Biography of George Washington Lee
by William Lee (Albany, Joe Munsell's Sons, 1888)
GEORGE WASHINGTON LEE. He studied for the ministry, having entered at Andover but gave up the idea, and engaged in business in New York City as member successively of the firms of Seaman, Lee & Ward; Lee Brothers; and Lee, Powell & Co. In 1832 he visited Europe for his health, remained there three years, and soon after his return was burned out in the great fire in New York in 1835. Soon after the close of the Black Hawk War, he made a tour of the west; became infatuated with the beauty and richness of the country, and, by a series of brilliant letters published in the N.Y. papers, induced many enterprising citizens to follow him to the lovely Rock River Valley in northern Illinois, where he emigrated in 1837, and founded quite a town called Kishwaukee, on the river of the same name near its juncture with Rock River. After his death it soon lost its importance. He entered actively into politics, and was energetic, enterprising and public-spirited.