[3] Two years later, Orson and his younger brother, Curtis Reed, went further west to what is now the village of Summit, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, where they established a claim and started a farm.
[4] Reed built the first structure in what is now Okauchee Lake, Wisconsin—he constructed a saw mill there in 1839 and 1840, and operated it until 1847, when he sold his ownership.
His mill furnished a large portion of the lumber used in the construction of the Milwaukee & Watertown plank road.
During the 1853 legislative session, he served alongside his brother, Curtis Reed, who was representing Winnebago County.
[5] Throughout the 1850s, Reed remained active in the state, county, and district level Democratic Party conventions.
He was elected to four consecutive terms as chairman of the town of Summit, and was ex officio a member of the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors from 1857 through 1860.
The Reed family were descendants of the colonist Philip Reade, who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in the 1660s.