In 1830, Stephen Van Rensselaer Forbes and his wife, Elvira, came to Chicago from New York to live in the little settlement of Fort Dearborn. Stephen entered into the politics of the frontier town soon after his arrival and was elected Justice of the Peace.

Two years later he became the first elected Sheriff of Cook County, an immense territory which, at that time, extended north to the Wisconsin line and west as far as Belvidere.

Stephen Forbes' fondness for the area along the Aux Plaines (Des Plaines) prompted him to come to Riverside in 1831 and preempt 160 acres of land that included what is now Swan Pond and Riverside Lawn and that ran up to the Indian ford and the Laughton's property.