the Indian trail back of the house leading up to the higher land in the sugar bush.
The country at the head of the lake was filled with large butternut, walnut, hickory, basswood, ash, sugar maple, white-, black-, and burr-oak trees. The sugar bush, through which a clear, cold brook ran murmuring to its outlet in the lake, was notable for its many butternut trees and was one of the most beautiful spots that could be seen anywhere about the lake. I remember well the large oak tree near my grandfather’s house in which a canoe had been placed holding the remains of a relative[91] of Big Foot,[92] an Indian chief after whom Big Foot Prairie was named. The wood of the softer trees near the farm was used by the Reid family for the rails from which snake fences were made. I remember my father and driver taking stakes from a snake fence and putting them in the mud for my mother to stand on.
In the early days my father and mother in going to Lake Geneva had to go by wagon. When the railroads were built, they took a train to Turner Junction (now West Chicago) located thirty miles west of Chicago, and from there took a wagon to Lake Geneva. Later they went by the same railroad (the Northwestern) to Harvard Junction and from there by wagon to the head of the lake.
At Harvard was located a hotel owned by Elbridge G. Ayer,[93] the father of Edward E. Ayer of this city. This hotel
was a few feet from the track and its dining-room furnished meals to the people traveling on that road. This dining-room was known all over the West, for at that time there was no other that could compete with it. All the vegetables, meat, poultry, and pastry were cooked in the most appetizing manner and the products furnished for the table came fresh from Mr. Ayer’s farm. My father and mother, my brother Will, and I have often taken meals at this hotel on our way from the Junction to the lake. The village of Harvard was afterward beautified by Mr. Ayer’s son, Edward E. Ayer, who planted fourteen hundred trees about it. Most of these are standing today and are an evidence of the public spirit of the donor, which is seen in Chicago in his activities in behalf of the Newberry Library, Field Museum, and other institutions.[94]
My grandmother’s brother, James Drew, a wealthy barrister from London, England, and his wife visited his sister at the head of the lake in 1842. At this time Mrs. Drew made a small water-color drawing of the house and its vicinity which has recently been placed in the Wisconsin Historical Library.
My recollections of Geneva go back to the early fifties. I can remember going with my uncle in a rowboat from the head to the foot of the lake, some eight miles. At that time there were no steamboats on the lake and an unbroken forest covered its shores. The high ground bordering the lake was
about 175 feet above the beach line. The depth of the lake has since been found to be from 80 to 181 feet. The lake is eight miles long and from one to two miles wide. It empties into the Fox River by a deep creek at the east end.
My mother, Ann Hamilton Reid, daughter of William Reid, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, October 23, 1823. She was married to my father, George Manierre, after whom I was named, in Detroit in 1842.
[83] The author’s reminiscences of the Manierre family have been printed in Volume 8 Number 3 of the Illinois State Historical Society Publications.