Note 93 — CONTENTS OF VOLUME I (continued 4)

Elbridge Gerry Ayer, born in Haverhill, Mass., July 25, 1813, came to Wisconsin in 1836. In 1847 he moved to Walworth, going from there to McHenry County, Ill. in 1857, where he founded the town of Harvard. There for eighteen years he and his wife conducted one of the best hotels in the state. During the Civil War they gave without pay food, lodging, and other assistance to the wounded Union soldiers detained in that vicinity. On the occasion of their golden wedding in 1885 Gov. James Lewis of Wisconsin, on behalf of the Wisconsin soldiers, presented to Mr. and Mrs. Ayer a gold cup, now in the museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The inscription is as follows: “Presented to Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Ayer by the Wisconsin soldiers as a token of remembrance and appreciation of the many acts of kindness toward them during the dark days of the Rebellion, from 1861 to 1865, Oct. 29, 1885.”