founder of Dayton. William and Eliza were the first to marry, on November 6, 1831. Nancy and Joseph followed on January 26, 1834, and finally, Katherine and George married on June 15, 1837. In later years, Noah Letts, the younger half-brother of the Dunavan boys, reached the age where he was thinking about acquiring a wife. His brother Madison’s wife, who was John Green’s sister-in-law, suggested a Trumbo girl, a niece of hers. Noah, knowing that several Trumbos had also married into the Green family, felt that Dayton was full of his relatives and thought that he would look elsewhere for a wife.