Lake Forest Was Plenty Busy During the 1876 Centennial

By Laurie Stein

With America’s 250^th birthday coming up in July, we turn our thoughts back to other milestone anniversaries in the history of our town.

The year 1876 marked the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence, America’s “first birthday party” where the nation for the first time took stock of itself as something other than a newcomer on the world stage.

The Farwell family celebrates America's Centennial 150 years ago. 

But Lake Forest itself in 1876 was still something of a newcomer. Just 15 years after its founding, the growing city was home to about 900 inhabitants. Following the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, more Chicagoans had started to look north to Lake Forest to build permanent or summer homes.

Mayor Sylvester Lind, one of Lake Forest’s most enthusiastic advocates and founding fathers, had just lost a second fortune in the fire but was still dedicated to public service. He was in the midst of the second of a town-record four terms. A major issue facing his City Council was the construction of “two-plank” sidewalks throughout town, given how deeply the dirt roads were mired in seasonal dust or mud.

Residents attended one of three local churches: First Presbyterian, African Methodist Episcopal at Maplewood and Washington, or the new St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Illinois Road. Lake Forest Academy had a well-established regional reputation for educating boys, the girls seminary Ferry Hall was gaining traction, and classes at the newly coeducational Lake Forest University just recommenced that year with the support of the Farwell and Durand families, after a nearly 15-year hiatus.

That spring and summer of 1876 was full of major events bringing crowds to Lake Forest. John V. Farwell and other supporters convinced the renowned evangelist Reverend Dwight L. Moody to “emerge from his seclusion” to give a sermon in Lake Forest. He spoke before nearly 1,200 people on May 31 at First Presbyterian Church, which “ordinarily seats a congregation of 600,” according to news reports. It must have been quite a crush.

Also that spring, James Lamb and J. V. Farwell Jr. convinced A. G. Spalding, the owner of the Chicago White Sox, to bring his team to Lake Forest for a game with Lake Forest Academy. Though the match ended 31-1, that lone run was never forgotten by Academy grad and instructor E.J. Bartlett, who could always say he scored on the White Sox.

The Lake Forest Academy commencement ceremony included the Star Spangled Banner and Centennial motto among its decorative themes. Student Walter Farwell gave a recitation entitled “Uncle Sam’s a Hundred.”

The City of Lake Forest observed the Fourth of July with extra flair that year, with a picnic, music and fireworks in addition to tennis, croquet and archery competitions.

Just to the north in Lake Bluff, the summer of 1876 also marked the first worship service of the Lake Bluff Camp Meeting. The previous year, a group of Methodist ministers had purchased 100 lakeside acres to serve as a resort and campground for religious meetings as well as hold cultural and educational programming.

This very first Camp Meeting opened on July 6 and continued through July 14, with hundreds of participants who enjoyed the sermons, services, singing and prayers, as well as special children’s and mothers’ meetings. Attendees met in a huge tabernacle canvas tent with seating for 3,000. Some sheltered overnight in tents organized by church or family; others stayed in a new hotel, which offered milk furnished by the cows of Judge Henry Blodgett, who owned the land that later became Crab Tree Farm.

Several Lake Foresters, among them the John V. and Charles B. Farwell families as well as Mr. and Mrs. F. N. Pratt, traveled to Philadelphia to see the Centennial Exposition, America’s first official world’s fair. It was here that, among other debut inventions, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was demonstrated publicly for the first time.

If he’d only filed his patent a few hours earlier, it might have been Lake Forest University lecturer Elisha Gray exhibiting the telephone to the nation instead of Bell. But that’s another story!