Dr. Richard Murphy: Helping Frame Early Lake County

Dr. Richard Murphy, a well-educated Irishman and the brother of Mary Dwyer, left Ireland in the 1820s with William and Mary Dwyer, settling first in New York and then Canada and arriving in the area n...

Michael and Bridget Meehan: Blowing the Horn

In the earliest days, the current west Lake Forest area was known as Meehan’s Settlement, after Deerfield Township’s very first European-American settlers, Michael and Bridget Meehan. The Meehans were...

Pioneering West Lake Forest: Michael and Roseanna Yore

Irish immigrant Michael Yore, his wife Roseanna, and their 12 children played an important role in shaping west Lake Forest. The Yores came to the U.S. in 1827. First settling in Salina (Syracuse), Ne...

John and Catherine Cloes: Lake Bluff Pioneers

John and Catherine Cloes and their six year old son Henry were the earliest European settlers to lay claim to land in what is now Lake Bluff. They arrived in 1836 from Germany and claimed over 107 acr...

What's in a Name? Appellations for West Lake Forest

Dating back to the earliest settlers, the growing community in west Lake Forest collected several monikers – official and unofficial.Meehan's SettlementIrish immigrants Michael Meehan and his wife Bri...

O Pioneers: Early European Settlers in West Lake Forest

The first pioneers to settle in west Lake Forest were mostly Irish immigrants. Many had come to Illinois to work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Under the terms of the Treaty of Chicago, by 1836...

St. Patrick Cemetery

The stones in St. Patrick's Cemetery read like a list of west Lake Forest's pioneer families: Atkinson, Barker, Burns, Carolan, Conway, Dawson, Doyle, Fagan, Gibbons, Kennedy, Lancaster, Masterson, Me...

William and Mary Dwyer: Tavern Keepers

William and Mary Dwyer left Ireland in the 1820s and settled first in New York and then Canada. They arrived in the area now known as Lake Bluff in 1837 with their three eldest children, James, Margar...

Atteridge Family

Thomas Atteridge immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in 1837, working on the Illinois and Michigan canal before coming north along the lake shore and building a log cabin in what is now Lake Forest. A...

Steele Family: Farmers Along Waukegan Road

William Steele settled in Lake Forest with his sons in 1838, only five years after a treaty was signed with Native Americans to open up the land for settlement. Originally from Scotland (via Canada, w...

Judge Mary Maxwell Thomas, Ret.

In August of 1987, Mary Maxwell Thomas was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to fill a vacancy as a Circuit Judge of Cook County, Illinois. In 1988 she was elected to that vacancy by over a mill...

Robert McClory: Congressman and Bike Trail Namesake

Not many cyclists know the paved path parallel to the railroad tracks connecting downtown Lake Forest and Lake Bluff is officially the Robert McClory Bike Path. It is named for former U.S. Congressman...

Sylvester Lind: Founder and Four-Time Mayor

Sylvester Lind was a Scottish immigrant who came to Chicago in 1837, in the early days before it was a big city, and found work as a carpenter. He eventually had his own business in Chicago selling lu...

Virginia Fiester Frederick: Forging a Path for Women

Virginia Fiester Frederick was a fashion designer who outfitted hundreds of North Shore women and a politician who served both Lake Forest and the state of Illinois.Born Virginia Heise in 1916, she gr...

Lake Forest map, 1861

Map: Lake Forest and environs, 1861

Lake Forest Legacy: Henry McIntosh

Henry McIntosh was born enslaved on a Kentucky plantation in 1843. After the Civil War broke out, he was forced into wrangling horses for the Confederate Army. McIntosh found a chance to escape, cross...