“Our fathers were pioneers on the prairies of Illinois. There we early learned the lessons of Nature, and recognized and loved the message that the recurring seasons had for us. The flowers of the field and the forest were our companions, and we knew when and where to look for them; we knew the habit and habitat of each, and they were an open book to us. We knew the birds, and were not long in discovering that by their flight and their notes we could tell the season, and almost the hour of the day. When we heard in the field the love-note of the pinnated grouse, or in the woods heard the drumming of his ruffed cousin on the logs, we knew it was time to plough and plant. An approaching storm was announced with certainty by the coming of the quail from his seclusion in the thicket to a position where he could make his message heard. The crooning of the cricket, and the call of the katydid, each had a meaning and message that we understood. These constituted the catechism from which we learned to believe in Deity, and the larger and diviner life for man.” To return to the autobiography: “The farm was about three miles east of the village of Joliet, and the early schools were the ordinary district schools with one teacher for a few months in each year. In winter they used to have spelling contests every week in one of the three schools located at three points of a triangle named Jericho, Babylon, and Bagdad. Harlow had the distinction of being the champion speller when he was so small that he had to stand on a box to be as high as the others in the class. “In order to give his children a better school, Henry Dumont Higinbotham built a house in the village of Joliet about 1855 and moved there. This was his home until his death in 1865. “In 1857 the nineteen-year-old youth accepted a position as bookkeeper and teller in a bank in Joliet, after which he was cashier of the Bank of Oconto, at Oconto, Wisconsin. In 1860 he became entry clerk, bookkeeper and cashier for Cooley, Farwell & Company, wholesale dry-goods dealers in Chicago, a city he had first discovered long before from the top of a load of hay which he had brought there to sell as a boy. In 1862 he left Chicago to go to the Civil War.