Another famous visitor to Riverside in its early days was the famed orator and lawyer, Daniel Webster, who stopped here in 1837 on his way home to Boston after surveying some lands in the west. A special committee from Chicago came out to Bourbon Spring to meet him. Among those at the meeting was Garret Forbes, the brother of Stephen Forbes and son of John Forbes who built a log house on the hill overlooking Bourbon Spring. Garret Forbes was later the editor of the Zion Herald in Boston and a lifelong friend of Webster.