Volume XVI contains the opinions and decisions of the Railroad

Commission from February 10, 1915 to November 15, 1915. Reports are given on hundreds of important cases dealing with railway, telegraph, telephone, express, and public utility problems.

Though the task of administering the income tax law is not at all times pleasant or easy, yet, in the opinion of the Wisconsin Tax Commission, “five years of experience have proved the law workable; taxpayers generally comply with its mandates without objection; and the resulting revenue has exceeded all expectations.” A chapter dealing especially with problems in the administration of the income tax law, and a series of tables showing the results of the income assessments of 1913, 1914, 1915, and 1916, form an interesting part of the eighth biennial report of the Wisconsin Tax Commission. This report is a detailed statement of the work of the commission for the years ending June 30, 1915 and June 30, 1916. In addition to the section on the income tax, the chief features of the report are its chapters on “Duties of Tax Commission,” “General Revision of Tax Laws Recommended,” “Assessment and Taxation of Public Service Companies,” “Inheritance Tax,” “Report of Engineers,” “Municipal Statistics,” and “Statistics of Assessments and Taxes.” A thoughtful address by Thomas E. Lyons on the subject “Our Increasing Public Expenditures” is included. Mr. Lyons finds the remedy for the situation in a closer limitation of the taxing and borrowing powers.

The Wisconsin state budget for 1917 was compiled for the use of the legislature of 1917 by the State Board of Public Affairs. In scientific completeness it represents a considerable advance upon former publications of the kind. To aid the legislature in “determining policies, and in working out a definite fiscal program and in the drafting of appropriate measures,” complete information is furnished along six lines. These are as follows: a report of actual receipts and disbursements for the three fiscal years prior to July 1, 1916; departmental estimates of receipts and disbursements for the current year 1916-1917; estimated treasury balances as of July 1, 1917; departmental receipts and disbursements for the biennial period beginning July 1, 1917; appropriations available beginning July 1, 1913; appropriations requested by the state departments, boards, commissions, and institutions for the biennium, beginning July 1, 1917. On January 5, 1917, after hearings and investigations, the Board of Public Affairs issued a typewritten bulletin with its recommendations on the budget. The 344 pages of the budget are mimeographed and bound.

The third biennial report of the Wisconsin Highway Commission deals with the state aid highway operations in the years from January 1, 1914, to January 1, 1916, together with preliminary estimates of operations to December 31, 1916. In the first five years of work under the state aid law, 4,846 miles of all types of roadway have been constructed in Wisconsin; of this mileage, 2,771 miles have been surfaced with various materials; in grading, approximately 10,300,000 cubic yards of earth have been excavated and placed in fills; 8,662 concrete culverts have been built on these roads, containing 100,000 cubic yards of concrete; since July 1, 1911, 2,819 county and state bridges have been constructed in accordance with the plans of the commission; at the height of the working season in 1916 the daily employment in the work included 175 engineers, county highway commissioners, and inspectors, 600 foremen, 6,000 laborers, and 2,500 teams. The daily pay roll for state, counties, and towns was in the vicinity of $22,000. In state aid roads and bridge construction in 1915, there was expended $4,134,830; in 1916, $4,215,183; the report estimates an expenditure of at least $4,600,000 in 1917. The report contains many discussions of phases of the road problem that are of timely importance. Many interesting illustrations of the types of construction built under the state aid law are given.

The address on John Muir delivered by President Van Hise upon the occasion of the unveiling of a bronze bust of the famous naturalist at the University of Wisconsin has been published as a small eighteen page pamphlet. At the age of eleven Muir came to America from Scotland with his father, and settled on a farm a few miles from Portage. He spent four years at the University of Wisconsin, maintaining himself by “doing odd jobs during the term and working in the harvest, fields in the summer.” In speaking of his departure from Madison, Muir writes in his book _My Boyhood and Youth_, “But I was only leaving one university for another, the Wisconsin University for the University of Wilderness.” President Van Hise gives an eloquent account and interpretation of the life of this noted son of Wisconsin. “The great public service of John Muir,” writes President Van Hise, “was leading the nation through his writings to appreciate the grandeur of our mountains and the beauty and variety of their plant and animal life, and the consequent necessity for holding forever as a heritage for all the people the most precious of these great scenic areas. Probably to his leadership more than to that of any other man is due the adoption of the policy of national parks.”

_History of the Civil War Military Pensions, 1861-1885_ is the title of a bulletin recently issued by the University of Wisconsin in its _History Series_ (vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-120). It is the doctor’s thesis of John William Oliver. As the title indicates it is a survey beginning with the reorganization of the pension system as a consequence of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, and it carries the study through a period of twenty-four years. Beginning with a description of the situation before the Civil War, the author examines the succession of acts passed between 1861 and 1870, and the various administrative problems occasioned by the war. “By 1871,” writes Mr. Oliver, “it appears as if Congress had extended the benefits of the pension laws so as to include all possible claimants. Within ten years, over 261,000 Civil War pensioners had been added to the rolls, and the Government had already paid out more than $152,000,000 for their benefit.” The enactment of many contradictory laws led to the codification act of 1873. This act is described in the second chapter of the book, together with attempts at reforming the pension system. A third chapter discusses the act passed January 25, 1879, providing for the payment of arrears----“the most significant and far-reaching piece of pension legislation enacted during the period covered” in the study. The effects of this act may be seen in the increase, during the first six years after its passage, of the number of pensioners from 223,998 to 345,125, and in the amount expended annually from $27,000,000 to $68,000,000. The last chapter of the bulletin deals with the relation of pensions and politics, which assumed considerable importance in the years following the Arrears Act. At the conclusion of the thesis, development to 1885 is summarized. A later monograph is promised, to treat of the new epoch which the pension system then entered.

The biennial report of the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin for the years 1914-15 and 1915-16 consists largely of the report of the President, followed by reports of deans, directors, business manager, and other officers. The President’s report contains two main divisions: “The Progress of the University,” and “The Needs of the University.” The faculty numbered 389 in 1913-14. The number increased to 437 in 1915-16. In the year preceding the biennium the total number of students, including the short course and summer sessions, was 6,765. The number increased to 7,596 in 1914-15, and to 7,624 in 1915-16. Though the survey conducted by the Board of Public Affairs resulted in controversy, and led to no direct results, yet in consequence of a spirit of self-inquiry at the University a large committee was appointed by the faculty in the autumn of 1915, which was divided into a number of special committees to consider means of improving the University in undergraduate instruction, research, graduate, and field work, foreign language requirements, faculty organization, faculty records, and University physical plant. As a result of this inquiry, new legislation to be put in effect during the next biennium is expected materially to improve the efficiency of the University. These subjects are considered in some detail in the report. The needs of the University are discussed under the heads of salaries, and constructional needs. The varied activities of the University may be comprehended by a study of the many departmental and other statements included in the report.

The first annual report of the state chief engineer of Wisconsin issued in March, 1917, reveals the enormous work that has been taken over by that department. Five separate divisions known respectively as the railroad and utility, the highway, the architectural, the power plant, and the sanitary divisions have been established, and special experts placed in charge of each. The railroad and utility division was faced with duties greater than those of any other department. In making a physical valuation of all the steam railroads in Wisconsin it was found that there are over 11,000 miles of track in the state. The cost of the rolling stock, terminals, stores, and other equipment exceeds $385,000,000. The twenty-eight electric railways of the state have over 400 miles of track, with properties valued at $57,000,000. The state highway division reported that over $3,600,000 had been expended for state aid construction of roads in 1916. Over a half million dollars was spent in state aid bridge construction and 352 bridges of all types were built. The architectural division has formulated a standard for contracts, plans and specifications for labor and material to be used by the different institutions of the state. The power plant division supervises the operation of the various state plants, the purchase of fuel, specifies the plans for construction work and examines all bids. The sanitary division, aside from conducting the investigation of different water supplies, drainage, and sewage systems, is also vitally interested in enlightening the public upon the importance of sanitation.

According to the _Twentieth Annual Report_ of the Building and Loan Association there are seventy-seven such organizations in Wisconsin. The past two years have been unusually profitable for them. Their total assets amount to $16,873,000 which was an increase of $2,500,000 over the previous year. Their membership now numbers 45,891, showing a 21 per cent increase over the preceding year. Although their business showed a considerable increase, yet the report states in some cases money was so plentiful that it could not always be loaned with profit.

That there exists among the farmers of this state an unusually strong system of coöperation is proved by a bulletin issued by the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin in July, 1917. The industries that are managed on a coöperative basis in this state do an annual business amounting to more than $62,000,000. The creamery industry leads all the others, and in 1916 those plants that were run on a coöperative plan did business amounting to over $19,000,000. The two organizations that are most instrumental in promoting this spirit of coöperation are the American Society of Equity and the Grange. The former has a membership in Wisconsin now in excess of 12,000, while the Grange societies have over 2,200 names on their rolls. In addition to these two organizations there are sixteen others listed that tend to promote unity among the farmers of the state. The most important ones mentioned are the National Agricultural Organization, the farmers’ mutual insurance companies, the community breeders’ associations, feed and elevator companies, coöperative creameries, packing plants and others. The coöperative organizations are so numerous throughout the state that but few farmers can be found who are not identified with one or more of the agencies. The day of individualism among Wisconsin farmers is fast disappearing.

The sixteenth edition of the _Manual for Elementary Course of Study_ in the schools of Wisconsin was issued in July, 1917. The state superintendent of public instruction has rendered a valuable service by discussing many pedagogical questions and in making concrete suggestions to the teachers. The object of the department was to place in the hands of each teacher a brief pedagogical treatise in connection with the subject matter to be taught. This report combines what may rightly be called a textbook on pedagogy with a state manual. More than ever the department of education is emphasizing the importance of bringing about a closer relationship between teacher and pupil, and some very practical and simple suggestions are laid down for promoting this relationship. The method for teaching children how to study properly, the importance of careful assignments of lessons, and the manner in which recitations can be made interesting and spicy are all discussed in a practical way. The policy of reducing the number of daily recitations is suggested, and the combining of classes most closely related is advised, especially in rooms where the work is crowded.

In a leaflet issued by the State Council of Defense, July, 1917, announcement is made of a course of instruction to be given for health aides in several of the larger hospitals of the state. The plan is to offer six months of intensive training to young women in order to prepare them to care for the civilian sick when the regular registered nurses are drawn into military hospitals. The cost of training, board, lodging, and laundry bills will all be paid by the State Council of Defense. In return for this instruction each of the successful candidates is required to sign an agreement to attend the sick in the state of Wisconsin for a period of two years after completing the six months’ course. The first training school was opened at the Milwaukee County Hospital, Wauwatosa, July 1, 1917.

SOME PUBLICATIONS

MERK, FREDERICK. _Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade._ Publications of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin _Studies, Vol. I._ Published by the Society, Madison, 1916. Pp. 414.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has inaugurated its series of _Studies_ by the most elaborate work of constructive history it has published, which is also the most comprehensive treatment of the economic history of any state during the constitutional period, taking rank with Bruce’s _Virginia_ and Weeden’s _New England_. The author has produced a book which is of interest not only to the state with which it deals, but to every student of American history.

The American state, at least today and in the West, is an artificial unit, whose political separateness barely justifies that exclusive devotion of the historical student which the vastness of the United States seems to render necessary if the roots of our life are to be discovered. To recognize the influence of national conditions, without making the treatment national, to individualize the community without making it appear a detached entity, requires a variety of skill which can not be produced by scientific study alone, but demands also real literary ability. This skill Merk clearly possesses, and he has created an impression of an economic life, distinctly confined to the area of the state, yet part of that of the Union, and in touch with that outside the national limits. He is fully conscious of the importance of Wisconsin wheat in our relations with Great Britain, and of the interstate functions of a medium of exchange, but he is not betrayed into a discussion of diplomacy or of national banking.

A similar difficulty is always presented when one attempts a cross-section of any history, for periods are even more artificial than state lines. Economically the “Decade” of the Civil War does not have those distinguishing features which are generally used to mark off, for convenience of study, one set of years from another. Doubtless the consideration which determined the selection was again artificial, the United States system of decennial censuses. Mr. Merk, however, allows himself more latitude in this case, and his work actually covers the real economic period, 1857 to 1873.

The chronological difficulty is intensified by the rapid changes of a new community. Wheat growing reaches its apex and declines, lumbering waxes, but neither begins nor culminates, movements feebly originate that are later of absorbing interest. The adjustment of proportions between these conflicting interests is delicately handled. The picture is that of the time, but the stage in the development of each industry is clearly indicated, and the origins of later movements given in some detail. The volume will afford a base for histories of the earlier and later periods, but has not skimmed their cream.

The technical character of the work is high. Newspapers and statistics were not only used, but are analyzed. The great resources of the State Historical Society were supplemented by personal interviews. The volume contains ample footnotes, illustrations, a map, index, but no bibliography. Its make-up is in the new, and more satisfactory, form recently adopted by the Society.

The title indicates that the center of interest is the effect of war on the Wisconsin community. This problem runs throughout, and is of especial interest today. Mr. Merk emphasizes the relative facility of adjustment in an agricultural community. Another general feature is the tendency toward coöperation in industry, particularly agriculture, for the purposes of education and general improvement, which later became so characteristic of Wisconsin.

Agriculture properly opens the volume with its vital but somewhat monotonous progress enlivened by the lively episode of hops. Lumbering receives fewer pages, but two chapters; the first, on the industry, the second, on the lumber wars. Railroads receive five chapters and almost as many pages as both, including two picturesque fights, which formed, in large measure, the basis of state politics during the period. Banking and trade about equal agriculture, and reveal a state youthful but less reckless than many others. A chapter on labor is chiefly concerned with the beginnings of the labor movement, labor in industry being largely discussed in connection with the various fields. There are other chapters on mining, manufacturing, the commerce of the Upper Mississippi, and the commerce of the Great Lakes. No one reading of the lumber wars or the Anti-Monopoly Revolt can complain that economic history is dry.

The most unique contribution is doubtless that on the history of lumbering. Nevertheless the study of railroading reveals the advantages in taking up so vast a subject by localities. Generalizations become vivid by the detail that is given them. One sees how the railroads were unscrupulous, how the voters were unreasonable. The handling of such questions on a scale that involves personalities is a searching test of historical poise, and Mr. Merk shows a candor and a fair-mindedness that are impeccable; he sometimes criticizes action, but never impugns the motive.

The reviewer hesitates to close without adverse criticism, for fear that the review may be considered perfunctory. He could not, with honesty, do otherwise than express his conviction that the work is unusual in the degree and the well-rounded proportion of its excellence. If anything more could be desired, it seems to be a concluding chapter, not to add new facts, but to give a greater sense of development. Each chapter moves, but the topical method brings its inevitable result; one cannot entirely escape the impression of a street corner rather than a river bank.

CARL RUSSELL FISH.

Two of the four leading articles in the October number of the _American Historical Review_ are by Wisconsin men. Prof. Herbert E. Bolton, now of California, discusses “The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies.” Prof. W. T. Root, of the University of Wisconsin, writes of “The Lords of Trade and Plantations.” Other leading articles in the magazine are “A Case of Witchcraft” by George L. Kittredge, and “The History of German Socialism Reconsidered” by Prof. C. J. H. Hayes.

The September number of the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ contains three articles of special interest to Wisconsin readers. The first, “The Rise of Sports,” by Prof. Frederic Logan Paxson, curator of the Society, was delivered as the recent annual presidential address before the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. It traces in interesting fashion the development in America between 1876 and 1893 of a widespread interest in out-of-door exercise. B. H. Schockel writes on the “Settlement and Development of the Lead and Zinc Mining Region with Special Emphasis on Jo Daviess County, Illinois.” The district treated of consisted of Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette Counties in Wisconsin, and of Jo Daviess County, Illinois. Although the latter county affords the particular locus for the study, it applies with almost equal force to the three counties of southwestern Wisconsin included in the lead mining district. Finally, Prof. James A. James, of Northwestern University, writes on “Spanish Influence in the West during the American Revolution.”

The Wisconsin Archeological Society has recently issued two reports, one describing the antiquities of Green Lake, the other describing the early Indian remains of Shawano County. The latter report is based upon the recent surveys made of the Shawano Lake and Wolf River Region by George R. Fox, a former resident of Wisconsin, but now a curator of the Chamberlain Museum in Three Oaks, Michigan. The Society is now making an earnest effort to preserve a fine Indian mound on the shore of Lake Anderson, in Forest County. This mound, 10 feet high and 45 feet in diameter, stands at the edge of an old Indian village site and is the only one in that part of the country. Relic hunters have already begun to dig into it, and the state Archeological Society, realizing its historic value, is urging the owner to preserve it permanently and mark it with a descriptive tablet.

The first issue of the _Michigan History Magazine_ published by the Michigan Historical Commission appeared in July, 1917. Like similar magazines, its chief purpose is that of serving as an historical news bulletin, and as a medium of publication for papers of historical interest. The first number contains five contributed articles, with sections devoted to historical news, notes, and comments. One of the features to be mentioned is that of securing reports from all the county and local historical societies regarding their activities. Since the local societies cannot support a joint publication, this method offers a good substitute. By this exchange of news, each society is kept in touch with the proceedings of the other. A contributed article of more than ordinary merit appears in the first issue by Rev. F. X. Barth on “The Field for the Historian in the Upper Peninsula.” Aside from indicating the numerous points of historical interest found in the Upper Peninsula, many of which are shared jointly by Wisconsin, the paper presents one of the strongest appeals for the value of local history study that can be found anywhere. It is recommended to every reader of our Society.

Dr. George N. Fuller, Secretary of the Michigan Historical Commission, is the author of a new book entitled the _Economic and Social Beginnings of Michigan_. The study deals with the settlement of the Lower Peninsula during the territorial period from 1805 to 1837. Doctor Fuller has given special attention to the purely economic conditions that existed in the Michigan Territory until her admission into the Union. It is by far the most interesting and authentic volume on the early history of Michigan that has appeared. The work is richly illustrated and is printed in large, readable type.

The Michigan Historical Commission proposes to reproduce by photostatic process the rare files of the _Kentucky Gazette_, 1787-1800, and the Detroit _Gazette_, 1817-1830. Of the former, but one file is known to exist, that in the Lexington Public Library. Of the latter file, the Wisconsin Historical Library possesses six bound volumes, covering over one-half of the total period. It is proposed to issue ten sets of each paper for as many subscribing libraries.

The Filson Club of Louisville has issued as number twenty-eight of its publications _The Kentucky River_ by Mary Verhoeff. In this and other similar studies supported by the Filson Club, Kentucky is accumulating a valuable history of her state development. River navigation played a larger part in the early history of Kentucky than in almost any other of the western states. Miss Verhoeff’s chapter on the “Beginnings of River Commerce” contains one of the most interesting discussions of trade in the early Ohio Valley that has recently appeared. The study is profusely illustrated, consisting of six chapters and 257 pages. In marked contrast with the expensive volumes that thus far have been issued by the Filson Club, the present one appears in a most simple dress with covers of heavy paper.

Mr. A. C. Quisenberry has an interesting article in the September number of the _Register_ of the Kentucky State Historical Society on the “History of Morgan’s Men.” There are few chapters in the military history of the Confederacy that compare in interest with the swift, dashing raids of Generals Morgan and Forrest. There are many historical readers who do not know that the southern forces ever came north of the Ohio during the conflict between the states. But during the summer of 1863 the citizens of Indiana and Ohio were given the greatest scare they ever experienced when General Morgan led 2,000 men in a mad dash across these two states and reached Columbia County, Ohio, where surrounded by over 80,000 regulars, volunteers, and home guards, he surrendered. Mr. Quisenberry’s article gives us a praiseworthy review of this brilliant raid.

One of the most important publications of original documents that has recently appeared relating to the southwestern portion of the United States and Louisiana Territory is the collection of the official letter books of Gov. William C. C. Claiborne, edited by Dr. Dunbar Rowland of the Mississippi Historical Society. Governor Claiborne was perhaps the most important man in the entire Southwest from 1803 to 1817. He touched American life at many vital points, and his correspondence during the years in which he served as Governor of that vast territory is filled with observations and suggestions that relate to every important activity of the Southwest. The letters now made available for the first time comprise the chief source material from which the history of that significant section of American history must be written. The letters fill six octavo volumes, personally edited by Dr. Dunbar Rowland.

With the passing of the American frontier and the rapid settlement of every habitable portion of the western states, the present generation of readers welcomes with interest the personal reminiscences of those who figured in such epoch-making events. The death of Col. William F. Cody, more widely known as Buffalo Bill, marks the passing of the most famous and picturesque character of his time. In his autobiography entitled _Buffalo Bill’s Own Story_ published by John R. Stanton, 1917, we have a vivid and in many respects an historical work of no slight importance. Mr. William Lightfoot Visscher who for two score years was a boon companion of Colonel Cody adds a chapter dealing with the incidents attending the last days of the noted pioneer, and an account of his death and burial. No man in all America could approach Colonel Cody in popularizing the events that played so prominent a part in the passing of the Indian and the westward migration of the whites. As scout, Pony express rider, Indian fighter, law maker, and showman he became an international character, and the dramatic events that marked such a career have passed from the active stage of western history.

The September, 1917 issue of the _Georgia Historical Quarterly_ has as its leading article a biographical sketch of Mrs. Eleanor Kinzie Gordon, of Savannah, recently deceased, granddaughter of John Kinzie, the well-known Indian trader of early Chicago. Mrs. Gordon’s father, John Harris Kinzie, was sub-Indian agent for the Winnebago, stationed at Fort Winnebago for several years prior to 1834. To this frontier fort her mother, a cultivated New England girl, was brought as a bride in the year 1830. She is best known to later times by her charming book _Wau Bun_, a semi-historical narrative of family traditions and personal experiences in the early northwest. Its contents deal for the most part with the author’s life at Fort Winnebago and the book may fairly be regarded as a classic of early Wisconsin literature. Mrs. Gordon, the daughter, was born in Chicago in 1835. In early womanhood she married a citizen of Georgia and so for upwards of sixty years her home has been in that state.

Within the last few years Henry Ford has won for himself a place in the heart of the American public fairly comparable to that achieved long since by Thomas A. Edison, who, like Ford, was a Michigan boy. A good biography of Ford would be welcomed, we believe by thousands of Americans, not including those who own Ford cars. “Henry Ford’s Own Story” as told to Rose Wilder Lane (New York, 1917) is a hastily constructed narrative put together in characteristic reportorial fashion and frankly laudatory in character. Nevertheless it presents the essential facts about the noted manufacturer’s career, reads interestingly, and should at least serve to whet the appetite of the reading public for a biography which should be really worthy of its unique subject.

Bulletin of Information No. 87 of the Society, which has recently come from the press, is an account of “The Public Document Division of the Wisconsin Historical Library.” The immediate purpose of the bulletin is to serve as a guide to our own public document division. The full treatment which the author (Mrs. Anna W. Evans, chief of the document division of the library) has given the subject of the bulletin, however, should render it a valuable bibliographic aid to any library or student who has occasion to deal with American or British public documents. Members and friends of the Society will be pleased to know that our collection of public documents is believed to be the best west of the Alleghanies and to take high rank among the leading collections of the entire country. In the treatise under discussion the author has especially sought to emphasize the friendly, human qualities of the contents of the documents entrusted to her care. She has fully succeeded in realizing her aim.

A history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, it is understood, is shortly to be issued by the Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago.

_A Son of the Middle Border_, by Hamlin Garland, published by the Macmillan Company of New York, is a narrative of unusual interest to Wisconsin readers. In it the author tells the story of his early life, first on a “coulee” farm in western Wisconsin, later as an emigrant (with his parents) successively to northern Iowa and the Dakotas. Many of those of maturer years who read the book will find depicted in it with extraordinary clearness scenes and conditions of a life, now largely vanished, which they themselves have shared in earlier years.

A survey made by the United States Department of Agriculture in December, 1916, on the number of silos in this country shows that Wisconsin leads all other states in the Union. Out of a grand total of 333,160, Wisconsin had 55,992. New York was second with 42,846. The past year saw several thousand more silos constructed in Wisconsin, and the Agricultural Department of the State Council of Defense estimates the number will now reach 60,000. The average capacity of Wisconsin silos is 120 tons, while those of New York average but 62 tons.

The State Historical Society of Iowa has begun the publication of a series of pamphlets issued under the general caption _Iowa and War_. The object of the Society is “to present in attractive form a series of small pamphlets dealing with a variety of subjects relating to interesting matters connected with the history of Iowa.” Volume I, number 1, published in July is devoted to an account of “Old Fort Snelling” by Marcus L. Hansen. Old Fort Snelling belongs to the Upper Mississippi Valley in general and Mr. Hansen’s account of it should possess as much interest for citizens of Wisconsin as for those of Iowa. “Enlistments from Iowa during the Civil War,” by John E. Biggs is published in No. 2 for August. No. 3, for September, contains an account of “The Iowa Civil War Loan,” written by Ivan L. Pollock.

Since the declaration of war by the United States upon Germany, the study of military history in this country has practically monopolized the attention of historical investigators. The leading article in the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_ for July, 1917, deals with “Enlistments during the Civil War.” Like Wisconsin and other northern states, Iowa found herself utterly unprepared for a war. The writer states that at the beginning of the conflict in 1861, there was not a single unit of the regular army in Iowa, nor were there any forts or garrisons. There was not a military post in the state and the nearest arsenal was in St. Louis. A discussion of the draft and its administration in Iowa forms a valuable part of the study.

C. W. Johnston, a Des Moines lawyer of thirty years standing, “concluded to discontinue and enter upon a period of travel.” _Along the Pacific by Land and Sea_ (Chicago, 1916) contains a series of breezy letters which he wrote back to the Des Moines _Register and Leader_. They contain the reactions of this son of the Middle West toward the new environment afforded by a visit, apparently his first, to various cities on the Pacific coast. Through dint of reiterated remarks on the subject the reader leaves the book with the not entirely valid conviction that one of the “certainties” for which Des Moines bears the palm among her sister cities is that of being the dirtiest place in the United States.

The importance of religious denominations in the growth of our State and national history is being recognized more and more by historical students. In the _Indiana Magazine of History_, June, 1917, appears an interesting article by Rev. Elmo A. Robinson entitled “Universalism in Indiana.” While the writer deals primarily with the growth of that denomination in Indiana, yet mention is also made of the influences of Universalism in the other states of the Old Northwest. A review of the proceedings of the Northwest Conference of Universalists shows that the Wisconsin delegates figured prominently in the activities of this denomination.

VOL. I, NO. 3 MARCH, 1918

THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. Edited by MILO M. QUAIFE, Superintendent

CONTENTS

Page

A WISCONSIN WOMAN’S PICTURE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN _Cordelia A. P. Harvey_ 233

THE DUTCH SETTLEMENTS OF SHEBOYGAN COUNTY _Sipko F. Rederus_ 256

PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF BELOIT AND SOUTHERN WISCONSIN _Lucius G. Fisher_ 266

DOCUMENTS: Chicago Treaty of 1833: Charges preferred against George B. Porter; Letter from George B. Porter to President Andrew Jackson 287

HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS: The Disputed Michigan-Wisconsin Boundary; An Early Wisconsin Play 304

EDITORIAL: The Professor and the Finger Bowl; The Printing of Historical Publications; Is War Becoming More Horrible?; Some Leaves from the Past; The Development of Humanitarianism; Other Agencies; Some Facts and Figures; Bravery Then and Now; Schrecklichkeit 309

QUESTION BOX: The First Settler of Baraboo; The Chippewa River during the French and British Régimes; The Career of Colonel G. W. Manypenny; Treaty Hall and Old La Pointe 319

COMMUNICATIONS: More Light on the Originator of “Winnequah”; A History of Our State Flag 327

SURVEY OF HISTORICAL ACTIVITIES: The Society and the State; Some Wisconsin Public Documents; Some Publications 330

The Society as a body is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in the following pages by contributors.

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN

A WISCONSIN WOMAN’S PICTURE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

CORDELIA A. P. HARVEY

Hundreds of loyal women labored devotedly during the Civil War ministering to the needs of the northern soldiers. Of them all, none worked more effectively or earned a larger measure of appreciation and devotion on the part of those she served than Mrs. Cordelia A. P. Harvey, wife of Governor Lewis Harvey of Wisconsin. After his tragic death by drowning at Savannah, Tennessee, while engaged in a mission of mercy to Wisconsin’s wounded soldiers, Mrs. Harvey conceived the idea that it was her duty to carry forward the work that her husband had left unfinished. In September, 1862, Governor Salomon appointed her sanitary agent at St. Louis, and until the end of the war she continued in this service. Some idea of her methods and of their effectiveness may be gained from the narrative which follows. What the soldiers thought of her is sufficiently indicated by the title “The Angel of Wisconsin,” which they bestowed upon her.

The narrative we print is from Mrs. Harvey’s typewritten copy of a lecture which she delivered following the close of the war. This manuscript the owner, Mrs. James Selkirk of Clinton, Wisconsin, permitted the Wisconsin History Commission to copy a few years since, and it was made the basis, in large part, of chapters VIII and IX of Hurn’s _Wisconsin Women in the War between the States_, published by the commission in 1911. Prior to this the portion of the paper pertaining to President Lincoln was drawn upon by J. G. Holland in preparing his life of Lincoln. Thus the paper has twice been drawn upon freely for publication. Notwithstanding this, the complete story in Mrs. Harvey’s own words is sufficiently interesting and important to justify its publication at this time. In the preparation of the narrative for publication a few changes in punctuation and typography have been made, and one paragraph, clearly interpolated for the benefit of the lecturer’s younger hearers, has been deleted. These things aside, the story is now printed for the first time just as Mrs. Harvey composed it.

* * * * *

Perhaps it is not well to open too frequently the deep wells of past sorrow that we may drink the bitter draughts which memory offers. Still, we would not forget the past--our glorious past--with all its terrible trials, its untold sufferings, its unwritten history. The Christian never forgets the dying groans on Calvary that gave to him his soul’s salvation; neither can an American citizen forget the great price paid for the life and liberty of this nation. Next to love of God is love of country.

It is not my object to awaken any morbid feelings of sentimental sorrow, or to open again the deep wounds which time has healed. Neither do I wish to serve up to an unhealthy imagination a dish of fearful horrors from which a healthy organization must turn away. I would only ask you to look at the shadows a little while, that the life and light of peace and plenty which now fill our land may by contrast impress upon your hearts a picture more beautiful than any artist could place on canvas. Shadows always make the light more beautiful.

In the fall of 1862 I found myself in Cape Girardeau, where hospitals were being improvised for the immediate use of the sick and dying then being brought in from the swamps by the returning regiments and up the rivers in closely crowded hospital boats. These hospitals were mere sheds filled with cots as thick as they could stand, with scarcely room for one person to pass between them. Pneumonia, typhoid, and camp fevers, and that fearful scourge of the southern swamps and rivers, chronic diarrhea, occupied every bed. A surgeon once said to me, “There is nothing else there: here I see pneumonia, and there fever, and on that cot another disease, and I see nothing else! You had better stay away; the air is full of contagion, and contagion and sympathy do not go well together.”

One day a woman passed through these uncomfortable, illy-ventilated, hot, unclean, infected, wretched rooms, and she saw something else there. A hand reached out and clutched her dress. One caught her shawl and kissed it, another her hand, and pressed it to his fevered cheek; another in wild delirium, cried, “I want to go home! I want to go home! Lady! Lady! Take me in your chariot, take me away!” This was a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy of the South, who had left family and friends forever; obeying his country’s call, he enlisted under the stars and stripes because he could not be a traitor. He was therefore disowned, and was now dying among strangers with his mother and sisters not twenty miles away; and they knew that he was dying and would not come to him. Father, forgive them, they knew not what they did.

As this woman passed, these “diseases,” as the surgeon called them, whispered and smiled at each other, and even reached out and took hold of each others’ hands, saying, “She will take us home, I know her; she will not leave us here to die,” not dreaming that hovering just above them was a white robed one, who in a short time would take them to their heavenly home.

This woman failed to see on these cots aught but the human [beings] they were to her, the sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers of anxious weeping ones at home; and as such she cared for and thought of them. Arm in arm with health, she visited day by day every sufferer’s cot, doing, it is true, very little, but always taking with her from the outside world fresh air, fresh flowers, and all the hope and comfort she could find in her heart to give them. Now and then one would totter forth into the open air, his good constitution having overcome disease, and the longings for life so strong within him that he grasped at straws, determined to live. If perchance he could get a furlough, in a few weeks a strong man would return and greet you with, “How do you do, I am on my way to my regiment!” Who this stranger might be, you could never imagine until reminded by him of the skeleton form and trembling steps you had so recently watched going to the landing, homeward bound. But if, as was too frequently the case, he was sent to convalescent camps, in a few weeks he was returned to hospital, and again to camp, and thus continued to vibrate between camp and hospital until hope and life were gone. This was the fate of thousands.

On a steamer from Cape Girardeau to Helena at table one day when the passengers were dining, among whom were several military officers, I heard a young major of the regular army very coolly remark that it was much cheaper for the government to keep her sick soldiers in hospitals on the river than to furlough them. A lady present quietly replied, “That is true, Major, if all were faithful to the government, but unfortunately a majority of the surgeons in the army have conscientious scruples, and verily believe it to be their duty to keep these sick men alive as long as possible. To be sure, their uneaten rations increased the hospital fund and so enabled your surgeons generously to provide all needed delicacies for the sick, but the pay was drawn by the soldiers from the government all the same. Don’t you think, Sir, it would be a trifle more economical,” continued the lady, “to send these poor fellows north for a few weeks, to regain their strength, that they might return at once to active service?” The laughter of his brother officers prevented my hearing his reply.

This young officer was the medical director at Helena, where I found over two thousand graves of Northeners. Two-thirds of these men might have been saved, could they have been sent north. The surgeon in charge of the general hospital, when asked why he did not furlough some of the men from his over-crowded hospitals, replied that he had at one time and another made out certificates of disability for furlough for nearly every man in his hospital and for hundreds who rested on the nearby hill, but when sent for the signature and approval of the medical director, they had invariably been returned, disapproved; that he had also permitted the men themselves to go with their papers, only to have them severely reproved and ordered back to hospital, and, said he, with tears in his eyes, “many of them never returned, for, broken-hearted, they have lain down by the roadside and died.”

I once heard a person who had been instrumental in giving a dying boy back to his mother, that she might nurse him back to life, relate how it was done. The mother had succeeded in getting her son as far as St. Louis where his papers were to be sent. They came in the usual way to the medical director, were all wrong, of course--not made out according to army regulations and must therefore be returned to his regiment, which was somewhere with Sherman and could not be reached. The mother received the papers with that fearful word “disapproved” written upon them. There was nothing to do but to place her sick son in a St. Louis hospital, and leave him there to die; she must return to her family. She told her story with streaming eyes and a broken heart. The woman impulsively said, “Give me the papers,” and off she went to the medical director’s office. He was a man full six feet high, over fifty years of age, a head like Oliver Cromwell’s, a face stern as fate, and of the regular army. She entered his presence, seated herself, and waited to be spoken to.

Soon it came with, “What do you want?”

“To talk with you a moment, General,” she replied.

“No time for talking.”

“I will wait,” she said.

He wrote a few moments, then said, “May as well hear it now as ever--what is it?”

“I would like to ask you if you had a son in this volunteer service, sent up from the South as far as St. Louis, sick and like to die, and some ignorant, careless officer had made out his furlough papers wrong--”

“What do you want!”

“--would you not be glad, if you were away, if your poor boy could find a friend?”

“What do you want, I say? This is nothing to the purpose.”

“Do you not think that friend ought to do all she could to save your boy?”

“What is all this nonsense?”

“Only this: a poor mother is at the Soldiers’ Home with her dying son. The physicians say he may live if he is sent north, but will surely die if left here. His furlough papers have been sent on, and I have seen them, and know they are wrong. His regiment is with Sherman on the march. Cannot something be done for the boy--for his mother?”

“We have the army regulations, we cannot go behind them. You know if I do, they will rap me over the knuckles at Washington.”

“Oh, that your knuckles were mine. I would be willing to have them skinned; the skin would grow again, you know.”

“Where are these papers?” he said sharply.

“I have them here in my pocket.”

“Let me see them.”

The woman took them slowly out, blank side upwards, and gave them to him. He turned them and his face flushed as he said, “Why I have had these papers and disapproved them. This is my signature.”

She replied tremblingly, “I knew it, but forgive me. I thought maybe when you knew about it, General--and the mother was weeping with the skeleton arms of her boy around her neck--I thought maybe you would do something or tell me something to do.”

“Suppose I do approve these papers, it will do no good. The general in command will stop them and censure me.”

“But you will have done all you could and have obeyed the higher law.”

In the meantime this truly noble man had firmly crossed out his own words and signature, and rewritten under it words of approval, and in a quick, husky tone, said, “Take it and don’t you come here again today.” As the woman raised her eyes to thank him, she saw a scowl on his brow, but a smile on his lips, and a tear in his eye.

“The general in command,” said she in relating the story, “never went behind the medical director’s signature. The boy started for home that night with his mother, full of hope.”

Not long after this an incident occurred showing how easily man yields to the higher law when once he makes humanity his standpoint. An erring boy of nineteen, who had deserted from a Minnesota regiment, changed his name, enlisted in the gunboat service from which he again deserted, again changed his name, and enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment, a little unsteady to be sure, but still a soldier. He was wounded in a battle, honorably discharged from the service, and paid off. On Saturday night he reached St. Louis and found his way to one of her lowest dens, was drugged and robbed of everything he possessed. On Monday he was found tossing from side to side stricken by disease. His surroundings were terrible, and he was lying on an old, filthy mattress which had been thrown into the open hall by the frightened inmates. He was screaming with pain and was at times delirious. As soon, however, as he heard the soothing tones of a human voice, and recognized the hand of kindness on his burning brow, he cried, “Mother! Oh, Mother, forgive me, God forgive me! I have sinned. What shall I do! What shall I do!” Conscience and disease were doing their work.

Softly speaking to him words of comfort and hope, our friend released herself from his grasp, promising to return in half an hour to take him away. This was easier said than done. This soldier was now a citizen, and could not, therefore, be admitted into a military hospital. His disease was of such a nature that in all probability he must die--but his widowed mother, far away, must she know that her darling soldier had died in such a place? God forbid! An order must be had to place him in a military hospital.

The woman goes to her old friend, the medical director, and tells her story in as few words as possible, saying, “General, write an order quick to the surgeon in charge of the Fifth Street hospital, that the boy may be received. I also want an ambulance, mattress, and bedding, and some men to help me move him.”

“Yes, yes, but listen, I have no right, I can’t do it.”

“I know--I know, but please do hurry--I promised to be back in half an hour, and the boy will expect me.”

The general, calling a boy and imitating her voice, said, “Hurry, hurry, boy! Get the best ambulance we have, a good mattress and bedding, and some men and go with Madame and do whatever she bids you to do. Here is the order, what else do you want? Henceforth we do what you wish and no questions asked. It is the easiest way and I guess the only way to get along with you.” The mother mourned her son’s death, but not his disgrace. In after months, this worthy officer by daring to take responsibility performed many acts which will gladden his dying hours.

In this way, one could be snatched from suffering and death now and then, but Oh! the thousands that were beyond the reach of human aid, and the numbers that no private individual power could help--only the great military power! This conviction first led to the thought of providing, if possible, some place where invalids could be sent north, without the trouble of furloughs. The idea of northern military hospitals seemed practicable and so natural that we never once thought the authorities would oppose the movement. For nearly a year this question was agitated and urged with all the force that logic, position, and influence could bring to bear; but all in vain. Hope was well nigh dead within us.

This depression in the South because of the utter failure of the government to provide a way by which the enfeebled soldiers might be restored to strength at last suggested the thought of going directly to the head, to the President. By sending it up by one authority and another, by this officer and that one, we began to feel that the message lost the flavor of truth, and got cold before it reached the deciding power; and because it was so lukewarm he spued it out of his mouth. It is always best if you wish to secure an object, if you have a certain purpose to accomplish, to go at once to the highest power, be your own petitioner, in temporal as in spiritual matters, officiate at your own altar, be your own priest.

I am going to give you another chapter in my own experience, as it was, if I can do so, without the least coloring. There is not a more difficult task than that of relating simple facts in such a manner as to convey an entirely correct impression. The difficulty is increased when the relator is an interested party. I trust I shall not be accused of egotism if I give the exact conversations between Mr. Lincoln and myself, as taken down at the time, for in no other way can I so well picture to you our much loved and martyred president as he then appeared at the White House. As I said before, the necessity for establishing military hospitals in the North had long been a subject of much thought among our people, but it was steadily opposed by the authorities.

By the advice of friends and with an intense feeling that something must be done, I went to Washington. I entered the White House, not with fear and trembling, but strong and self-possessed, fully conscious of the righteousness of my mission. I was received without delay. I had never seen Mr. Lincoln before. He was alone, in a medium sized office-like room, no elegance about him, no elegance in him. He was plainly clad in a suit of black that illy fitted him. No fault of his tailor, however; such a figure could not be fitted. He was tall and lean, and as he sat in a folded up sort of way in a deep arm chair, one would almost have thought him deformed. At his side stood a high writing desk and table combined; plain straw matting covered the floor; a few stuffed chairs and sofa covered with green worsted completed the furniture of the presence chamber of the president of this great republic. When I first saw him his head was bent forward, his chin resting on his breast, and in his hand a letter which I had just sent in to him.

He raised his eyes, saying, “Mrs. Harvey?”

I hastened forward, and replied, “Yes, and I am glad to see you, Mr. Lincoln.” So much for republican presentations and ceremony. The President took my hand, hoped I was well, but there was no smile of welcome on his face. It was rather the stern look of the judge who had decided against me. His face was peculiar; bone, nerve, vein, and muscle were all so plainly seen; deep lines of thought and care were around his mouth and eyes. The word “justice” came into my mind, as though I could read it upon his face--I mean that extended sense of the word that comprehends the practice of every virtue which reason prescribes and society should expect. The debt we owe to God, to man, to ourselves, when paid, is but a simple act of justice, a duty performed. This attribute seemed the source of Mr. Lincoln’s strength. He motioned me to a chair. I sat, and silently read his face while he was reading a paper written by one of our senators, introducing me and my mission. When he had finished reading this he looked up, ran his fingers through his hair, well silvered, though the brown then predominated; his beard was more whitened.

In a moment he looked at me with a good deal of sad severity and said, “Madam, this matter of northern hospitals has been talked of a great deal, and I thought it was settled, but it seems not. What have you got to say about it?”

“Only this, Mr. Lincoln, that many soldiers in our western army on the Mississippi River must have northern air or die. There are thousands of graves all along our southern rivers and in the swamps for which the government is responsible, ignorantly, undoubtedly, but this ignorance must not continue. If you will permit these men to come north you will have ten men where you have one now.”

The president could not see the force or logic in this last argument. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “If your reasoning were correct, it would be a good argument.” I saw that I had misspoken. “I don’t see how,” he continued, “sending one sick man north is going to give us in a year ten well ones.”

A quizzical smile played over his face at my slight embarrassment. “Mr. Lincoln, you understand me, I think. I intended to say, if you will let the sick come north, you will have ten well men in the army one year from today, where you have one well one now; whereas, if you do not let them come north, you will not have one from the ten, for they will all be dead.”

“Yes, yes, I understand you; but if they are sent north, they will desert; where is the difference?”

“Dead men cannot fight,” I answered, “and they may not desert.”

Mr. Lincoln’s eye flashed as he replied, “A fine way, a fine way to decimate the army, we should never get a man of them back, not one, not one.”

“Indeed, but you must pardon me when I say you are mistaken; you do not understand our people. You do not trust them sufficiently. They are as true and as loyal to the government as you say. The loyalty is among the common soldiers and they have ever been the chief sufferers.”

“This is your opinion,” he said with a sort of a sneer. “Mrs. Harvey, how many men do you suppose the government was paying in the Army of the Potomac at the battle of Antietam, and how many men do you suppose could be got for active service at that time? I wish you would give a guess.”

“I know nothing of the Army of the Potomac, only there were some noble sacrifices there. When I spoke of loyalty, I referred to our western army.”

“Well, now, give a guess. How many?”

“I cannot, Mr. President.”

He threw himself around in the chair, one leg over the arm, and again spoke slowly: “This war might have been finished at that time if every man had been in his place that was able to be there, but they were scattered hither and thither over the North, some on furloughs, and in one way or another, gone; so that out of 170,000 men which the government was paying at that time, only 83,000 could be got for action. The consequences, you know, proved nearly disastrous.”

“It was very sad but the delinquents were certainly not in northern hospitals, neither were they deserters therefrom, for there are none. This is, therefore, no argument against them.”

“Well, well, Mrs. Harvey, you go and see the Secretary of War and talk with him and hear what he has to say.” This he said thoughtfully, and took up the letter I had given him, and after writing something on the back of it gave it to me.

“May I return to you, Mr. Lincoln?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he replied, and his voice was gentler than it had been before.

I left him for the war department. I found written on the back of the letter these words, “Admit Mrs. Harvey at once; listen to what she says; she is a lady of intelligence and talks sense. A. Lincoln.” Not, of course, displeased with the introduction, I went on my way to Mr. Stanton, our secretary of war, about whose severity I had heard so much that I must confess I dreaded the interview; but I was kindly received, listened to respectfully, and answered politely. And let me say here, as a passing tribute to this great and good man, that I never knew a clearer brain, a truer heart, a nobler spirit than Edwin M. Stanton. I have watched him by the hour, listening to and deciding questions of minor moment as well as those of greater importance--those upon which the fate of the nation depended, and yet he never wavered. Quick to see the right, he never hesitated to act. His foresight and his strength seemed at times more than human. His place as a statesman will not be filled in this century.

But to return to my interview with him. After understanding the object for which I came, he told me he had sent the Surgeon-General to New Orleans with directions to come up the river and examine all hospitals. In short, I understood he had started on a tour of inspection, which meant nothing at all so far as the suffering was concerned. I told Mr. Stanton, “Our western hospitals have never received any benefit from these inspections, and we have very little confidence that any good would result from them. Any person with discernment, with a medium allowance of common sense and humanity, who is loyal, and has been through our southern river hospitals, knows and feels the necessity for what I ask, and yet you say you have never received a report to this effect. The truth is, the medical authorities know the heads of departments do not wish hospitals established so far away from army lines, and report accordingly. I wish this could be overruled; can nothing be done?”

“Nothing, until the Surgeon-General returns,” Mr. Stanton replied.

“Good morning,” I said, and left him, not at all disappointed.

Returning to Mr. Lincoln, I found it was past the usual hour for receiving and no one was in the waiting-room. The messenger said I had better go directly into the President’s room. It would be more comfortable waiting there, and there was only one gentleman with him and he would soon be through. I found my way to the back part of the room, and seated myself on a sofa in such a position that the desk was between Mr. Lincoln and me. I do not think that he knew I was there. The gentleman with him had given him a paper. The President looked at it carefully and said, “Yes, this is sufficient endorsement for anybody; what do you want?”

I could not hear the reply distinctly, but the promotion of somebody in the army, either a son or a brother, was strongly urged. I heard the words, “I see there are no vacancies among brigadiers, from the fact that so many colonels are commanding brigades.”

At this the President threw himself forward in his chair in such a manner as to show me the most curious, comical face in the world. He was looking the man straight in the eye, with the left hand raised to a horizontal position, and his right hand patting it coaxingly, and said, “My friend, let me tell you something; you are a farmer, I believe; if not, you will understand me. Suppose you had a large cattle yard, full of all sorts of cattle, cows, oxen, and bulls, and you kept selling your cows and oxen, taking good care of your bulls; bye and bye, you would find that you had nothing but a yard full of old bulls, good for nothing under heaven, and it will be just so with my army if I don’t stop making brigadier generals.” The man was answered; he could scarcely laugh, though he tried to do so, but you should have seen Mr. Lincoln laugh--he laughed all over, and fully enjoyed the point if no one else did. The story, if not elegant, was certainly apropos.

As I commenced to tell you everything I remember of this singular man, this must fill its place. The gentleman soon departed, fully satisfied, I doubt not, for it was a saying at Washington when one met a petitioner, “Has Mr. Lincoln told you a story? If he has, it is all day with you. He never says ‘yes’ after a story.”

I stepped forward as soon as the door closed. The President motioned to a chair near him. “Well, what did the Secretary of War say?”

I gave a full account of the interview, and then said, “I have nowhere else to go but to you.”

He replied earnestly, “Mr. Stanton knows very well that there is an acting surgeon-general here, and that Hammond will not be back these two months. I will see the Secretary of War myself, and you come in the morning.”

I arose to take leave, when he bade me not to hasten, spoke kindly of my work, said he fully appreciated the spirit in which I came. He smiled pleasantly and bade me good evening.

As I left the White House, I met Owen Lovejoy who greeted me cordially and asked, “How long are you going to stay here?”

“Until I get what I came after,” I replied.

“That’s right, that’s right; go on, I believe in the final perseverance of the saints.”

I have never forgotten these words, perhaps it is because they were the last I ever heard him utter.

I returned in the morning, full of hope, thinking of the pleasant face I had left the evening before, but no smile greeted me. The President was evidently annoyed by something, and waited for me to speak, which I did not do. I afterward learned his annoyance was caused by a woman pleading for the life of a son who was sentenced to be shot for desertion under very aggravating circumstances.

After a moment he said, “Well,” with a peculiar contortion of face I never saw in anybody else.

I replied, “Well,” and he looked at me a little astonished, I fancied, and said, “Have you nothing to say?”

“Nothing, Mr. President, until I hear your decision. You bade me come this morning; have you decided?”

“No, but I believe this idea of northern hospitals is a great humbug, and I am tired of hearing about it.” He spoke impatiently.

I replied, “I regret to add a feather’s weight to your already overwhelming care and responsibility. I would rather have stayed at home.”

With a kind of half smile, he said, “I wish you had.”

I answered him as though he had not smiled. “Nothing would have given me greater pleasure; but a keen sense of duty to this government, justice and mercy to its most loyal supporters, and regard for your honor and position made me come. The people cannot understand why their friends are left to die when with proper care they might live and do good service for their country. Mr. Lincoln, I believe you will be grateful for my coming.” He looked at me intently; I could not tell if he were annoyed or not, and as he did not speak, I continued: “I do not come to plead for the lives of criminals, not for the lives of deserters, not for those who have been in the least disloyal. I come to plead for the lives of those who were the first to hasten to the support of this government, who helped to place you where you are, because they trusted you. Men who have done all they could, and now when flesh, and nerve, and muscle are gone, still pray for your life and the life of this republic. They scarcely ask for that for which I plead--they expect to sacrifice their lives for their country. Many on their cots, faint, sick, and dying, say, ‘We would gladly do more, but I suppose that is all right.’ I know that a majority of them would live and be strong men again if they could be sent north. I say I know, because when I was sick among them last spring, surrounded by every comfort, with the best of care, and determined to get well, I grew weaker day by day, until, not being under military law, my friends brought me north. I recovered entirely, simply by breathing northern air.”

While I was speaking the expression of Mr. Lincoln’s face had changed many times. He had never taken his eye from me. Now every muscle in his face seemed to contract, and then suddenly expand. As he opened his mouth you could almost hear them snap as he said, “You assume to know more than I do,” and closed his mouth as though he never expected to open it again, sort of slammed it to.

I could scarcely reply. I was hurt, and thought the tears would come, but rallied in a moment and said, “You must pardon me, Mr. President, I intend no disrespect, but it is because of this knowledge, because I do know what you do not know, that I come to you. If you knew what I do and had not ordered what I ask for, I should know that an appeal to you would be vain; but I believe the people have not trusted you for naught. The question only is whether you believe me or not. If you believe me you will give me hospitals, if not, well--”

With the same snapping of muscle he again said, “You assume to know more than surgeons do.”

“Oh, no! Mr. Lincoln, I could not perform an amputation nearly as well as some of them do; indeed, I do not think I could do it at all. But this is true--I do not come here for your favor, I am not an aspirant for military honor. While it would be the pride of my life to be able to win your respect and confidence, still, this I can waive for the time being. Now the medical authorities know as well as I do that you are opposed to establishing northern military hospitals, and they report to please you; they desire your favor. I come to you from no casual tour of inspection, passing rapidly through the general hospitals, in the principal cities on the river, with a cigar in my mouth and a rattan in my hand, talking to the surgeon in charge of the price of cotton and abusing the generals in our army for not knowing and performing their duty better, and finally coming into the open air, with a long-drawn breath as though just having escaped suffocation, and complacently saying, ‘You have a very fine hospital here; the boys seem to be doing very well, a little more attention to ventilation is perhaps desirable.’

“It is not thus; I have visited the hospitals, but from early morning until late at night sometimes. I have visited the regimental and general hospitals on the Mississippi River from Quincy to Vicksburg, and I come to you from the cots of men who have died, who might have lived had you permitted. This is hard to say, but it is none the less true.”

During the time that I had been speaking Mr. Lincoln’s brow had become very much contracted, and a severe scowl had settled over his whole face. He sharply asked how many men Wisconsin had in the field, that is, how many did she send? I replied, “About 50,000, I think, I do not know exactly.”

“That means she has about 20,000 now.” He looked at me, and said, “You need not look so sober, they are not all dead.”

I did not reply. I had noticed the veins in his face filling full within a few moments, and one vein across his forehead was as large as my little finger, and it gave him a frightful look.

Soon, with a quick, impatient movement of his whole frame, he said, “I have a good mind to dismiss every man of them from the service and have no more trouble with them!”

I was surprised at his lack of self-control, and I knew he did not mean one word of what he said, but what would come next? As I looked at him, I was troubled, fearing I had said something wrong. He was very pale.

The silence was painful, and I said as quietly as I could, “They have been faithful to the government; they have been faithful to you; they will still be loyal to the government, do what you will with them; but if you will grant my petition you will be glad as long as you live. The prayer of grateful hearts will give you strength in the hour of trial, and strong and willing arms will return to fight your battles.”

The President bowed his head, and with a look of sadness I can never forget, said, “I never shall be glad any more.” All severity had passed from his face. He seemed looking backward and heartward, and for a moment he seemed to forget he was not alone; a more than mortal anguish rested on his face.

The spell must be broken, so I said, “Do not speak so, Mr. President. Who will have so much reason to rejoice when the government is restored, as it will be?”

“I know, I know,” he said, placing a hand on each side and bowing forward, “but the springs of life are wearing away.”

I asked if he felt his great cares were injuring his health.

“No,” he replied, “not directly, perhaps.”

I asked if he slept well, and he said he never was a good sleeper, and, of course, slept less now than ever before. He said the people did not yet appreciate the magnitude of this rebellion, and that it would be a long time before the end.

I began to feel I was occupying time valuable to him and belonging to him. As I arose to take leave, I said, “Have you decided upon your answer to the object of my visit?”

He replied, “No. Come tomorrow morning. No, it is [cabinet] meeting tomorrow--yes, come tomorrow at twelve o’clock, there is not much for the cabinet to do tomorrow.” He arose and bade me a cordial goodmorning.

The next morning I arose with a terribly depressed feeling that perhaps I was to fail in the object for which I came. I found myself constantly looking at my watch and wondering if twelve o’clock would ever come. At last I ascended the steps of the White House as all visitors were being dismissed, because the President would receive no one on that day. I asked the messenger if that meant me, and he said, “No. The President desires you to wait for the cabinet will soon adjourn.” I waited, and waited, and waited, three long hours and more, during which time the President sent out twice, saying the cabinet would soon adjourn, that I was to wait. I was fully prepared for defeat, and every word of my reply was chosen and carefully placed. I walked the rooms and studied an immense map that covered one side of the reception room. I listened, and at last heard many footsteps--the cabinet had adjourned. Mr. Lincoln did not wait to send for me but came directly into the room where I was. It was the first time I had noticed him standing. He was very tall and moved with a shuffling, awkward motion.

He came forward, rubbing his hands, and saying, “My dear Madam, I am very sorry to have kept you waiting. We have but this moment adjourned.”

I replied, “My waiting is no matter, but you must be very tired, and we will not talk tonight.”

He said, “No. Sit down,” and placed himself in a chair beside me, and said, “Mrs. Harvey, I only wish to tell you that an order equivalent to granting a hospital in your state has been issued nearly twenty-four hours.”

I could not speak, I was so entirely unprepared for it. I wept for joy, I could not help it. When I could speak I said, “God bless you. I thank you in the name of thousands who will bless you for the act.” Then, remembering how many orders had been issued and countermanded, I said, “Do you mean, really and truly, that we are going to have a hospital now?”

With a look full of humanity and benevolence, he said, “I do most certainly hope so.” He spoke very emphatically, and no reference was made to any previous opposition. He said he wished me to come and see him in the morning and he would give me a copy of the order.

I was so much agitated I could not talk with him. He noticed it and commenced talking upon other subjects. He asked me to look at the map before referred to, which, he said, gave a very correct idea of the locality of the principal battle grounds of Europe. “It is a fine map,” he said, pointing out Waterloo and the different battle fields of the Crimea, then, smiling, said, “I am afraid you will not like it as well when I tell you whose work it is.”

I replied, “It is well done, whosever it may be. Who did it, Mr. Lincoln?”

“McClellan, and he certainly did do this well. He did it while he was at West Point.” There was nothing said for awhile. Perhaps he was balancing in his own mind the two words which were then agitating the heart of the American people, words which have ever throbbed the great heart of nations, words whose power every individual has recognized--“success,” and “failure.”

I left shortly after with the promise to call next morning, as he desired me to do, at nine o’clock. I suppose the excitement caused the intense suffering of that night. I was very ill and it was ten o’clock the next morning before I was able to send for a carriage to keep my appointment with the President. It was past the hour; more than fifty persons were in the waiting room. I did not expect an audience, but sent in my name and said I would call again. The messenger said, “Do not go, I think the President will see you now.”

I had been but a moment among anxious, expectant, waiting faces, when the door opened and the voice said, “Mrs. Harvey, the President will see you now.” I arose, not a little embarrassed to be gazed at so curiously by so many with a look that said as plainly as words could, “Who are you?” As I passed the crowd, one person said, “She has been here every day, and what is more, she is going to win.”

I entered the presence of Mr. Lincoln for the last time. He smiled very graciously and drew a chair near him, and said, “Come here and sit down.” He had a paper in his hand which he said was for me to keep. It was a copy of the order just issued. I thanked him, not only for the order but for the manner and spirit in which it had been given, then said I must apologize for not having been there at nine o’clock as he desired me to be, but that I had been sick all night.

He looked up with, “Did joy make you sick?”

I said, “I don’t know, very likely it was the relaxation of nerve after intense excitement.”

Still looking at me he said, “I suppose you would have been mad if I had said no?”

I replied, “No, Mr. Lincoln, I should have been neither angry nor sick.”

“What would you have done?” he asked curiously. “I should have been here at nine o’clock, Mr. President.”

“Well,” he laughingly said, “I think I acted wisely, then,” and suddenly looking up, “Don’t you ever get angry?” he asked, “I know a little woman not very unlike you who gets mad sometimes.”

I replied, “I never get angry when I have an object to gain of the importance of the one under consideration; to get angry, you know, would only weaken my cause, and destroy my influence.”

“That is true, that is true,” he said, decidedly. “This hospital I shall name for you.”

I said, “No, but if you would not consider the request indelicate, I would like to have it named for Mr. Harvey.”

“Yes, just as well, it shall be so understood if you prefer it. I honored your husband, and felt his loss, and now let us have this matter settled at once.”

He took a card and wrote a few words upon it, requesting the Secretary of War to name the hospital “Harvey Hospital,” in memory of my husband, and to gratify me he gave me the card, saying, “Now do you take that directly to the Secretary of War and have it understood.” I thanked him, but did not take it to Mr. Stanton. The hospital was already named. I expressed a wish that he might never regret his present action, and said I was sorry to have taken so much of his time.

“Oh, no, you need not be,” he said kindly.

“You will not wish to see me again, Mr. President.”

“I didn’t say that and shall not.”

I said, “You have been very kind to me and I am grateful for it.”

He looked at me from under his eyebrows and said, “You almost think me handsome, don’t you?”

His face then beamed with such kind benevolence and was lighted by such a pleasant smile that I looked at him, and with my usual impulse, said, clasping my hands together, “You are perfectly lovely to me, now, Mr. Lincoln.” He colored a little and laughed most heartily.

As I arose to go, he reached out his hand, that hand in which there was so much power and so little beauty, and held mine clasped and covered in his own. I bowed my head and pressed my lips most reverently upon the sacred shield, even as I would upon my country’s shrine. A silent prayer went up from my heart, “God bless you, Abraham Lincoln.” I heard him say goodbye, and I was gone. Thus ended the most interesting interview of my life with one of the most remarkable men of the age.

My impressions of him had been so varied, his character had assumed so many different phases, his very looks had changed so frequently and so entirely, that it almost seemed to me I had been conversing with half a dozen different men. He blended in his character the most yielding flexibility with the most unflinching firmness, child-like simplicity and weakness with statesmanlike wisdom and masterly strength, but over and around all was thrown the mantle of an unquestioned integrity.

THE DUTCH SETTLEMENTS OF SHEBOYGAN COUNTY

BY SIPKO F. REDERUS

Dutch settlements have never been numerous in America or in any other country not flying the Dutch flag. The Hollanders, unlike their German and British neighbors, have no natural inclination to roaming and adventure; and being strongly attached to their native soil they have preferred attempting to improve conditions at home to hazarding their fortune in a foreign country. This love of country has changed the Netherlands from a boggy land to a beautiful, productive country with an intelligent, industrious, and artistic people now numbering about six millions.

Unusual conditions, political, economic, and religious, have, however, from time to time caused Hollanders to emigrate to foreign lands, and during the decade 1840-50 many set sail for the United States. After the fall of Napoleon the Netherlands had changed from a republican to a limited monarchical form of government. Belgium reunited with Holland under the name of Kingdom of Netherlands, with William I, son of the former Dutch stadtholder, as king. The union was not successful, and the rebellion of 1830, which resulted in the separation of Holland and Belgium, necessitated large armies which William I kept up for years in the hope of reconquering Belgium. Then in 1825 an inundation of the ocean swept away the dikes, devastated the land, and left thousands homeless and without resources. With the abdication of William I and the accession of his son, William II, conditions did not improve. War and flood turned the thoughts of the suffering lower and middle classes to emigration, and the period from 1840 to 1850 saw the great exodus of Dutch to America.

Religious difficulties arising at this time also caused the emigration of several distinct groups. With the separation of Holland from Spain came separation from the civil and religious rule of the Catholic Church and the adoption of the Reformed Church by the State. The Dutch Reformed Church was Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in government. German philosophy and French liberalism gradually influenced the lives of members of the State Church; and the monarch and other governmental officers being friendly toward the new thought, the church synods permitted certain changes in the service and doctrine. Again and again the orthodox party tried to overthrow the new order, and after many failures in such attempts left the established church to form a separate ecclesiastical body called the Free Separate Reformed Church.

The civil government, fearing that civil revolution would follow this religious upheaval, opposed the new church, forbade meetings, and fined ministers. With the accession of William II the organization was recognized as a corporate body, but many restrictions were imposed upon it and financial aid, granted other denominations, was refused it. A large number of the Separatists gladly accepted the terms imposed, but others, smarting under the restrictions and foreseeing no relief in the near future, resolved to emigrate to America.

Three separate parties, each under a prominent minister, were formed for the purpose of founding settlements in the United States. Rev. R. C. Van Raalte led his people to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where they founded settlements which later came to be among the prosperous communities of Michigan. Among them are Holland, where Hope College was founded, Grand Haven, Muskegon, and Grand Rapids.

Under Rev. H. P. Scholte a party of Dutch immigrants went to southern Iowa and settled a large tract of land purchased from the government. The city of Pella, where Central College is located, is the center of a number of communities, all of which have prosperous industries and beautiful churches of the Reformed faith.

The party led by Rev. P. Zonne secured by purchase from the government a section of country bordering on Lake Michigan, some twenty miles south of the present city of Sheboygan. The settlers arrived in the spring of 1847 after a stormy voyage across the Atlantic, making the journey inland by way of the Hudson River, Erie Canal, and Great Lakes. In settling this region the Zonne party had been preceded by other Dutch families. In 1844 Lawrence Zuvelt and his family settled in a locality four and one-half miles northwest of what later became the Zonne settlement, and in 1846 they were joined by G. H. Koltsée and John Boland and their families.

A tragic event marked the growth of this settlement. In 1848 the _Mayflower_, filled with immigrants to Wisconsin, including many Hollanders, had proceeded as far as Sheboygan when fire was discovered. When, in spite of the crew’s efforts, the flames seemed to be gaining headway, a panic ensued, and many lost their lives in the fire or in the water. Others were landed in pitiful condition on the shores of Wisconsin. Three Hollanders, Wilterdenk, Oonk, and Rensink by name, were among those rescued. Wilterdenk had lost his wife and six children in the catastrophe.

The Zonne community rapidly overtook the earlier settlement in size and development. Cedar Grove was the name given it by Reverend Zonne, because cedar formed the greatest part of the forest near by, in portions of which the Indians still lived. The land was ideal for the painter, poet, and hunter, but the matter-of-fact Hollanders, though belonging to a race which had produced great artists, writers, and explorers, had not come to dream, paint pictures, or follow the chase. The land was valued by the settlers as a means of material improvement; the forest was an obstacle and had to be removed. The work of destruction went on systematically from season to season, and in a short time large clearings could be seen on which were planted maize, wheat, and barley. All of these grains gave rich return, for the soil was fertile and not easily exhausted.

Clearing the ground for the first crop, however, was a difficult process. How to remove the trees after they had been felled with such difficulty was a problem. The settlers could not use all the wood for fuel nor could they convert the tree trunks into lumber. To dispose of the superabundance of wood, these pioneer farmers had to set it on fire, being careful to remove the immense pile to a safe distance from the forest and from the buildings already erected. The hardwood tree stumps remaining in the fields after the trees had been cut were a great obstacle to cultivation of the ground. Digging the stumps out of the field was a long process, and explosives or machinery for doing this work were not then available.

The forest, however, was a help as well as a hindrance. From the logs were made houses and barns, agricultural implements, wagons, and, to some extent, furniture. The forest possessed an abundance of game, wild blackberries, strawberries, wild grapes, and maple trees from which the settlers secured their sugar. Autumn brought a harvest of hickorynuts and walnuts. Cattle thrived in the woodland, and in certain parts flocks of sheep could be kept. From the wool the housewife knitted stockings and wove the homespun for the family clothing.

Communication with other settlements was extremely difficult. For many years the Indian trails and the pathways blazed by the settlers were the only roads, tortuous at all times but almost impassable in winter. The principal trading posts, such as Port Washington and Milwaukee, were far distant from the Zonne settlement--Milwaukee being forty-five miles away--and under the best circumstances the slow-moving oxen made a long journey of it. Often the wagons broke down in the middle of the forest and the men would have to leave their loads in the road and go back home or to the trading post ahead for assistance. The lack of communication was felt most during sickness and especially epidemics, for many a time the physician, after a long, hard journey, would arrive to find his patient dead or beyond help.

Such were the difficulties with which these Dutch pioneers contended during the first years of their colonization. Their energy and perseverance, however, defeated one after another. Gradually the farms were cleared, the newly established sawmills turned out lumber for better houses and barns; water power was utilized for the running of flour mills; and stores were established within easy distance. Artisans joined the settlements, although blacksmiths had been found among the original settlers. As the forest gradually disappeared, old trails were widened, roads were laid out, villages sprang up, and post offices were established.

But in the midst of their growing prosperity the black war cloud gathered on the southern horizon and cast its shadows over this peaceful community. Many of the men, whose fathers had obtained liberty after eighty years of conflict, were aroused, and leaving their plows took up the musket. Sad times now followed, for now and then the news reached the settlement that some son or father had died in battle; but after the years of sorrow the laureled heroes returned to their firesides and a greater prosperity dawned.

One of the men who was conspicuous in the conflict and even more so in the days of peace that followed was Peter Daan. He was born in the Netherlands, in the town of Westkapelle, Province of Zeeland, March 26, 1835. When he was seven years of age his parents emigrated to America and settled in the town of Pultneyville, New York. Later the family moved to Wisconsin and bought a farm in Sheboygan County, near the present village of Oostburg. Peter Daan was one of the first to volunteer on the outbreak of the war, and through his influence and effort caused many to follow his example. In 1867 he commenced his mercantile business on the Sauk Trail, two and one-half miles east of Oostburg. As that town developed, he moved his business there, built a large store, an elevator, a steam flour mill, and later founded the bank of which he became president. He held that office until his death. The people, having confidence in his ability and good judgment, several times elected him president of the town. For years he held the office of justice of the peace, and because of his amicable manner of settling disputes he won the title among the people of “the peacemaker.”

As a young man he became a member of the Presbyterian Church, and later was made an elder, an office which he held until he died. Several times his presbytery elected him delegate to the higher ecclesiastical councils. In 1873 he was chosen a member of the Wisconsin legislative assembly. His death occurred June 14, 1914.

After the Civil War the settlements entered a period of prosperity greater than any experienced before; in fact many of the farmers, receiving high prices for their products during the war, laid the foundation of their wealth in this period. The villages of Oostburg and Cedar Grove expanded, and the new town of Gibbsville was founded three miles west of Oostburg. There a large flour mill, driven by water power, was built, and remains in operation to this day. East of Cedar Grove, on the lake shore, was built a pier where the great vessels could land. The settlement of Amsterdam, which developed here, became an important trading place for a time but was abandoned when the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad entered the territory. Oostburg and Cedar Grove, in both of which stations were erected, received the benefit of the improved communication. Grain elevators and business houses of all kinds were erected, and residences increased and improved. In the country better farmhouses and more spacious barns rapidly replaced the primitive log buildings. The acreage of land cleared, fenced in, and cultivated, increased, and the herds of cattle and flocks of sheep became more numerous. Along the lake shore a profitable fishing industry was developed. Everywhere the result of hard work and thrift was seen. _Luctor et emergo_ (I struggle and rise higher), the motto of the Province of Zeeland from which these Dutch settlers had come, represented the achievements of these people as well as those of their sturdy ancestors.

In the midst of their hard struggle for material improvement these people had not been neglectful of religious matters. Upon their arrival, under the leadership of Reverend Zonne they had organized themselves into a church and united with the Presbyterian organization. In the following year, 1848, Reverend Zonne built a house of worship on his own estate and gave it to his congregation. This church, built about a mile north of the present site of Cedar Grove, was the first of the Presbyterian denomination in that region. In the course of time another house of worship was built in the settlement later known as Cedar Grove by those who were not in harmony with Reverend Zonne. This congregation united with the old Dutch Reformed Church of America, founded in New Amsterdam (now New York) in the eighteenth century. This is the oldest and wealthiest (in proportion to size) of all ecclesiastical bodies in America.

In 1853 another Presbyterian church was built four and one-half miles north of Cedar Grove on the Sauk Trail. Reverend Van de Schurn was the first pastor and Peter Daan the first elder. This church with its large membership is flourishing today under the pastorate of Rev. C. Van Griethuizen. A Dutch Reformed church was later established at the same place, and others of the same denomination were erected in the settlement later becoming the village of Oostburg, and in Gibbsville.

All these churches were in the beginning unpretentious log structures; but as the people began to amass wealth, the old churches were replaced by substantial, attractive buildings surmounted by spires or towers for the church bells. Comfortable residences for the pastors have been erected on the church premises. All the congregations are flourishing today; and although they profess far more liberal views than their ancestors, the descendants of the early pioneers are equally devoted to these institutions.

Of all these churches, the one founded by Reverend Zonne has always been the most prominent, not only because it has the largest membership but because it possesses greater historic associations. The second edifice of this organization, a plain frame building without a tower, was replaced in 1882 by a much larger and more attractive building, the gift of a pioneer member, J. Lammers. The church is a picturesque landmark whose spire can be seen for miles. The interior has been considerably improved of late, and a pipe organ has recently been installed. An old churchyard is at one side of the church, and here lie the remains of the Reverend Zonne and many other early worthies of the church.

The organization has always had a prosperous record, but its greatest growth began in 1882 when Rev. J. J. W. Roth began his pastorate of more than thirty-two years. Reverend Roth was born in Capetown, South Africa. There he received his collegiate training; and, later coming to America with his father, he studied theology at the McCormick Institute at Chicago, where he was graduated and ordained in 1878. After serving two small churches in Minnesota and Wisconsin, he became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove. During the first year of his ministry the present church was built, and under his pastorate the congregation became strong and prosperous. Since the young people had become deficient in the language of their fathers, the introduction of English into the services had become a necessity. Dr. Roth, educated to both languages, preached to his people in both tongues. On May 1, 1914, Dr. Roth was stricken by apoplexy and remained unconscious for some days. Although he recovered consciousness, he lost the power of speech and the use of his limbs, and was compelled to end his active services. Since his illness he has lived in retirement in Cedar Grove.

Dr. Roth is a man of scholarly attainment, being proficient in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and an artist of some ability. The church societies, all of which he founded, are in a flourishing condition. He was for years the leading man in the Milwaukee presbytery, and was several times elected its moderator and delegate to higher ecclesiastical councils. He has been succeeded by Rev. P. Van Straten.

During the past twenty years the growth of the Dutch settlements has been remarkable. The village of Cedar Grove has grown into a thriving town with many prosperous business houses, grain elevators, and factories. It has a large public school, and a classical academy which is conducted by the Dutch Reformed Church of America. The bank of Cedar Grove is a flourishing institution founded some ten years ago. The deposits are over $300,000.

The village of Oostburg has likewise prospered. Peter Daan’s flour mill has been enlarged; implement, canning, cheese, and condensed milk factories have been built. Oostburg and Cedar Grove are connected with each other, Sheboygan, and Milwaukee by the hourly service of the Milwaukee Northern Electric Railway. Returns from the planting of wheat, to which the farmers had devoted their principal attention had gradually decreased, and barley and rye are being substituted, also peas and beans which are sold to the canning factories. Many of the farmers, however, have turned to cattle raising, dairying, and cheese making as principal agricultural enterprises. In the making of cheese the Hollanders of Sheboygan County are recognized as experts and their brands are among the best in the state.

Always interested in intellectual progress, the Dutch settlers have built and supported excellent schools, and many are sending their sons and daughters to colleges. Materially these people have prospered since the first band of settlers began to hew down the forest in 1847. The thoroughness with which they did cut down all timber is being regretted at present by those who possess land bare of all but a few trees. This generation, however, is planting trees which, it is hoped, will soon remedy that great defect.

In customs and manner of thinking the new generation differs greatly from the pioneers who started to develop the country. Their language is fast disappearing in public and in the homes, for only in the church is Dutch even partly used. This may be due to the similarity between the Dutch and the Anglo-Saxon languages which have a common factor in the Fresian tongue.

The similarity of tongues and, in addition, of the political, religious, and economic struggles of the Dutch and the English settlers in America has caused the Dutch to be readily absorbed into the earlier population. The special characteristics, in addition to those common to both English and Dutch, make the Dutch element one of the most valuable in the state of Wisconsin.

PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF BELOIT AND SOUTHERN WISCONSIN[97]

BY LUCIUS G. FISHER

EDITED BY MILO M. QUAIFE

The first of January, 1837, I arranged with the Fairbanks to leave them and locate in either Louisville or St. Louis, and sell their scales and other goods manufactured by them at Pittsburgh, on commission. I returned to Derby and remained there until May, visiting my sister Emeline then teaching in Montreal. I left Derby the fifteenth of May for the South, leaving a few hundred dollars with the Fairbanks and taking some thousands in notes belonging to them to collect between Burlington, Vermont, and Buffalo, New York, and from which collections when made I was to take the money due me and remit to them the balance. I left with my father a fine span of horses, harness, and wagon with which to follow me with my sisters when I should get a home for them. My sister Rosetta had been lame for a year and was under the care of a physician and surgeon. I left home and friends with a sad heart, taking the stage for Burlington, my two most intimate friends riding the first mile with me. One was Stoddart B. Colby, who was afterwards the leading lawyer of Vermont and who died Register of the United States currency and whose wife was burned on the _Swallow_ in the Hudson River; the other, Timothy P. Redfield, now one of the judges of the supreme court of Vermont and brother of my other very dear and most intimate friend, Fletcher Redfield, for many years Chief Justice of Vermont. I have never met either of them since. I had to get out of the stage the first day to steady it over snow drifts.

I reached Troy, New York, the third day and that evening the news came there that the banks had suspended specie payment in consequence of General Jackson’s order to the United States treasurer to remove the United States deposits from the United States Bank to the Sub-Treasury. All banks suspended specie redemption and for the time no paper money was current or debts paid. All confidence was destroyed between business men, and such a financial panic was never seen before or since in our country. When I reached Buffalo I had not collected a cent from $27,000 in notes against the best business men on the line of the Erie Canal. In Buffalo I collected in bank bills $70. Here I was with but little money and all business prostrated. I could not see in prospect a time when I could hope to engage in the commission business with success. I had nothing in Vermont to return to. I was lonely and desolate. Young men were being discharged from stores and factories in great numbers, and business men were failing everywhere.

I met at Buffalo a discharged clerk from a house in New York who was a native of Vermont, and was seeking employment. Neither of us knew what to do or where to go. We had been living at the Mansion House several days and on one Sunday morning we walked down to the wharf and saw a schooner there with her captain on her deck. I asked him if he was the captain and where he was bound. He said he was the captain, that he was bound to Chicago, that his schooner was a new one, etc. I asked the price of fare in cabin with board to Chicago. He replied $20. I turned to my friend Whitcombe and said, “Let us go to Chicago; we may as well go to one place as another.” He replied, “I will go with you.” I asked the captain when he sailed. He said, “At nine o’clock tomorrow A. M. if the wind is fair.” I said, “Book us as passengers and we will be on board in season.” We sailed June second. No steamboats had sailed for the upper lakes then, nor until some days later. There was no railroad west of Syracuse. The harbor was full of ice. Before leaving Buffalo, I arranged with a merchant who knew me and who was from Vermont (the father of Frank Fenton of Beloit) to furnish me with provisions if on my arrival at Chicago I should find any sale for them. We were four weeks and two days on the lakes, with head winds and rough weather most of the time. Captain Clement was a very agreeable gentleman, young like his passengers, and very social. Our voyage was so much enjoyed by me as to have left the most pleasant memories of it, although it was an aimless one. We were drifting into the dark future without any plans, yet we were happy, full of life, had that self-reliance on our own strength and mental endowments that took away all anxiety for the future, and enabled us to enjoy the present. The feeling was a desperate, devil-may-care one. As I look back upon the first year of my western life, I wonder that I did not become a reckless and ruined man. Captain Clement was, after this trip, a large owner of steamboats on the lakes, some of which he commanded; and for several years he has been the treasurer of the North Chicago Rolling Mills and a large stockholder. He landed us in Chicago the night of the third of July, 1837, and we celebrated the Fourth there. Daniel Webster was in Chicago for the first and last time in his life.

A delegation from Milwaukee came to Chicago to invite Webster to visit their city. He had left for the East, and I, finding no encouragement to go into business in Chicago, took passage in an old steamer with this delegation to Milwaukee.

WHAT I FOUND IN CHICAGO

In May, 1837, about a month before my arrival, Chicago had elected its first mayor, William B. Ogden. Its population was about 3,000 and was mostly north of the river. There was a Presbyterian church where the Board of Trade stands, in which Rev. Jeremiah Porter preached. The Russell House on the North Side was the grand hotel, built of brick. The Couch brothers had a small hotel on the present site of the Tremont House of the same name, and the City Hotel was built on the corner of State and Lake Streets. There were few buildings south of Lake Street. There was a cornfield running south from Washington Street and east of State Street. Lots were worth from $100 to $500 then, but had been worth as many thousands before the panic of 1837. John Wentworth had just started his paper, the Chicago _Democrat_, in a little 7 × 9 wooden building on La Salle Street north of Randolph.[98] I had a letter of introduction to him and there made his acquaintance. The first settler, Gurdon S. Hubbard,[99] was here, William H. Brown, and many other persons with whom I became acquainted, but most of whom have passed away. Some are here yet, and among them G. S. Hubbard & Son, S. B. Cobb, Jerome Beecher, and Mr. Carpenter. Chicago has now a population of 600,000.

I landed in Milwaukee the sixth of July, 1837. The boat could not land and we were sent ashore in the small boat, at the mouth of the river, then at Chase’s Point,[100] one mile below the present mouth. My friend, Ed Whitcombe, was yet with me and on the boat I made the acquaintance of John H. Tweedy[101] and formed a friendship which has endured the changes of the last forty-five years. He afterwards married a Fisher from Boston, who descended from the same ancestor that I did. I found Milwaukee with a population of about 1,000, the west side of the river mostly under water, many of the houses built on stilts, abandoned, and doors open, most of the population of 1836 having left the place by reason of the panic. I remember the Frenchman and first settler with a squaw wife was there.[102] I stopped at first at the Milwaukee Hotel, but soon crossed the river to the Leland House where I found my cousin, Dr. L. J. Barber, and remained with him at that house. We had not met since we were lads. We soon became warm friends. I had but little money and several young men boarding at the Leland House had often to borrow of me to pay for their week’s washing. All had been speculating in lots and were broke. None of us knew what to do or where to go.

I remained about a week and decided to cross the country to Galena and go to mining for lead. I started in company with two men, one by the name of Frink and the other Blood. We traveled the first day to Waukesha where was the first house, occupied by a Mr. Pratt.[103] It was small, built of logs, and two berths on one side. The under one was occupied by Pratt and wife, the upper one by Frink and me, and Blood slept on the floor. The next day we lunched at the second house from Milwaukee, at Pewaukee Lake, kept by Harrison Reed,[104] afterwards governor of Florida. We reached Oconomowoc that night, where we found two bachelors in a log shanty with a floor of bark and nothing to eat but dry beans, which they stewed for us and which we ate with a relish from a bark plate with a chip for a knife. The mosquitoes were very large and hungry and feasted upon us that night. We slept but little and left early in the morning on our Indian trail for Rock River, having learned that there was a camp there where we could get food. My feet had become very sore, and the morning’s walk of twelve miles in the rain without food, and almost gored to death by the mosquitoes, had so exhausted me that I was sick and could go no farther. Fortunately, at the river I found Charles Goodhue, Esq., and two of his sons from Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, an old acquaintance in the East, who had a fine camp and ten or twelve men and three women in camp. They bade me welcome and gave me to eat and to drink--the best they had and I was never happier than that day. I was soon refreshed and ready to travel again. Mr. Goodhue and sons had commenced building a dam across Rock River, and afterwards a saw mill was built to cut basswood lumber to raft down the river where new settlements were being made.

I remained with Mr. Goodhue and sons a few days and was persuaded by them to visit what was then called New Albany (now Beloit) before going to Galena, they representing it as a very desirable point for a town and offering me an interest in claims which they had recently purchased there. I accepted the proposition to visit Beloit. There was a large encampment of Indians on the opposite side of Rock River from our camp, of whom we purchased a large canoe, giving them $5 and a gallon of whisky. In it Mr. Goodhue and son George, Mr. Blood, Mr. Frink, and myself embarked for Beloit. Goodhue and I owned the canoe and Frink and Blood worked their passage. The river was very high and we went to Fort Atkinson the first half day and lodged that night with Alvin Foster in a log house, the only house there.[105] It had but one room of moderate size in which were domiciled that night Foster and his wife, mother, and niece, and seven travelers. The next day we reached Koshkonong Lake before 10 A. M., and the wind being high we divided, Messrs. Goodhue, Frink, and Blood going by land around the lake, while George Goodhue and I kept the boat, preferring our chances to drown to the tramp by land of six miles on a hot day over a marsh of some miles. We were to meet at the outlet of the lake. We in the boat had a rough voyage, bailing water part of the way to prevent foundering, and on our arrival at the outlet found none of our party and after waiting some hours we went on and just after dark we met them on the river bank about ten miles below the lake, muddy and tired. We took them [in] and soon reached Janesville, a village of three families, viz., Messrs. Bailey, Stevens, and Janes.[106] We remained there over night and next morning by 10 A. M. reached Beloit, where there was one family.

It was Sunday morning, the fifteenth of July, 1837. I found Caleb Blodgett[107] and family there in a log house and we slept upon the floor two nights while there, in the only house except a log hut which had just been vacated by an Indian trader, by name Thibault, whose wife was a squaw. The first day, Sunday, I took a walk up where the College now stands and on to the banks of Turtle Creek where I saw many Indian mounds, some of them still preserved and where I had an uninterrupted view of prairie such as I had never had before. I said to my friend with me that it was the most beautiful landscape view that I had ever seen. Quite a number of Indian wigwams were standing upon the prairie near the creek and hurdles for drying their corn, which had been raised for years upon the Turtle bottoms.

Beloit had been named by Blodgett “New Albany.” He with a large family of sons had located there in 1836 and built their house that fall and had claimed some three miles square by ploughing a furrow around and putting up several shanties. The Government was surveying the land; and as it was not in the market, no title could be obtained except a so-called squatter’s title, which was obtained by a settlement upon the land and which gave the settler the right to preëmpt 160 acres when it came into market. In February, 1837, Dr. Horace White visited Beloit as the agent of a New England company from Colebrook, New Hampshire, that had sent him out to select a home for them in the new West. He left Colebrook in January in company with R. P. Crane and O. P. Bicknell, who stopped in Michigan while White continued west exploring the Rock River valley and the valley of the Des Moines River, all then in the territory of Wisconsin. At Beloit he found Blodgett and sons (six of them) and John Hackett, a son-in-law, and being pleased with the place, he purchased one-third of all the interest or claims of Blodgett and sons, the interests being undivided. Blodgett had before bought Thibault’s interest for $500, who with his squaw removed to Koshkonong Lake, where I saw them both on my first voyage down the river and on a subsequent one in September. The following winter he was murdered by his squaw and her family.

The following are the names of the colony for whom White acted: Horace White, Otis Bicknell, George W. and Charles Bicknell, their father, Captain Bicknell, R. P. Crane, Messrs. Beach, Eames, and Alfred Field, and Israel Cheney, and one other whose name I forget, but who never came west.[108] In March, White returned east and O. P. Bicknell and Crane came to Beloit and built a shanty and occupied it. That spring a Major Johnson from Newburg, Vermont, and John Doolittle from Holley, Lower Canada, had reached Beloit and purchased 2/12ths of Blodgett’s claims and lived in the Thibault shanty. Charles Goodhue from Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, and his brother-in-law, Tyler H. Moore, had purchased 3/12ths before and had begun the race and a saw mill on Turtle Creek when I reached the place. The interests were as follows then: Blodgett and sons 3/12ths, New England Company (so-called) 4/12ths, Goodhue and Moore 3/12ths, Johnson & Doolittle 2/12ths. I found there Blodgett and sons, Johnson & Doolittle, Cyrus Eames, Bicknell & Crane. The lower bench of Beloit or between the bluff and river was still covered by heavy timber and underbrush, but little having been removed. The owners had broken some acres on the bottoms and were breaking 160 acres where Slaymaker now resides and 100 acres on the high ground south of him. On Monday after my arrival I purchased of Goodhue and Moore one-fourth of their interest for $400 and I paid for my share of the ploughing which was to be cultivated in common until a division of claims was made. I did not expect to locate there but bought on speculation.

On Tuesday, the seventeenth, I embarked in our canoe with Mr. Goodhue and son George, Mr. Frink, and Mr. Eames for Rockford, leaving Mr. Blood there. We remained at Rockford over night at the log hotel of Mr. Miller. There were several families there. Mr. Goodhue’s son Charles met us there with his team and took us to Belvedere where he had a little store and where half a dozen families had settled. It was called Squaw Prairie and a Mr. Doty kept a hotel or tavern. We left our canoe to the citizens of Rockford. After a night’s rest at Belvidere, Frink, Eames, and I started on foot for Chicago, stopping the first night at Spencer’s Grove. The next day I was quite sick and reached Tyler & Raustead’s house, four miles west of Elgin, about six P. M., and was so sick that I felt that I could go no farther and proposed to stay over night, but they would not keep me, fearing that I should be too sick to leave in the morning. They reluctantly gave me a cup of tea and I moved on, being virtually dragged by the arms the four miles by Messrs. Frink and Doolittle.

Here let me correct a mistake in dates and facts. Cyrus Eames was not at Beloit at this time, and it was not Eames who left Beloit in the boat with us, but John Doolittle, who returned to Canada with Mr. Goodhue at this time. We reached Elgin after dark, where I learned that I had an aunt and her husband and three children living four miles above Elgin on Fox River, and in the morning I parted with Frink, who started for Ottawa, and I hired Mr. Kimball, the landlord, to take me in a wagon to my Aunt Tyler’s, I being yet a sick man. Elgin had about ten families. I found my aunt and husband with three sons on a farm of 400 acres which George Tyler had squatted upon in 1835 and before the government survey. Aunt Tyler was the youngest sister of my mother, and married Noah Tyler of Claremont, New Hampshire, about 1803 and by him had eight children, four sons and four daughters. The family became Catholics and the four daughters became abbesses or superiors. The oldest son, George, went in early life to Georgia and emigrated from the South to this state and sent for his father, mother, and two brothers, who came to him. He married here at the age of fifty and is now a resident of Texas. The second son, William, died Catholic bishop of Rhode Island and Connecticut, in 1854, I think. The third son died at Dundee and the youngest is living at Elgin and has a large family of nine children. His name is Calvin. He was educated for the Catholic priesthood. One daughter, Sallie, is living in Detroit at the head of a Catholic nunnery.

My good aunt nursed me well and in three days I was quite well and was sent for by Mr. Goodhue to meet him at Elgin, which I did and he took me to Chicago with his team. For miles before we reached Chicago the prairie was on an average one foot under water. I remained but a day or two in Chicago, stopping at the Tremont House. I took an old steamer back to Milwaukee. I boarded at the Leland House on the west side until September, when I started again for Beloit by way of Watertown and was accompanied by a young man by the name of Sanborn, who was or had been a medical student but had come west to seek his fortune. (He afterwards returned to New England and finished his studies and became very eminent in his profession in Keene, New Hampshire.) We borrowed a horse or pony of Colonel Parks, receiver of the land office, and rode and tied to Watertown, and there we spanseled the pony and turned him out to grass. The next day the Indians had stolen him and he was found some weeks after at Green Bay. We stopped with a Mr. Johnson, the first settler there and then the only family there except one in Goodhue’s camp.[109] They gave us a bed separated from the bed of Mrs. Johnson and her daughter by a blanket hung between us. Mr. Johnson slept on the floor. The house was about 12 × 12 feet, in one room. We had for food salt pork, potatoes, and blackberries, and good appetites.

We remained one week and labored diligently with adz and axe in cutting down a basswood tree and fashioning a canoe from it, and at the end of a week we hired Mr. Johnson’s yoke of oxen and drew the canoe about a mile to the river. Neither of us were acquainted with the use of tools, and the canoe was not artistic. We launched it, and on entering it the first time it shot from under me and left me in the river. But we soon got the hang of it and we set sail. On entering Lake Koshkonong we found the wild rice so high and thick that we could not find a way out of it, and we returned to an Indian encampment on the river and hired two Indian boys to go before us and pilot us through the rice (about half a mile) to clear water. We reached the outlet about dark and it was then by the river about twenty miles to Janesville, and we knew there was a log hut with a man and wife in it somewhere before reaching Janesville.

We pulled on in a bright moonlight and reached the shanty about midnight, very tired and hungry. On landing we went to the house and found an opening with a quilt for a door, which I pushed aside and spoke to a woman whom I discovered in a bed with her head within a foot of the door. She answered with a scream and the husband enquired, “Who is there?” I replied, “A friend,” and made known our wants. He arose and struck a light and I found we were in a log room about 12 × 8 feet with no windows, door, or fireplace, the fire for cooking being made against the logs at one end and a hole in the roof for the escape of the smoke. The bedstead was made of two upright sticks with sticks, one end entering holes bored in the logs, the other entering holes in the standing pieces and slats on these supports. There were two berths of this kind, one over the other. We were given the upper one and slept until the party under us had breakfast ready. The man had been to the river and caught a fine catfish for breakfast and we had appetites that gave our food a fine relish. From there we went to Beloit in one day without accident. This was in September. Mr. Sanborn remained with me several days. He boarded with Mr. Blodgett in his log house, sleeping on the floor. Mr. Johnson, Alfred Field, and some others lived in the Thibault hut and the Bicknell family in a log hut near the paper mill or present dam, on the east side of the river. I remained about four weeks.

While there, a meeting of the settlers was called at the Beloit House, which was at that time enclosed and partly finished, to give a better name to the place. Major Johnson, Deacon Hobart, and myself were appointed a committee to report one and we proposed several and finally agreed to place the alphabet in a hat and see if we could not get a combination of letters that would give us a name that would be a new one. While proposing this, Mr. Johnson undertook to sound a French word for handsome ground and in trying he spoke “Bollotte,” and I said after him “Beloit,” like Detroit in sound and pretty and original I think. All sounded it and liked it and we reported it to the twenty or thirty who had sent us out and it was unanimously adopted; and it has ever since been Beloit and not New Albany.

While at Beloit Major Johnson and Cyrus Eames took the canoe that Sanborn and I made and floated down to Burlington where the first territorial legislature for the Wisconsin Territory was in session. The present states of Iowa and Wisconsin were called Wisconsin Territory then. At that session they obtained a charter for a female seminary in Beloit, it being the first charter for an institution of learning that was granted in the Territory.[110] While at Beloit in September, a Professor Whitney of Belvidere preached the first sermon in the Beloit House that was preached in the county of Rock. I remained into October and then returned to Milwaukee by the way of Watertown on horseback, riding one of George Goodhue’s horses in company with him and remaining over night in his shanty at Watertown. I remained in Milwaukee until February, 1838, having sprained my ankle in January, which confined me to crutches for three months.

My father and sisters, Jane and Amanda, reached Fox River in December, where my sisters remained with my Aunt Tyler until March. They left Vermont in October and came by land with a three-horse team. My father came on to Beloit, and learning there that I was confined in Milwaukee by lameness, he started for me with his team, expecting to find his goods shipped by water from Burlington, Vermont, but found that the vessel and goods had been sent near Mackinaw and that a friend of mine had started with me in a jumper for Beloit, where we met after three days. We rented one-half of the log house which Blodgett had just left to occupy a new frame house. We went to Dundee for my sisters in March and settled in our home with but little furniture. My father had brought with him two beds and bedding and clothing. Dr. White, father of Horace White of New York, occupied the other half of the house with his family. I met him in April and we soon became fast friends. He was a good physician and a man of great business capacity, one who had great command of language and would say more in the fewest words than any man that I have ever known. He was a man of sound judgment. He was a very [word illegible] and reserved man, making but few confidants. We were more intimate than brothers usually are. We had no secrets that were withheld by either from the other. He died in December, 1843, and I was left very sad.

In the summer of 1838 I bought four yoke of oxen and broke prairie for the crop of 1839 after seeding the 20 acres which was my share of the 320 acres, which was ploughed in two fields and paid for and owned in common by the colonists. My father and I harrowed in wheat and oats in March. Bread and meat were very scarce and dear, and some days we had nothing but suckers caught out of Turtle Creek. But most of the time we had meat and as soon as the vegetables grew we lived very well having plenty of hog product and bread. Our fall crop of wheat was good.

In the fall of 1838 I went to Milwaukee and arranged with a merchant for stoves, boots, and shoes to sell on commission, and with one team I drove them to Beloit and sold them at a good profit to the settlers who were coming in almost every day. In the winter of 1838-9 we lived in a part of Mr. Blodgett’s new frame house. In the summer of 1838 I made a claim of 160 acres on Rock River, two miles above Fort Atkinson, which was covered with timber, much of it basswood. In the winter of 1838-9 I hired four men to cut logs and rafted them in the spring to Beloit and had them cut on shares by Messrs. Goodhue and Moore. From the sales of this lumber I paid my men and from a part of it I built a comfortable house for my family. My sisters, Emeline and Rosetta, had been left behind, one in Montreal and Rosetta with an uncle in Burke, Vermont, under the care of a physician, having a sprained foot that she did not step upon for three years and which is not well yet. They came west in the fall of 1838, so in the new house we all gathered and were very happy.

In March, 1839, the first land sale took place in Milwaukee, and I was chosen bidder for all claimants in the south half of Rock County east of Rock River, the lands on the west side having been brought into market before at a land sale in Milwaukee. The claimants all secured their lands, they standing by me and permitting no one to bid but me on their lands, and I got all for them at the upset price of $1.25 per acre. Here I met the cousin and agent of Gen. Philip Kearney, and arranged with him to buy lands for the general and take the agency of the lands purchased. I made entries for him at Milwaukee and afterwards at Dixon land sale and subsequently entered some thousands of acres with Mexican soldiers’ land warrants on shares and managed his estate in the west for some years, and in 1856 I bought his remaining lands at $60,000 and closed my account with him. He visited me once in Beloit.

The first session of the territorial legislature was held at Belmont, Lafayette County, the second at Burlington, Iowa, and the third in Madison in November, 1838, after Iowa was organized as a separate territory. I attended that and succeeding sessions for several years as a lobby member. In 1839 I was appointed sheriff of Rock County by Governor Dodge and held the office six years, in one of which I took the census of the county and as sheriff collected the taxes of the county. I had my appointment from Governor Dodge two years, from Governor Doty three years, and the last year from the people, the office having been made elective. The statutes would not permit me to hold it again until after two years. My business was such that I could not afford to hold it longer, and I accepted the last election because the county was democratic and I was the only Whig that could defeat the nominee of that party. On the night of the election I went to Janesville to get the returns and found all but four towns reported and a tie. The next town came in a tie, also the next, and one more to be heard from and that a democratic one I knew. When I got the returns from that I had seven majority, and a great shout went up from my friends.

At the legislative session of 1840 I was appointed a commissioner to lay out three territorial roads--one from Beloit to Southport (now Kenosha), one from Beloit to Madison, the other to Milwaukee. Two others were appointed with me on each road. I spent much time on them and they are the roads of today with some slight changes. At the next session I was commissioned to lay a road from Beloit to Watertown.

In 1839 I met for the first time Miss Caroline Field, the daughter of Deacon Peter Field, who was at Beloit to visit her parents. We soon became engaged to marry and after a courtship of three years we married in June, 1842. I had built a house, into which we moved on the day of our marriage, where I lived until 1866 and where all my children were born.

In 1842 Horace White, Harvey Bundy, and myself formed a partnership in a general goods business and commenced building the stone flour mill on the Turtle Creek. We bought a stock of goods for another store, called the Mill Store. In December, 1843, Doctor White died and I was left with all the business and also his family to care for and his estate to settle, and my partner, Harvey Bundy, a worthless business man. All the wise ones prophesied that we should fail and White’s estate was or would be used up. We owed a large amount and the mill was about half finished. I felt that I might lose all--for I had not much to lose really beyond the land that I first purchased and a few hundred dollars earned. I settled the estate and saved it without loss, and kept the family together until Mrs. White married Deacon Samuel Hinman. Horace White of the _Tribune_ once, and now the treasurer of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, was the son of Doctor White.[111]

In 1852 a railroad charter had been obtained for building a road from Racine to Beloit. Also, one from Southport to Beloit. The incorporators of each road came to me to assist them to build, and I chose the road to Racine and made enemies of the incorporators of the Southport road for the time being. It was through my influence that it was built. Fisher, Keep & Tolcott contracted to build it from Fox River to Freeport, and built it from Fox River or Burlington to Durand, when the financial crisis of 1867 failed the company and the work was suspended one year. I was appointed a receiver by the court and ran it a short time when it was restored to the directors and I became a director and the company built it to the Mississippi and sold it out to the bondholders.

Before this, in 1848 the Chicago and Galena Railroad had been built to Elgin and the funds of the company were exhausted, and William B. Ogden and other directors came to Beloit and offered to build a branch of their road from Rockford to Beloit, when their road reached Rockford, if the people of Beloit would subscribe $75,000 to the main line. I was selected by our citizens to take the subscription and in one week I got it--part of it without conditions, and part with my guarantee that if they would subscribe and pay five per cent, that I would guarantee the stock to be par when the second installment was called for. The installments were to be five per cent each month. Mr. Keep, Mr. Cheney, and myself took $30,000 and I took $15,000 for General Kearney. When the second installment was called for I had to take several thousand more that was given me on my agreement to take it if not at par. Before the third installment was due the stock was at five per cent premium and I sold most of it. The company built the road from Belvidere instead of Rockford, which gave us a shorter line. The next year the Beloit and Madison Railroad was begun, and I was elected a director in that and remained on the board until it was sold to the Chicago & Galena Company, which company soon after sold out to the Northwestern Railroad Company. I was a contractor on the Chicago & Northwestern Air Line between the Rock and Mississippi rivers. In 1856 I was one of the contractors for building the railroad from Clinton, Iowa, to Council Bluffs. The contract was for grading, ironing, and ballasting the road and amounted to about $13,000,000. The pay was a land grant of every other section ten miles in width, some cash, and some bonds and some stock. When we had expended about $400,000 in grading, the company failed in 1857. We got the first 100 sections of land and the franchise of the road, which we sold to Mr. Blair of New Jersey and got even with the company. We took the land grant and built the road some years after; Morris K. Jessup, Dean Richmond, Charles Reed of Erie, and Messrs. Morris & Courtright of New York were partners, also H. S. Durand and Wm. Allen of Racine. I also had a partnership with the last two and Judge Green of Providence, Rhode Island, by which the latter gentleman was to furnish $100,000 cash to be used by Durand, Allan, and myself in the purchase of lands and town sites in Iowa on the line of the road, the profits to be divided equally between Durand, Allan, and myself, party of the first part, and Greene and his associates, party of the second part. The crisis of 1857 ended that project. In 1852 I prevailed upon a party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to open a bank in Beloit. In 1854 John M. Keep, A. L. Field, and myself bought the bank stock and elected Keep president and Field cashier. In 1856 I was elected president and Mr. Keep sold his stock. In the crisis of 1857 the bank failed and was closed and its charter sold to Davis & Martin. In 1856 I was elected to the legislature and served in 1856-7 and declined a reëlection, as at the time of election the next year, I had more business irons in the fire than I could attend to.

When the charter of the city of Beloit was obtained, I was elected an alderman from the second ward and served six years, and was two years county supervisor. I was a director in a gas company, also in a car company that went no further than organizing.

I was a partner of W. T. Goodhue in the purchase and ownership of considerable real estate. With Goodhue and R. H. Mills in the purchase and sale of real estate; also, with R. H. Mills in the purchase and sale of a large amount of real estate. In the settlement with Mr. Mills, he owed me over $15,000 which he could not pay, so I gave it to him. Mr. H. Cheney owed me as much more when he left for Colorado, where he died. Messrs. Mills, Brooks, and I purchased and sold much real estate. I was elected a trustee of Beloit College at its organization and have been to date, also one of the Executive Committee while I lived in Beloit, and gave much of the site or grounds. I have been a deacon in the Congregational church about thirty years. In 1861 I was appointed by President Lincoln postmaster at Beloit. He had been my attorney in defending the title to Beloit, which I did at my own expense mostly and won the suit, and saved the citizens from a heavy blackmail.

The president offered me any office that I thought myself competent to fill, through my friend, David Davis. I took the Beloit post office, as I could not leave my business interests in Beloit. At the end of four years I was commissioned again by Lincoln and was afterwards removed by Johnson for refusing to support his measures. In 1862 I was appointed by Secretary Chase to take subscriptions to the first or gold bonds issued to carry on the war, and was one of two appointed for Wisconsin and received subscriptions.

[97] Lucius G. Fisher, a native of Vermont, was born at Derby, August 17, 1808. His father was a substantial farmer of Derby, but due to business reverses the son failed to obtain the anticipated college education, a fact which he never ceased to lament. While still a youth he formed the design of migrating to the West, but the execution of this project was delayed for several years, first by reason of his disinclination to separate from his mother, and after her death by the necessity of assisting in the support of his father and sisters. After several years of school teaching and two years of service as sheriff’s deputy, Fisher in 1834 entered the employ of the Messrs. Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, to travel for them and introduce their “recently invented” platform scales. The immediate inducement to this employment was the proffered salary of $500 yearly and all expenses; but the work was accepted by Fisher, as he reports in later life, in order to find, in his travels, “that better country” he had determined, when but sixteen years of age, to seek.

The employment with the Fairbanks company continued profitably for Fisher for three years. Then the panic of 1837 brought it to a disastrous termination, under the circumstances set forth in the narrative which follows. The manuscript from which these facts are drawn, and the greater portion of which we print, tells the story of the writer’s life from birth until the time of writing, at Chicago, in the spring of 1883. To summarize its concluding portion, Fisher left Beloit for Chicago in 1866, where with Ralph Emerson he built a block at the southeast corner of State and Washington streets on the site of the present Columbus Memorial Building. Although burned out in the great fire of October 9, 1871, Fisher prospered in Chicago and became comparatively wealthy.

The manuscript narrative of his career was presented to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in January, 1917 by a grandson, William Scott Bond, of Chicago. Because of the valuable picture it presents of pioneer days in Wisconsin, and particularly of the early development of Beloit, in which Mr. Fisher played a prominent and creditable part, the narrative seems eminently worthy of the wider publicity and service which its publication in the Wisconsin Magazine of History involves. In preparing the manuscript for publication a uniform typographical style has been imposed, and certain minor lapses in composition have been eliminated; but these editorial changes affect in no degree the character of the narrative as it left Mr. Fisher’s hand.

[98] The _Democrat_, the first newspaper published in Chicago, was founded by John Calhoun in November, 1833. In 1836 Calhoun sold the paper to John Wentworth, who continued as its proprietor and editor until the _Democrat_ was merged with the _Tribune_ in 1861.

[99] Gurdon S. Hubbard, a native of Vermont, came west in 1818 as a youth in the employ of the American Fur Company, and was assigned to the Illinois Brigade. A number of years later he made Chicago his permanent residence and became one of the most prominent of the first generation of Chicago business men. He does not, however, deserve in any sense the title of “first settler” of Chicago.

[100] Chase’s Point was named after Horace Chase, a prominent citizen of early Milwaukee. Like the Chicago River, the Milwaukee has been subjected to a civilizing process which has resulted in the acquisition of a new mouth some distance to the north of the natural one.

[101] John H. Tweedy, a native of Connecticut and graduate of Yale, came to Milwaukee in 1836 as a youthful lawyer of twenty-two. He soon became prominent both in legal and in political circles, and throughout the territorial period was one of the leaders of the Whig faction in Wisconsin. In 1847 he was elected as territorial delegate to Congress. Upon the admission of Wisconsin to statehood Tweedy was put forward by the Whigs as their candidate for the governorship, but was defeated by Nelson Dewey. During the fifties Tweedy was active in the development of the railroad system of Wisconsin.

[102] Apparently the reference is to Solomon Juneau, one of the founders of Milwaukee, who settled there as an Indian trader in 1818.

[103] Alexander Pratt had removed from Milwaukee to Waukesha earlier in the year 1837. Although one of the very early settlers of Waukesha, he was not the first one, nor was his house the only one at the place at the time of Fisher’s visit. Pratt was unmarried at this time. He was a man of some means, however, and had in his employ a man and wife. Probably this couple is the one alluded to by Fisher.

[104] Harrison Reed had come west to Milwaukee in 1836, and in 1837 became virtually the first editor of the _Sentinel_. By an unfortunate quarrel a few years later he lost control of the paper and was ruined financially. After residences at Madison and Menasha, Reed in 1862 was appointed tax commissioner of Florida. He later (1868-72) served as governor of the state.

[105] The settlement of Fort Atkinson was begun in the autumn of 1836 under the auspices of the Rock River Claim Company. This company, organized earlier in the same year, had sent out an exploring party and made claims at several points, including Fort Atkinson. In order to make good the latter claim it was decided to locate a family on it, and accordingly a house was built and occupied by Dwight Foster and family, late in 1836. During the ensuing winter, Edward and Alvin Foster also came to Fort Atkinson, their houses being built about a mile up the river from Dwight Foster’s cabin. Instead of being the first house at this point, therefore, Alvin Foster’s was the second or third one built.

[106] The settlement of Janesville was begun by the erection of a log house by John Inman and others near the close of the year 1835. Two or three months later Henry Janes, for whom the town is named, staked out a claim here, and in the spring of 1836 brought his family to a cabin which workmen had already built for him. Several other families came during the following months, and Fisher is probably incorrect in saying there were but three at the time of his first visit in the autumn of 1837. The Bailey family, mentioned by Fisher, arrived in the autumn of 1836, and the Stevens family in the spring of 1837.

[107] Blodgett, a native of Vermont, had come west in search of a fortune, and in the spring of 1836 had bought Thibault’s squatter-right claim to all the land within “three looks” of his cabin for $200. Blodgett thereupon set up a claim to some ten sections of land, and fortified it, according to local histories, by building a log house and ploughing a furrow around it. Before becoming possessed of any legal title whatever, Blodgett began disposing of his extensive domain by selling to Goodhue his claim to one-third of it (one-fourth, according to Fisher) for the sum of $2,000. Goodhue in turn disposed of one-fourth of his interest to Fisher for $400. Meanwhile, in March, 1837, Dr. Horace White of Colebrook, N. H., had visited the place, and on behalf of the New England Emigrating Company had purchased one-third of Blodgett’s claim for $2,500. This coming of the New England Emigrating Company to Beloit may be regarded as the most important event in connection with its early development. At the same time Doctor White was instrumental in giving to Beloit her most famous citizen in the person of his three-year old son, Horace.

[108] The list of members according to Horace White included the following persons: Cyrus Eames, O. P. Bicknell, John W. Bicknell, Asahel B. Howe, Leonard Hatch, David J. Bundy, Ira Young, L. C. Beech, S. G. Colley, G. W. Bicknell, R. P. Crane, Horace Hobart, Horace White, and Alfred Field. William F. Brown, _History of Rock County_ (Chicago, 1908), I, 133.

[109] This was Timothy Johnson, a native of Middletown, Conn., who came to Wisconsin in 1835. He stopped at Racine for a few months, going from there to Wisconsin City (now Janesville) at the beginning of 1836. Not satisfied here, however, he soon went up Rock River to a point about two miles below the site of Jefferson, where he built a log house and cleared a garden plot. Further prospecting soon led to the discovery of “Johnson’s Rapids” (modern Watertown), where he staked out a claim of 1,000 acres in the spring of 1836, bringing his family to the place in December following. He had thus been settled here about a year at the time of Fisher’s first visit.

[110] The charter was granted in 1837 for the establishment of a seminary “for young persons of either sex.” The school was not started, according to Horace White, until 1843 or 1844, when classes were held in the basement of the new Congregational church. Classes for girls were maintained separately in the “Female Seminary.”

[111] Horace White, widely known as a publicist, and writer on financial themes, was brought to Beloit by his parents as a child of three years in 1837. He was graduated at Beloit College in 1853, and in 1854 became city editor of the Chicago _Evening Journal_. From 1864 to 1874 he was editor and part owner of the Chicago _Tribune_. In 1883 he bought a part interest in the New York _Evening Post_ and thereafter for twenty years was one of its managers, and for the last few years of the period its editor-in-chief.

DOCUMENTS

THE CHICAGO TREATY OF 1833

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY MILO M. QUAIFE

The Chicago Treaty of 1833, with the negotiating of which the following documents deal, was an event of considerable importance, particularly in the history of Illinois and Wisconsin. From the first advent of the white man in this region the Potawatomi tribe of Indians had made its home in some portion of the territory adjacent to Lake Michigan. By the Chicago Treaty of 1833 the Potawatomi and allied tribes, the Chippewa and Ottawa, at length agreed definitely to leave this region and find a new home beyond the Mississippi. To the whites was surrendered their title to some 5,000,000 acres of fertile land in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, embracing the tract between Lake Michigan and Rock River and extending northward from an east and west line drawn through the southernmost point of Lake Michigan.

The circumstances attending the negotiation of the treaty were typical, probably, of those of Indian treaties generally in the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet two or three facts give to this treaty a somewhat special degree of interest. One is that we have left to us fuller and better descriptions of the negotiation of the treaty than is commonly the case. Another and more important one is that a larger sum of money was distributed in the form of gratuities more or less disguised, to facilitate the conduct of the negotiations. It is with this phase of the subject that the documents here presented deal. So far as known, no student of American history has ever seriously set himself the task of illuminating the subject of the process whereby the American government secured from the red man, in successive treaties, title to the greater portion of the land of continental United States.[112] A comprehensive study of this subject would reveal much of interest and value; it would be certain, too, to disclose much of a nature far from flattering to the American government and nation. That the Chicago Treaty of 1833 would afford some material of this sort for the construction of the narrative, it requires no hardihood to affirm. Charges of improper influences and conduct in connection with the framing of the treaty began to be made as soon as it was negotiated. Some of them, doubtless, were irresponsible and unfounded, but there is reason for supposing that this was far from being true with respect to all of them. The letter of Governor Porter is preserved in the Burton Library at Detroit, and acknowledgment is due to Mr. Burton for the copy we present. The charges against Porter are copied from a contemporary broadside preserved among the Martin manuscripts in the Wisconsin Historical Library. The two documents go hand in hand, for it is evident that the charges which Porter sought in his letter to Jackson to refute are identical with those stated in the broadside, although the latter seems not to contain all the material which had been submitted to Jackson and which was referred by him to Porter to answer. Readers who may be interested in pursuing the subject further may find a discussion of the Chicago Treaty of 1833 in the present editor’s _Chicago and the Old Northwest 1673-1835_, 353-66.

CHARGES PREFERRED AGAINST GEORGE B. PORTER

Detroit, December 12, 1833.

To Hon. the Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs in the U. S. Senate

The following are the charges and specifications preferred against George B. Porter, Governor of Michigan Territory, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs:

GOV. PORTER, } _Commissioners Chicago Indian COL. OWEN, } Treaty, 1833._ MR. WEATHERFORD, }

* Robert A. Forsyth, $3000 } out of the $100,000 appropriated † James Kinzie, 5000 } in lieu of the reservations--Forsyth, of the U. S. Army, receiving his as Indian Chief.

* Robert A. Forsyth, $3000 } To be allowed out of $175,000 * Marcia Kercheval, 3000 } appropriated for claims * Alice Hunt, 3000 } against the Indians. The * Jane Forsyth, 3000 } names marked *, are the Children † Jno. H. Kinzie, 5000 } of Old Mr. Forsyth; those † Ellen Woolcott, 5000 } marked †, are the Children of † Maria Hunter, 5000 } Old Mr. Kinzie. The annexed † Robert A. Kinzie, 5000 } claims are allowed to the heirs † do. do. do 1216 } of Forsyth and Kinzie, for the * Robert A. Forsyth, 1300 } destruction of property by the ____ } Indians during the late War. $42,516 } Mr. Forsyth died in 1814, and his claims against the Indians were never heard of till now.

Old Mr. Kinzie, whose claims are placed on the same ground, died a subject of the King of Great Britain--he fought against this country in the late war--his own family only escaping at the massacre of Chicago. The heirs of Forsyth and Kinzie, are cousins, consequently the above claims are all in one family. Major Robert A. Forsyth, a Paymaster in the U. S. Army, and the individual above named, was one of the committee on claims who allowed the above sum of $42,516 to himself, his sisters and cousins--one individual only being associated with him. The Major, and all of his sisters, were born in the province of Upper Canada, and he to this day has never been naturalized. He is, however, the especial protege of the Secretary of War, and Governor Porter. A large amount of just claims were rejected by the Committee, to make room for the claims allowed above.

* Robert A. Forsyth, $ 300 } * do. do. do. 200 } * do. do. do 1000 } Said to be held in trust for * do. do. do. 800 } certain Indians, and allowed by * do. do. do. 200 } the Committee on Claims. * do. do. do. 400 }

Roberson and Caldwell, the principal Chiefs of the Potawatamie Nation, half whites, and persons whom Robert A. Forsyth can control as he pleases, received $10,000 each, as a bribe to induce them to influence the other Chiefs of the Nation. It is allowed out of the $100,000 appropriated in lieu of reservations. Caldwell was the principal Chief at the massacre of the River Raisin. A Frenchman called Loranger, an Indian trader, was allowed by the committee on claims $5000, by assigning his claim to Robert A. Forsyth, to whom he was indebted $3000. The goods _furnished by John H. Kinzie, Aid-de-Camp to Governor Porter, (and the individual named in the list of claims,) and Mr. Kercheval, (the husband of Maria Kercheval, named in the list of claims,)_ under former treaties, amounted to $100,000. The practice of Gov. Cass has always been to give the furnishing of goods to be distributed among the Indians, under a regulation of a former treaty, to the Indian Agent at the Agency where the goods were to be distributed, as a perquisite of his office. Had the precedent been followed in the present case, the Indian Agents at Green Bay, Chicago and Logansport, would have had the distribution of the goods. But Gov. Porter assigned, _over and over again_, as a reason for taking this perquisite from the Agents, that he was desirous of saving the per centage usually allowed them, and that in lieu of this per centage, he had engaged Kinzie and Kercheval only as agents to purchase the goods in New-York, and was to give them a per diem allowance for this trouble. Yet, in express contradiction of this declaration, Governor Porter, _as can be positively proved_, has allowed to Kinzie and Kercheval, 50 per cent. on the whole amount of goods furnished, making to them a profit of $50,000.

Claims $42,516 Trust Fund 3,200 Profit on Goods 50,000 ------ $95,716

This amount of public money is put into the pockets of one family in the short space of six weeks. Is it not reasonable to suppose, that Governor Porter finds a strong reason for confining the patronage of the Government to one family, in the _fact that he comes in for a share of the “plunder?”_

In addition to this, Kinzie and Kercheval have received from Governor Porter, the contract to furnish the Indians with horses, from which they will undoubtedly realize $10,000.

Kinzie also obtained the exclusive furnishing of the goods at the forks of the Wabash, amounting to $40,000, and Kercheval at Nottawassippie, to the amount of $20,000.

It is a fact notorious among all who attended the Chicago Treaty, that the goods furnished at that treaty, were afterwards taken from the Indians in large amounts, and furnished at other places. Kinzie himself, used the goods which he furnished the Indians as a _gag_ to those who complained of his conduct, by making them presents of cloth, &c.

Lucius Lyon, our Delegate in Congress, is in possession of all the foregoing facts, and will vouch for their correctness; and for their further confirmation, I refer you to Geo. W. Ewing, Logansport, Ind.; Alexis Coquillard, South Bend, Ind.; Thos. J. V. Owen, Indian Agent, Chicago; Peter Godfroy, Teunis S. Wendell, Wm. Brewster, Edward Brooks, and S. T. Mason, of Detroit; and Robert Stewart, Mackinac; and Col. Ewing, Secretary of the Commissioners. Most respectfully submitted for your consideration.

Your Obedient Servt.

LETTER FROM GEORGE B. PORTER TO PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON

Detroit, December 15th, 1833.

Gen’l Andrew Jackson, President of the United States,

Sir,

After a fatiguing tour of more than three months, in performance of the several public duties assigned to me, I arrived here last evening, and have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, this morning, of your letter of the 2nd inst. with its inclosure.

Personal respect for you, Sir, restrains the expression of feelings, outraged and indignant at having been made the object of calumnies, so wantonly malicious and grossly untrue, as those contained in the paper laid before you, a copy of which you have transmitted.

I appreciate, with a proper sense of the obligation, the considerate justice which has offered me the means of confronting my accusers, whenever they shall declare themselves; and I thank you for the renewed mark of confidence in my integrity, thus indicated.

The statements contained in this tissue of fabrications, shall be met fully and fairly, by my own distinct declarations, which, if deemed insufficient, shall be sustained by ample testimony, incapable of refutation. And if in vindicating my honor from unmerited aspersion, the detail should prove tedious, I ask, not doubting it will be granted, your forbearance for a temper, smarting under a sense of undeserved injury.

I may be permitted to premise, that like other public men, I too, have my enemies. But for this peculiar and vindictive rancour that assails me, I cannot otherwise account, than by attributing it to that fruitful source of evil passions--disappointed expectations. If, in the endeavor faithfully to discharge my duties, it has not been in my power to accomplish _all_ the wishes of _all_, it is but the common lesson which experience has taught, to others as well as to myself. The invidious feeling which these causes produce, seeks to gratify itself, by wresting from me the credit of having effected an important Treaty, and would willingly sacrifice to its object the best interests of the country.

To proceed then to the matters alleged against me.

The first proposition contains both an indirect and a direct falsehood. First, in stating, for the purpose of disparagement, that but three million acres of land are purchased, when in point of fact, there are nearly six millions; And Secondly, that the title not being in the Indians, “_there was no necessity for a Treaty at all_.” The declaration itself is utterly without foundation; but waiving this, I remark, that the province of determining this “_necessity_,” rested not with the Commissioners but with the President. In the present instance, it is well known that a cession of country along the Western shore of Lake Michigan was deemed of so much importance, that an appropriation for holding the Treaty was made at the last Session of Congress--Who could be ignorant of this fact? And yet, those who profess to understand this matter better than the President and Congress, and the Secretary of War, whose knowledge of these Indians and this region of country is minutely particular, assert that the land did not belong to the Indians ceding it, and that “_a little investigation will satisfy any reasonable man that there was no necessity for a Treaty at all_.”

It is stated also that to indulge my favoritism its objects always found it an easy matter to “persuade his Excellency to get up a Treaty.” The mendacity of the writer is equalled only by his ignorance. The power which assumes the ordering of Treaties does not lie with me. But without this, the charge is unfortunate in its application, for I appeal to my letters on file in the Department to show whether this appointment was eagerly coveted, or reluctantly accepted, by me. And the instructions of the Department under which the Commissioners acted, (an extract from which for your convenience I enclose), will show, that the Secretary was not only aware of the importance of the duty but directed us “_not to abandon it till all hopes of success were exhausted_.” That we succeeded in effecting all that was required of us and, in the opinion of every good and intelligent citizen with whom I have conversed, made a valuable Treaty, advantageous alike to the Government and the Indians, of importance to the surrounding country, and this in the most public and honorable manner, I had never heard doubted, until my return to this place. Since then, I have heard of boasts that I should be destroyed. And accordingly, during my _absence_, falsehood and aspersion were busy with my character and conduct. To destroy the confidence you repose in me, no means have been scruppled at.--First, it is boldly proclaimed that I cannot effect a Treaty--then it is denied that any credit is due to _me_, for having accomplished it:--and now, I am held exclusively answerable for the whole Treaty, and every circumstance attending it.

To my Co-Commissioners, and the gentleman selected _by them_ as the Secretary of the Commission, who are all highly respectable Citizens of Illinois:--to the full Journal of all our proceedings:--to the many distinguished citizens of Illinois, Indiana and the surrounding country:--to every honourable man who was present during the Council, among whom are Mr. Daniel Jackson of New York--and Mr. Robert Stewart, the Agent of the American Fur Company at Michilimackinac, both of whom I understand to be now in Washington, and whose characters are known to you, I appeal with confidence, for a refutation of these slanders.[113]

The suggestion that extra allowances have been made to me for extra services is not disputed, being an usage of the Government from its first institution. The labors I have performed and the fatigues I have undergone, in this tour, over roads almost impassable, and during a continuation of the most unfavorable weather, teach me to believe that I have honestly earned all that the Rule of Department will allow: But the vile and mean insinuation appended, and which none but an utterly corrupt heart could generate, that I have _sold_ my patronage, does not require an answer.

In reference to the claims or accounts contained in the Schedules annexed to the Treaty, to some of which particular exception has been taken, I proceed, in explanation, to state: That in furtherance of the policy of the Government to remove these Indians West of the Mississippi, the Commissioners refused to grant Reservations of land, although these were greatly preferred, but agreed, in lieu thereof, that a part of the _consideration money_ should be apportioned among such individuals as the Indians chose to designate. In like manner another part of the consideration money, the _amount_ of which was fixed, was to be applied in satisfaction of claims, which, on examination, should be admitted by the Indians to be justly divided. Who, so well as they, could tell whether they were indebted to an individual or not? But to protect themselves against unfounded claims, many of which were presented, the Chiefs and head men employed a gentleman of high standing and respectability, as their assistant, and asked permission that he might be present at the investigation of the claims. This gentleman was Richard E. Hamilton, Esq.,[114] of Chicago--in whom these Indians reposed unbounded confidence--They farther requested that Major Forsyth, for whom they professed a like regard, and who was familiarly known to them, should aid their friend Col. Hamilton in the duty confided to him. Impressed, as all were, with the character of the two gentlemen for integrity and honor, so reasonable a request was not denied.--In the presence of the Chiefs and those Assistants, the commissioners proceeded in the examination of the numerous claims, the _decision_ on each claim being made by the commissioners; by all of them; and by them _alone_; and the amount allowed on each claim was then and there written down by the Secretary. So far as relates to the allowances, (so principal an object of animadversion), granted to the heirs of Forsyth & Kinzie, I aver, without fear of contradiction, that neither Major Forsyth nor any of the persons interested, had anything to do with the decision upon them; nor, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, were any of them present, when they were acted on--The Chiefs and Head men insisted upon these allowances, and the Commissioners, on hearing the representation of the Indians unanimously acquiesced in their justice. These with the several other claims allowed form, as I have stated, a part of the consideration money of the Treaty, and if it were possible, which it certainly is not, to preserve the Treaty, striking these out, the Individuals named would, I have not a doubt, suffer neither detriment nor loss--The whole Potawatamie Nation would, I am persuaded, restore the allowances at the Annuity table.

The name of Robert A. Forsyth, which occurs three times in the first statement of allowances, belongs to two different individuals, one of whom is a Merchant in Ohio,[115] and the other, the Paymaster. The extensive trade in which the Merchant of this name in Ohio is engaged will appear on reference to several Treaties lately made in Ohio and Indiana. Nor is this confusion of names mentioned in defence or extenuation--I am ignorant of any just ground of exception to my conduct, in the whole history of this transaction, but I note it, merely, as one of a series of deceptive statements. The jeering comment follows that “Major Forsyth of the United States Army, received his $3000 as an Indian Chief.” These falsehoods are almost too gross for refutation. The Treaty states the allowance. Does it say he received it as an Indian Chief? The Indians stated, themselves, and without any prompting on the part of the Commissioners, that there was due to Robert A. Forsyth a reservation, which had long since been promised by their nation, and which they had desired Governor Cass and Judge Sibley, Commissioners at the Treaty of Chicago in 1821, to grant him. This request has been reiterated at the Treaty of St. Joseph, in 1828, as can be attested by Gov. Cass and Mr. Menard, the Commissioners;--the land being then, and ever since, set apart for him by the Indians. It was not secured to him in either of these Treaties, because not included within the bounds of the lands then ceded. The Commissioners, in this, as in every other instance when it could be done compatibly with the policy of the Government, and with justice to Individuals and the Indians, conceived it their duty to obey their wishes.[116] The selection of persons to examine and adjust claims, as well for reservations as on account of losses, was made, not by the Commissioners, but by the Indians themselves. The claims were all subjected to the supervision of the Indians, or persons they themselves appointed to represent them;--It is notorious that they expressed at all times the most unhesitating confidence in their Indian Agent, Col. Owen, who was one of the Commissioners:--in Col. Hamilton, whom they specially deputed to act for them, and in the two persons scoffed at as “_half whites_,” Caldwell and Robinson.[117] With these was associated also Joseph, an influential Chief, who was present in every business transaction--Caldwell and Robinson have been nurtured with, and raised by, these Indians, one from childhood, and the other from his birth; they are identified with this tribe, and are Indians in character, in manners, in mode of life, in sentiments and conduct, and as such are regarded by them. By reference to the Treaty of 1829, it will be seen that they were then acknowledged as the principal men, and the Treaty was made with them. Whom could they trust if not these? After the assent to sell had been obtained, and the general preliminaries had been agreed upon, the Indians in open council, as will appear by the Journal, advised the Commissioners that they had confided the care of their interests, and all the details of the Treaty, to these, their principal chiefs; and the Commissioners, as I considered then and now, properly acquiesced. When these details were completed, and the Treaty reduced to form, it was read by Col. Hamilton in private Council to the Indians, and was again read before them in public Council, by myself, and unanimously approved. It is represented that old Mr. Forsyth never had $500 in property in his life. This can be disproved by a hundred witnesses, conversant with the fact, that he was extensively engaged in the Indian trade. So, too, the assertion that “old Mr. Kinzie died a subject of the King of Great Britain”, can be falsified by the records of the War Department, showing him to have been for many years after the war a _Sub Agent of the Government_. Equally and unqualifiedly false also is the declaration that “he fought against his country in the late war,” or “led the Indians in the Massacre of Chicago.” On the contrary he was a zealous and efficient partizan of the American party, and as the books of the American Fur Company will show, was their agent at his death.

Nor is the declaration that Major Robert A. Forsyth, a Paymaster in the United States Army, has never been “naturalized,” by which it is intended to be conveyed that he is an alien, less destitute of truth. The Father of Major Forsyth was an American Citizen, (born in Detroit), and has always resided in this country, and the accidental circumstance that Major F’s mother was, at his birth, among her friends across the narrow line which divided the Territory from Canada, did not, nor could, divest him of his national character. The law of nations recognize no such principle: Accordingly, the vote of Major Forsyth has never been challenged at an election; he bore a Commission, as a Cadet of the Military Academy, and subsequently as an officer in the Army of the United States. He has been elected to the Legislature of the Territory, and executed the trust; where the objection stated, if valid, would have been fatal. Finally, he has received from the President of United States, a Commission as Pay Master in the United States Army. Equally deceptive with every other feature of this malignant attempt to destroy me, is the perverse meaning significantly assigned to the trusts, confided to Major Forsyth and Mr. Kinzie. They are real, substantial trusts, created under circumstances of perfect notoreity at Chicago, and challenge scrutiny. In these, as in every other case, the appointment was made without consulting the individual, and in some instances against his inclination.

Major Forsyth is charged also with having bribed Caldwell and Robinson with $10,000 each, to influence the Chiefs of their Nation. This varies in nothing from the complexion of the other statements. It is a pure fiction. Major Forsyth had nothing to do with the matter. The Individuals cited, received, by the express direction of their people, the sum of $10,000 each, _as the two head men of the nation_, to whom the entire direction of their affairs had long before been committed,--on whom they not infrequently lived, and to whom they looked for relief in their necessities. A reference to the Journal will establish the fact of their appointment, because it is so declared in the speeches of the Indians, delivered in public Council. If the Indians, in open Council, declare what shall be done with a part of the consideration money of their land and, according to their custom, insist that their principal Chiefs shall be provided for out of it, why should it be objected to? As well might it be objected that $5000, a part of this consideration money, is appropriated at the request of the Chiefs to the students of the Choctaw Academy, of which sum the Honorable Richard M. Johnson is constituted Trustee.[118]

It is said also among other representations that a Frenchman called Loranger,[119] who never had goods in the Indian country, was allowed by the Commissioners on Claims $5000 by assigning his claim to Robt. A. Forsyth to whom he was indebted $3,000.

It is with difficulty Sir, that I can sufficiently command my feelings, or control the disgust with which I am affected, at these monstrous falsehoods, for while I would speak of them in the manner they merit, I would not forget the respect due to you. But in the above proposition of three lines, are stated three direct, unqualified untruths:--First--That he had had no goods in the Indian Country which could be refuted by a common clamor. Second--That he assigned his claim to Major Forsyth; and Third--That he was indebted to him for $3000.--I have already named Mr. Daniel Jackson, of the firm of Suydam, Jackson & Co., of N. Y. who are so extensively engaged in the sale of Indian Goods--Of him I would ask how long he has known Mr. Loranger to be in the Indian trade, and what has been the amount of goods sold yearly to Mr. Loranger--The claim of Mr. Loranger was much greater than the allowance--The balance is lost to him, because not presented at the Treaty in Indiana in October 1832, being due by that Band or Party of Potawatamie Indians--He has been in the Indian trade since 1804, and lives within sight of this town.

I had intended to close this communication here; but I cannot remain silent, while slanders are heaped upon the gallant dead. The characters and memories of John Kinzie and Robert A. Forsyth deceased have been wickedly assailed--and by whom? Their descendants would like to know--For the part each one of these individuals took, and the important services rendered by them to the American Government in the late war, reference is made to many of the first men in the country; Among those immediately around you is the Secretary of War, Major General Macomb, General Gratiot and Colonel Croghan.--Having considered it my duty to make inquiry I have obtained the following information and believing it to be strictly correct, I give it to you as such.--

Memoir of the late John Kinzie of Michigan.[120]

John Kinzie died at Chicago in 1828, aged 64 years; he came to this part of the Country when a boy and was in the Indian trade during the greater part of his life. He went to Chicago, Illinois, in 1803--was Sutler for the United States troops for several years, and was the first to take from Detroit the news of the declaration of War, to Captain Heald then commanding the Fort at that place.[121] On the eve of the massacre at Chicago, Mr. Kinzie with two friendly Indian Chiefs, called at Captain Heald’s quarters, and advised him not to abandon the Fort as was contemplated the next morning, but to remain as long as possible; for if he left it he would certainly be attacked by the Indians, who had collected to the number of five hundred warriors.--Captain Heald persisted in going--said he had orders from Genl. Hull to evacuate the post, and to proceed with his command to Fort Wayne. Captain Heald then requested Mr. Kinzie to accompany him, which he did, leaving his family with but three men to protect them on their way to St. Joseph (distant by water 100 miles). Mr. Kinzie’s family were taken prisoners a few hours previous to the massacre. Mr. Kinzie was in the battle, as well as one daughter, the wife of Lieutenant Helm, whose horse was shot from under her. She received a wound in the foot from the ball which killed her horse. Mr. Kinzie was taken prisoner with the surviving command of Captain Heald. Having been long a principal trader among these Indians, and much esteemed by them, he was next day by a Council held by the Chiefs, liberated, and his family restored to him.

He then prevailed upon the Indians to surrender to him Captain Heald and family, whom he furnished with conveyance to Mackinac.[122] Mrs. Heald now residing at St. Louis can prove all these facts.--Having lost all his property to a very considerable amount (it being a wholesale establishment) consisting of merchandise, furs and peltries and horses, etc., taken by the Indians, he went to Detroit. His influence while there was directed toward affecting a change in the views and feelings of the Indians at that time unfriendly to the American Government. This influence with the different tribes of Indians was very considerable and as a proof of it General Proctor commanding the British force in Detroit and its vicinity sent for Mr. Kinzie, and when he went to see him General Proctor immediately confined him as he said “for daring to prejudice the Indians against his Majesty’s subjects or forces, and would send him where he would not see an Indian in a hurry.”--Mr. Kinzie was twice rescued by several Indian Chiefs, and once in the presence of General Proctor himself. Mr. Kinzie was again taken by General Proctor and _closely confined in irons_ at Fort Malden (as also a Mr. Jean Bte Chandonnois who subsequently made his escape and is now living in the St. Joseph country) and kept there for months. He was finally, to conceal him from the Indians, sent off in the night in irons--was treated in the most brutal manner by his guard, and was shipped for England for trial--Fortunately for him, the Ship lost her rudder, and she was obliged to put into Halifax, having on board a great number of American prisoners.--He thence made his escape in a crowd of paroled prisoners, and returned to his family in Detroit, after it had been taken possession of by General Harrison’s Army. Mr. Kinzie had not been long at home before he was called upon by Colonel Croghan, and accompaned the expedition under him to Mackinac, and was Captain of a party of Militia at the battle fought on the Island of Dousman’s Farm. Mr. Kinzie, after the close of the War, held the appointment of Sub Indian Agent for many years at Chicago.--He was well known to Generals Harrison, Macomb, Gratiot, and Col. Croghan.--During the time of hostilities, his energies were always devoted to the American cause.

Robert A. Forsyth was long and extensively engaged in the Indian trade.--His residence was at Detroit and his trading establishments in different places in the Indian Country. He not only enjoyed the confidence of the Indians but that of his fellow citizens. Every honest man then resident of Detroit can attest to his bravery during the late War. Such had been his conduct that, on the surrender of Detroit, he was marked as a fit subject for British vengeance.--He was torn from his family and with his only son, the present Major Forsyth, then a boy of about fourteen years, put on board the British vessels and carried off; his several infant daughters being left without a protector; their father’s house occupied by the British troops; and all his valuable property pillaged and carried away. Being landed on parol at Erie, Penn., the father and son soon afterwards found their way to General Harrison’s Army. This gentleman can attest to the many valuable services which they rendered. The father died in the year 1813, in the service of his country, without having been permitted to return to his family:--Being early enured to the hardships of trading among the Indians and being naturally active and brave the son frequently performed duties, from undertaking which others were deterred by their severity and danger. For the history of the son, the hardships he encountered, his important services before, and his gallant conduct during the war, I refer you to the Honourable Lewis Cass, who is familiar with its details.

I have now, Sir, I believe, with one exception, gone over the whole ground. That exception relates to the furnishing of goods by Mr. Kercheval and Mr. Kinzie, and as it has no connection with the Treaty of Chicago, being in fulfilment of the stipulations of previous treaties, and in the making of which I had no agency, and concerns myself exclusively, I shall make it the subject of a communication to accompany this.

The question so insidiously put, of whether “the Governor does not secretly reap a share of the plunder” I cannot, consistently with the respect due myself, answer.--Whether I have forgotten principle and character, and everything dear to an honourable mind, to defile my hands with the contamination of a bribe, is a question others must settle for me.--

In conclusion, I have only to add that, to the issue I have here made up, I commit without shadow of fear of the result, what is dearer to me than all else--my reputation and good name.

[G. B. PORTER.]

[112] The State Historical Society of Wisconsin has under preparation a volume devoted to those Indian treaties which are of more direct interest to Wisconsin.

[113] Daniel Jackson belonged to the firm of Suydam, Jackson and Company of New York, large importers of goods for the fur trade. Robert Stuart was manager at Mackinac for the American Fur Company. Porter’s appeal to these men is not entirely convincing, since they were important representatives of the fur trade merchants who, as a class, profited most largely by the gratuities and allowances concerning which complaint was being made.

[114] Richard J. Hamilton came to Chicago in 1831 as first clerk of the circuit court of Cook County. During the next few years he held a large number of local offices of a legal or fiscal nature, much of the time holding several at the same time. He had much to do with the establishment and early administration of the public school system of Chicago.

[115] Robert A. Forsythe of Ohio was an early trader at Maumee City in Lucas County. He was probably the son of James Forsythe, an early merchant and tavern keeper of Detroit. He was one of the founders of the lower Maumee Valley.

[116] The pronouncement of Meriwether Lewis to President Jefferson on this point, given in a case which involved the same principle as the one here involved, is not without interest in this connection: “I am confident that, if the United States should never confirm the lands to the present claimants, it will not prove a source of disquiet on the part of the Osages; and should they be ever countenanced or receive confirmation, on the ground of their being Indian donations, it would introduce a policy of the most ruinous tendency to the interests of the United States; in effect it would be, the Government corrupting its own agents; for, I will venture to assert, that, if the Indians are permitted to bestow lands on such individuals as they may think proper, the meanest interpreter in our employment will soon acquire a princely fortune at the expense of the United States.” _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 767.

[117] Billy Caldwell and Alexander Robinson, halfbreeds, who were influential with the Potawatomi and the Ottawa.

[118] Unfortunately for Porter’s justification in this particular instance, the investigations of students have revealed much that is of questionable propriety in connection with Johnson’s conduct of his Indian school.

[119] Joseph Loranger was a fur trader in the River Raisin and before the War of 1812 had a store in partnership with Lafontaine. In 1817 he platted the town of Monroe, Michigan, of which place his descendants were prominent citizens.

[120] The correctness of this narrative is not above question in all respects. In general it may be noted that Porter was bent on presenting a favorable account of Kinzie’s career, and that he evidently drew his information from friendly sources. Nevertheless, it constitutes an interesting addition to our sources of information concerning Kinzie, the reputed “father of Chicago.”

[121] Kinzie removed to Chicago in 1804, the year following the establishment of Fort Dearborn. The statement that he brought the news of war to Fort Dearborn is incorrect.

[122] This statement is in contradiction with our other sources of information on the subject.

HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS

THE DISPUTED MICHIGAN-WISCONSIN BOUNDARY

Boundary disputes have ever constituted a fruitful source of contention between men and nations. Probably no people has more frequently engaged in them than our own, although, contrary to Old-World precedent, we commonly wage our boundary contentions verbally rather than with arms. Wisconsin, like others of the sisterhood of states, was early in its history a party to a number of boundary disputes, the fruits of victory commonly going, at least in local contemporary judgment, to her opponents. Since Wisconsin has become a state, boundary disputes have until recent years ceased. Two such have, however, arisen within the twentieth century and are still pending, one with the state of Minnesota, the other with that of Michigan. The former is in process of settlement by due governmental procedure, and accordingly no discussion of it would now be useful. The latter is at present in a state of quiescence; yet the boundary paragraphs of the constitutions of Michigan and of Wisconsin contain mutually contradictory clauses with respect to a strip of territory over which Michigan claims and Wisconsin exercises jurisdiction. Moreover, the overtures of our northern neighbor a few years since looking to a determination of the question met on our part with rebuff. Sooner or later, the issue will have to be determined; pending this, an historical résumé of the points at issue may be of some interest, especially to Wisconsin readers.

The boundary between Michigan and Wisconsin was first determined in the act that in 1836 created Wisconsin Territory. In ignorance of the real geography of the region this act described a supposititious line, under the belief that the Montreal River had its source in Lake Vieux Desert. Two years later Congress appropriated $3,000 for the survey of the Michigan-Wisconsin boundary. The appropriation was considered insufficient and no attempt was made to run the line until 1841. Then, the matter having been transferred to the War Department, an army engineer, Lieutenant Thomas J. Cram, was detailed to undertake the survey. Cram spent the summer of 1841 in Wisconsin’s northern forests, ascertained many facts about the lakes and streams therein, and reported them to the department. Two years later Cram was again detailed to search for the true Wisconsin-Michigan boundary. He spent four months under conditions involving much hardship, in the attempt to determine the line as nearly as possible in accordance with official description. In the report which he made to the head of his department he recommended the abandonment of Lake Vieux Desert as a determinating factor in the interstate boundary line.[123]

The determination of the line rested until 1846, when, in the enabling act providing for the admission of Wisconsin, Congress established the line “to the mouth of the Menominee river; thence up the channel of the said river to the Brulé river; thence up said last mentioned river to Lake Brulé; thence along the southern shore of Lake Brulé in a direct line to the center of the channel between Middle and South Islands, in the Lake of the Desert [Vieux Desert]; thence in a direct line to the head waters of the Montreal river, as marked upon the survey made by Captain Cramm; thence down the main channel of the Montreal river to the middle of Lake Superior.” The constitution of Michigan, adopted in 1850, repeated the boundary article of Wisconsin’s enabling act with only slight verbal changes, including the omission of Captain Cram’s name. The fundamental laws of the two states were thus in accord concerning the line separating these states.

In the meanwhile, in 1847 a portion of the boundary was surveyed by William A. Burt, under the direction of Lucius Lyon.[124] Burt took the contract on April 27 and performed his work during the succeeding summer months. The field notes of his survey do not accompany his printed report, but Lyon stated that Burt’s notes would be forwarded later, and no doubt they are yet preserved in the General Land Office at Washington. From these field notes it might be ascertained why Surveyor Burt chose the eastern branch as the “main channel of the said Montreal river.” In so doing he assigned to Wisconsin 360 square miles of land that now include the towns of Hurley and Van Buskirk. Had he chosen the western branch, rising in the Island Lake as the Montreal’s headwaters, the jurisdiction of this strip would have rested in Michigan.

No one undertook to investigate the matter until quite recent years. Then Hon. Peter White of Marquette, Michigan, believing that his state was illegally deprived of the land between the two branches of the Montreal River, had a survey thereof made at his private expense. White’s surveyors ascertained, to their own and his satisfaction, that the western branch was the “main” channel of the Montreal River. Meanwhile Mr. White had interested in Michigan’s claims Clarence W. Burton of Detroit, the president of the State Historical Commission. Burton discovered that one of Burt’s surveyors, George H. Cannon, was still living, and arranged for the publication of an article from his pen supporting White’s contention that Michigan had been wrongfully deprived of a portion of her upper peninsula.[125]

Shortly after this, in 1907, Michigan held a convention to prepare a new constitution for the state. Burton was chosen a member of this body, and became chairman of the committee on boundaries. That committee, without discussion upon the floor of the convention, had the boundary article of the new constitution drawn to read: “thence in a direct line through Lake Superior to the mouth of the Montreal river; thence through the middle of the main channel of the westerly branch of the Montreal river to Island Lake, the head waters thereof, thence in a direct line to the center,” etc. This became part of Michigan’s fundamental law on February 21, 1908.

Meanwhile in 1907 two resolutions passed the Michigan legislature. The first, after reciting the mistakes in Captain “Cramm’s” surveys, authorized the governor to appoint a commissioner to visit Wisconsin in order to secure a joint commission for the adjudication of the boundary. In pursuance of this resolution the governor appointed Hon. Peter White to this office. He came to Madison twice, but could not interest the state’s officials in his enterprise, and was unable to secure any promise of participation in a joint commission. In June, 1908, Mr. White died, and so far as known no successor to him as boundary commissioner has ever been appointed.

The second Michigan resolution of 1907 authorized the attorney-general to direct a survey of the state’s northwest boundary, and also to institute proceedings in a court of competent jurisdiction to secure a rectification of the boundary line. Acting on this authorization the attorney-general employed Professor J. B. Davis, of the University of Michigan, to investigate the survey and prepare a brief of Michigan’s claims. The result of Professor Davis’ investigation has not yet been given to the world. A chronicler of Michigan wrote in 1908 that “in view of the political excitement of the presidential year no active measures [concerning the disputed territory] are likely to be taken this season.” On another page the author expresses a doubt “whether the state of Michigan can ever occupy the territory justly hers.” He concludes with the observation that it “is believed to be the only instance in this nation where two sovereign states are occupying a dividing line of doubtful legality, merely by common consent.”[126]

LOUISE P. KELLOGG.

AN EARLY WISCONSIN PLAY

In the collection of Mr. Henry Cady Sturges, of New York, there is a copy (the only one the writer has seen) of a play which, while it may not be the earliest, is certainly one of the first printed in Milwaukee. While the plot of the production is laid in New York and is largely local in interest, yet the fact that it was printed in Wisconsin, and the further fact that no other edition seems to be known, makes it fairly certain that it is the offspring of a writer who lived in Wisconsin.

The piece bears title as follows: “_The Drummer, / or / New York Clerks / and / Country Merchants. / A Local Play, / in two acts._ / (2 lines of verse.). / Edited by Mrs. Partington. / Milwaukee:/ Job Press of Cary & Rounds. / Commercial Advertiser Office./ 1851./” It has 73 + 1 pages and paper covers, the front cover bearing the same title as above.

A curious coincidence regarding the characters in the play is that the father of the present owner, Jonathan Sturges, is among them, his part being that of “Mr. Sturges, a New York Merchant,” that really being his occupation. “Mrs. Partington” is also among the characters.

This curious production was written at the time of the Jenny Lind excitement, and that great singer is mentioned in a number of places throughout the play. Her manager, P. T. Barnum, is there also, while some of the localities noted are Coney Island, Niblo’s, The Bowery, and Castle Garden. The first act takes place, first in a saloon on Broadway, and afterwards in the office of a first class hotel, also on that well-known thoroughfare. The second act is staged in Mrs. Partington’s parlor in the same hotel.

Some of the popular books of the period are mentioned, among them _New York in Slices_, while among the names of well-known New Yorkers are Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett, editor of the _Herald_. Milwaukee is hinted at, and Mr. Sturges is made to say by the playwright as he addresses his clerks, “Fourteen hundred dollars from Wisconsin. Extremely good. Wisconsin crops are nearly all destroyed, still the money is sure to come from that state. More goods are ordered, they shall have them.”

The play is interspersed with songs that are saturated with the alleged humor of the period, and sad to relate, one of these songs has been torn from the copy before me, probably because of its facetious nature.

It is doubtful if the writer ever intended to have his production staged, although the copy now described has several corrections such as are found in prompt copies.

I am inclined to believe that the statement on the title that its editor was Mrs. Partington (Benj. P. Shillaber) was simply put on to add to the humor of the occasion, as I doubt if Shillaber had a hand in its composition.

On page 73 is the statement that copyright has been secured.

From a perusal of the piece it seems evident that its author knew the metropolis very well, but the misspelling of proper names and other evidence makes it seem almost certain that it was the work of some one, who, while well acquainted with New York, was not a permanent resident of that city. Was he a writer from Wisconsin? If so, who was he, and why was he writing a play of this character, a piece whose plot was taken from a place so far from home?

OSCAR WEGELIN.

[123] Lieutenant Cram’s maps are reproduced in _Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections_, XXXVIII, 386-87. His reports are found in _Senate Documents_, 151, Twenty-sixth Congress, 2nd sess., Vol. IV; _ibid_, 170, Twenty-seventh Congress, 2nd sess., Vol. III.

[124] Burt’s report, with accompanying map, may be found in _Senate Executive Documents_, 2, Thirtieth Congress, 1st sess.

[125] For the article see _Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections_, XXXVIII, 163-68.

[126] _Ibid._ 167-68.

EDITORIAL

THE PROFESSOR AND THE FINGER BOWL

To tell a new Lincoln story is something of an achievement. Colonel Tom Brown, a former citizen of Badgerdom, who now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has achieved this distinction, we believe, in relating the following incident. In view of the nature of our leading article, and of the local interest which attaches to Mr. Brown’s tale, we gladly give it such additional currency as lies within our power.

In some sections of southwestern Wisconsin during the Civil War, so the story runs, certain copperhead organizations, particularly the Knights of the Golden Circle, became decidedly outspoken in the expression of their sentiments--so much so that a group of loyal citizens decided to send a spokesman to Washington to acquaint the President with the threatening proceedings. The delegate chosen for this mission was a certain Professor Kilgore of Evansville Seminary. On his arrival at Washington he was invited to take lunch at the White House, where he was seated next to President Lincoln himself. At this time finger bowls were coming into fashion, but their advent had not as yet come within the ken of the simple western professor. Accordingly he was greatly perplexed by the little dish, containing a slice of lemon and some liquid, apparently lemonade, which appeared near the close of the meal. Observing his embarrassment, President Lincoln, leaning toward him, whispered, “Professor, don’t sip out of that bowl, watch me.”

Following this kindly instruction the pedagogue concluded the meal without disgracing himself. When, later, they found themselves alone together, President Lincoln confided to the visitor that he himself needed a servant to keep him informed about “those little things.”

We cannot vouch for the truth of the story, although it rests on better authority than most of the tales that are told about Lincoln. However authentic its details, it presents a trait of homely kindness, the possession of which constitutes one of the most attractive aspects of Lincoln’s personality.

THE PRINTING OF HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS

The last day of the year brings to hand the January, 1917, number of the quarterly _Journal_ of a neighboring state historical society. What the local conditions may be which render it necessary to be a year behind with the publication of this periodical, we are unaware. Reference is made to it by way of calling attention to a practice which is all too common with respect to the issuance of historical periodicals and other publications. If a quarterly must appear six months or a year late it would seem to be a fair question whether its appearance at all is worth while. If such delays are due to the slackness or incompetency of the editor, the proper authorities should apply a much needed stimulant. If they are due to conditions beyond the editor’s control, reform (in the quarter responsible for the delay) is still desirable. We suspect that commonly such delays are caused by the state printers, by whom, at least in the Middle West, historical publications are generally issued. We speak the more feelingly on the subject because our own Society is not immune from the criticism under discussion. The printer dallied for a year over our most recently issued volume, while it required six months to get a forty-page bulletin printed. It avails little for editors to be punctual and businesslike in turning out their work, if it may then be hung up indefinitely by the printer, with the editor deprived of any means of amending the situation. Quite possibly state printers are themselves the victims of a system the amendment of which is beyond their control. Of this we have no particular knowledge. Wherever the responsibility may justly be placed, the manner in which most public printing is done in this country offers a severe commentary upon our boasted American efficiency.

IS WAR BECOMING MORE HORRIBLE?

There is an ancient story concerning a grave debate indulged in by a group of English philosophers during the Stuart period over the question why a fish does not weigh anything when in the water. At length it occurred to one of them to weigh a vessel of water with a fish in it, and again with the fish removed. As a result of this simple test the philosophers were forced to seek a new subject upon which to exercise their wits. At the present time it seems to be generally assumed that with the invention of new implements of warfare and of improvements upon old ones the horrors of war have steadily increased; in particular, that the present war is far more horrible to those who participate in it than any of its predecessors in the history of the human race have been. Such a belief as this entails obvious consequences affecting not only the peace of mind of our people but, in the last analysis, the success of the cause to which our nation is committed. For if it is indeed true that our young manhood is going to certain death under circumstances more awful than the pages of military history have hitherto ever recorded, our willingness as individuals to send our loved ones to meet such a fate must be seriously shaken by the prospect; while, collectively, the will of the nation to persist in the war upon which we have embarked will be similarly affected. In a word, such an impression gravely threatens the morale of the nation, including both those who go to war and those who send them forth. That our Teutonic foemen have not been unmindful of this is amply evidenced by the new and hellish connotation which in recent years they have succeeded in attaching to the word _shrecklichkeit_. To German _shrecklichkeit_ we will pay our respects presently. Meanwhile we desire to deal with the question whether under the influence of modern science and invention the conduct of warfare has in fact become increasingly horrible.

SOME LEAVES FROM THE PAST

We believe it can be shown, on the contrary, that the direct opposite is true; that the warfare waged by primitive peoples and in ancient times was a far more horrible procedure than is that waged by civilized nations today. It may be taken as axiomatic that the horrors of battle, like the transports of love, increase as the distance between the parties concerned diminishes. All savage warfare, and all civilized warfare as well, until a very recent date, was waged at close range. In ancient and in medieval times men battled hand to hand with spear and sword and ax. The vanquished found slight opportunity to escape and the hand of the conqueror was stayed by no considerations of twentieth century humanity. The chronicles of the Hebrews, the Lord’s anointed, and the narratives of Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar tell alike the same general tale of slaughter of the opposing warriors and the slaughter, rapine, or enslavement, as the case might be, of their dependents. In medieval times, it is true, under the influence of the institution of knighthood, certain rules foreshadowing the modern rules of war were developed. But these more humane rules applied only to the aristocracy, the commoner being excluded from their operation and benefits.

With the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries came two developments of much importance for their bearing upon our subject. The one was the application of gunpowder to the art of war, as the result of which war was democratized; the business of knighthood soon became as dead as Cæsar’s ghost, and as firearms improved, the distances at which opposing armies fought slowly widened. The other was an indirect result of the Dutch war for independence. Meditating upon the terrible brutalities to which his people were subjected by it, Hugo Grotius evolved the treatise on the laws of war and peace which by common consent has ever since been regarded as the foundation of modern international law. Grotius sought, in a word, to humanize warfare by securing the establishment by common agreement of rules calculated to prohibit its more debasing and awful manifestations. In the three hundred years ending with August, 1914, much progress was made, both along the lines laid down by Grotius and in other ways, looking to the minimizing of the horrors of war. At the same time, ever more ingenious and powerful death-dealing appliances were being devised for the waging of such combat as the rules of international law still rendered permissible.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITARIANISM

Notable progress, too, was being made along another line. Humanitarianism in its modern connotation is the child of the nineteenth century. To feel distress over the knowledge that famine or other ill afflicts a distant people is a purely modern accomplishment of which our forefathers of two or three centuries ago were wholly innocent. As applied to armies, the humanitarian impulse has worked a startling revolution. Organizations designed to care for the sick and the wounded have developed on an elaborate scale. The Red Cross was called into being only half a century ago as an indirect result of the horrors of the battlefield of Solferino. It was born too late to have any share in alleviating the miseries of our own Civil War but since that time it has constituted an ever increasing agency for the relief of human suffering, whether in peace or in war. Even the “unspeakable Turk” has been infected by the virus of humanitarianism and the Red Crescent plays for the Mohammedan world the rôle fulfilled by the Red Cross among the nations of Christendom.

OTHER AGENCIES

The progress made in recent years in the fields of medicine and surgery has been no less striking than in that of humanitarianism; while the development of a new social consciousness (a concomitant, of course, of the humanitarian movement) has resulted in throwing about the soldier who wars for America in 1918 a set of safeguards, and in providing him with a degree of comfort such as no other warriors in the history of the world ever enjoyed. Against drunkenness and vice, twin plagues of army life since the beginning of the world, he is at least as well protected as is the civilian at home. Libraries and clubhouses and games and lectures are provided with unstinted generosity for his recreation and instruction. That his mind may be free from incidental worry, a system of life insurance on a scale hitherto undreamed of has been evolved; while the wife or other dependents at home are insured by the largess of a parental government against coming to actual want during his absence.

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES

All these things will avail little to comfort the soldier or his loved ones if it is in fact true that he is being sent to a certain and awful death--if his span of life, after reaching France, is limited to a few weeks, and after reaching the front line trenches to a few hours or minutes. Let us proceed, then, to weigh this particular fish. We can do it only approximately, for it is inherent in the nature of warfare that accurate, dependable statistics are commonly lacking, or extremely difficult to obtain. The testimony of such as we have, however, is all in support of the view that never before in civilized warfare has the individual soldier had so good a prospect of surviving the term of his enlistment and returning once more to the homeland as now. It is not contended, of course, that modern war is simply a pleasant pastime from which all will return unscathed, but merely that the current impression concerning its having become more awful and more fatal than in times past is incorrect. According to respectable authority the casualties in the entire French army in proportion to mobilized strength amounted, for the first six months of 1915, to 2.39 per cent. Since then the ratio has steadily decreased, the figure for the last six months of 1916 being 1.28 per cent. At the beginning of the war, for the battles of Charleroi and the Marne, when the French suffered more heavily than at any time since, the casualties were 5.41 per cent of the mobilized strength of the army. In other words during the period of greatest danger in the entire war but five men in every hundred received wounds, while, of these five, it is a safe generalization to say that only one died as a result thereof.

In view of the enormous numbers of men in the present war, the absolute figures of losses are appalling enough. Relatively, however, the losses are lower than in many previous wars. In no great battle of the war, probably, has the individual soldier stood so good a chance of being wounded or killed as did those--to mention a few cases only--who fought at Fredericksburg or Gettysburg, at Stone River or Chickamauga, at Waterloo, at Aspern, at Borodino, or Leipsic. At Fredericksburg, Burnside lost, in a few hours, one-tenth of his army, the loss in that portion actively engaged amounting to 16 per cent; at Gettysburg, in three days, one-fifth of the Union army and almost one-third of the Confederate army were killed or wounded; at Chickamauga and at Stone River over one-fourth of the Confederate forces engaged were lost, while the casualties sustained by Grant’s army in the seven-days’ wilderness battles amounted to the same appalling proportion. As to the Napoleonic wars, at Waterloo 40 per cent of the French army--30,000 out of 74,000--were lost in a few hours’ time; at Austerlitz, the French, although overwhelmingly victorious, lost almost one-ninth of the army in one day’s fighting, while the allies lost nearly half of theirs; at Borodino, in a single day, the victorious French suffered casualties of 22½ per cent, the defeated Russians casualties of 50 per cent of the armies engaged; at Aspern, a drawn battle, both French and Austrians lost, in killed and wounded, over one-fourth of the total armies engaged; at Albuera over one-fourth of the French and one-fifth of the allied armies were lost, but the British force, which bore the brunt of the allied fighting, lost 4,100 men out of a total of 8,000 engaged. In the present war, because of an unrescinded order, we are told, a Canadian detachment of 800 left 600 men on the field. But this is more than matched on both sides at Gettysburg, where with no mistake in orders one Confederate regiment lost 720 men out of 800, while a Union regiment lost 82 per cent of the men engaged. Sixty-two Union regiments in this war sustained losses in some single battle in excess of 50 per cent, a record equalled on the southern side by forty-three regiments. Those killed in action today are as irrevocably dead as those killed in any former war; but of those merely wounded (about four-fifths of all battle casualties) the prospect of recovering is incomparably better than in any previous war, while the prospect of death from disease incurred in service is likewise vastly diminished.

BRAVERY THEN AND NOW

It is a foible of most peoples in all generations fondly to picture themselves as braver and hardier than those of other races and times. So, in the present war, it is commonly assumed that greater demands upon the soldier’s fortitude and courage are made than in times gone by. In fact, however, bravery has been throughout the ages probably the commonest attribute of mankind. Soldiers are as brave today as in former times, but no more so. To contemplate a modern bayonet charge or a fight at close grips with gun-butt and knife is far from pleasant. But whereas such fighting is the occasional or exceptional thing today, of old it was the normal mode of fighting. The idea that combat should be waged at a distance was born only with the development of smokeless powder and high-power rifles. As late as Cromwell’s time the pike was the main reliance of infantry in battle. The favorite tactics of Napoleon were based on the idea of overwhelming the opposing army by the shock of mass formations. At Waterloo, for hours his splendid cavalry broke against the British squares, riding round and round at bayonet’s length, seeking to break their outer line. From fighting in the open in mass formation, armies have now largely taken to cover, even as the American Indian did; partly because of this, partly for the other reasons noted, the dangers and the horrors of war today have greatly diminished as compared with former times. Our people should be made acquainted with this fact, and both those who go to war and those who send them forth are entitled to such comfort as may legitimately be derived from it.

SCHRECKLICHKEIT

One general exception, however, must be taken to the comforting conclusions which have been reached. Broadly speaking, warfare among savages knows no rules and recognizes no limitations of action or honor. Prisoners of war may be slaughtered at once or reserved for the refinements of torture. No distinction of treatment is made between warriors and noncombatants. The lives, the liberty, and the possessions of the conquered social group are subjected to such disposition as the caprice or self-interest of the conquerors may dictate. Following in the path marked out by Grotius, slowly and painfully yet none the less surely, civilized nations have humanized warfare to a marked degree. The rules of civilized war distinguish between soldiers and noncombatants. The rights of the latter, both of person and of property, have been clearly established; even as between contending armies numerous rules have been established, all based on the general idea of regulating and refining war in ways calculated to eliminate its most horrible and debasing manifestations. In this work our own nation has played a leading part and the rules for the guidance of the Union armies adopted by President Lincoln half a century ago, still largely guide the conduct of nations in the waging of war.

With one awful exception, however. Moved by what atavistic influence we know not, in striking contrast to the trend of world development during the last three hundred years, the German government and people in the last half century have evolved the doctrine and subscribed to the principles of _shrecklichkeit_. As briefly characterized by Bismarck, this policy, or principle of conduct, aims to leave to the enemy nothing except their eyes with which to weep. It lays the ax to the very foundation of the structure of international law, slowly reared through three hundred years of effort. For the rule of right and justice it substitutes the jungle law of tooth and fang. Under its malign influence the whole circuit of the earth is filled with spying and treason, with fraud and strife. On the foul results of this policy, as applied to the conduct of armies, it is superfluous to dwell when addressing readers of the present generation. No sharper commentary upon the sad reversion of modern Germany to the customs and practices of savagery can be afforded than the fact that the rules promulgated by Lincoln for the guidance of the Union armies were drafted by Francis Lieber, one of the most notable men ever driven from reactionary Prussia to seek refuge in the United States. _Shrecklichkeit_, like revolutionary France in 1792, throws down the gage of battle to the remainder of the civilized world. In 1792, however, revolutionary France voiced the aspirations of the future against the dead weight of the past. Today imperial Germany challenges the civilization of the present and the hopes of the future in the interest of resurgent savagery. The world is too small to contain two such antagonistic sets of ideals and of conduct. Either Prussian _shrecklichkeit_ or the American ideal of order based on reason and justice must prevail.

May we acquit ourselves like men and carry the fight to the finish.

THE QUESTION BOX

+---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _The Wisconsin Historical Library has long maintained a | | bureau of historical information for the benefit of those who | | care to avail themselves of the service it offers. In “The | | Question Box” will be printed from time to time such queries, | | with the answers made to them, as possess sufficient general | | interest to render their publication worth while._ | +---------------------------------------------------------------+

THE FIRST SETTLER OF BARABOO

I am not able to fix the exact date when Abraham Wood came to Baraboo. What is the opinion of the staff as to the time? He was supposed to be the first permanent settler. A line will be appreciated.

H. E. COLE, _Baraboo, Wisconsin_.

We appreciate your difficulty in determining the time of the advent of Abraham Wood on your river, because of the conflict in the authorities. So far as we can determine, the account in the _Wisconsin Historical Atlas_ seems to be the most authoritative. The sketches in this volume were carefully written, and were obtained from survivors then alive. According to that statement the first man who attempted settlement at the Baraboo Rapids in 1837 was Archibald Barker, who then lived at Portage. He was driven off by the Indians. Meanwhile the treaty at Washington had been negotiated, and there seemed more hope that a settlement might be made. In the spring or early summer of 1839 a man named James Alban discovered Devil’s Lake, and he went back to Portage and told Eben Peck, first settler at Madison. Peck had just sold out at the latter place to Robert Ream, and he and Alban set out up the Baraboo and marked out a site at the Rapids, including the water power. As Peck was going back (after a stay of some weeks), apparently he met Wallace Rowan and Abraham Wood, whom he had known well at Madison, coming up from Portage. They staked out their claim at Lyons, where Wood spent the winter.

In the meanwhile James Van Slyke came up from Walworth County in the fall of 1839 and determined to jump Peck’s claim. Van Slyke had had his claim at Lake Geneva jumped by other parties, and was in a bitter and retaliatory frame of mind. After staking out his claim to the rapids of the Baraboo he went back to Walworth and interested James Maxwell in a plan for a mill and persuaded him to furnish the irons and equipment. Van Slyke went up in the spring of 1840 and built a dam which was carried out by the freshet of June. Meanwhile, Peck had brought his claim before the court at Madison and obtained judgment against Van Slyke. The latter had already abandoned the enterprise. Van Slyke sold his irons to Wood and Rowan, who during the summer started a sawmill at the upper rapids.

There seems to be every evidence that the source of this account was the Peck family, who were in a position to know the facts. If this account is true, we suppose Wood might be called the first settler, since he remained in the vicinity during the winter of 1839-40; but no doubt he lived as the Indians did, if not with them, since his wife was a squaw. He was thus not much more of a first settler than Barker, Alban, Rowan, Peck, or Van Slyke.

To return to Wood. We are unable to discover when or how he came to Wisconsin. He was probably a free trapper or trader, one of the rough frontiersmen of Scotch descent from the backwoods of Canada. In the course of trade he came in contact with the Decorah chiefs and took to wife one of the daughters of the tribe. He had probably been on the Baraboo often before 1839, since his squaw’s native village was near its mouth, and there her father died in 1836. Wood was not then at the Baraboo, since he was wintering near Madison. He was not at this site in 1832, so sometime between that date and 1836 he set up his wigwam at Squaw Point on Third Lake opposite the modern city of Madison.

His neighbor at this place was Wallace Rowan, a rough, good-hearted frontiersman from Indiana with a white wife. There is a good account of Rowan in _History of Dane County_ (Chicago, 1880), 382-83. Rowan seems to have permitted Wood to place his wigwam, or whatever kind of dwelling he had, on his claim, which he entered with William B. Long in 1835.

Wood was on Third Lake during the winter of 1836-37, and during the summer of 1837 he aided in building Madison, being employed as a mechanic on Peck’s log house. It seems probable that Wood spent the winter of 1837-38 at the same place, as there is no record of him at Portage before the spring of 1838. Probably he moved away from Squaw Point because Rowan that spring sold his claim and improvements to William B. Slaughter. Rowan moved to Poynette and opened his noted tavern. Wood went to Portage, where, no doubt, he had often been before with the relatives of his squaw.

In 1838 work was begun on the Portage canal, and Wood opened a house of liquid refreshment just below Carpenter’s on the Wisconsin River. There, probably in the spring of 1839, Wood killed Pawnee Blanc, a noted Winnebago chief. Wood’s brother-in-law, John T. La Ronde, tells the sordid story in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, VII, 360. He does not give the date of the murder; Moses Paquette says (_idem_, XII, 431) that it was in 1837. Paquette probably remembered that it was after his father’s death in 1836; but it could hardly have been in 1837 since Wood was then at Madison. Our inference is that the death of Pawnee Blanc occurred in 1838 or 1839. Wood was probably anxious to leave Portage at this time; moreover in 1839 Winfield Scott went to Portage and held a council with the Winnebago concerning their removal from Wisconsin. Wood knew the Baraboo Valley would soon be open for settlement. He persuaded his old friend, Rowan, to go prospecting with him. But on their way out they found Peck and Alban had been there before them. Wood, not wanting to go back to Portage, spent the winter in the Baraboo woods; and the next autumn (1840) with Wallace Rowan began a sawmill, as La Ronde states (_Wis. Hist. Colls._, VII, 360).

The foregoing hypothesis appears to reconcile all the accounts except Moses Paquette’s date of the killing of Pawnee Blanc. The record of Wood’s trial may sometime come to light. Possibly it may be preserved in the records of the court of Brown County, still kept at the courthouse at Green Bay.

THE CHIPPEWA RIVER DURING THE FRENCH AND BRITISH RÉGIMES

Within a short time we expect to issue a special edition of our local paper that will cover the development of the Chippewa Valley. It struck me that possibly you could furnish me considerable data covering the early history of this section of the valley.

AL J. HARTLEY, _Cornell, Wisconsin_.

Probably the first white person to pass the mouth of the Chippewa was Father Louis Hennepin, who ascended the Mississippi in 1630. He describes the Chippewa under the name of Rivière des Boeufs (Buffalo). It is probable that in his time the Beef Slough was part of the Chippewa channel, and the present Buffalo River an affluent of the Chippewa proper. In 1682 La Salle wrote a description of the rivers of Wisconsin in a letter, the translation of which is found in volume sixteen of the _Collections_ of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He says “About thirty leagues, ascending always in the same direction [above Black River], one comes to the Rivière des Boeufs which is as wide at its mouth as that of the Islinois. It is called by that name owing to the great number of those animals found there; it is followed from ten to twelve leagues, the water being smooth and without rapids, bordered by mountains which widen out from time to time, forming meadows. There are several islands at its mouth, which is bordered by woods on both sides.” La Salle’s description was without doubt taken from the account of Hennepin.

The next visitor to this region was Duluth, who in 1680 rescued Father Hennepin from his captors, the Sioux Indians, and brought him down the Mississippi and by the Wisconsin-Fox route to Green Bay. Duluth has not left any description of the Chippewa.

In 1685 Nicolas Perrot was governor of all of this region. In the _Proceedings_ of this Society for 1915 you will find an account of Perrot’s experiences and of the Fort Antoine that he built at the mouth of the Chippewa. Perrot called the stream River of the Sauteurs, which was the French name for the Chippewa tribe, whom they first met at the Sault, hence Saulteurs or Sauters. Perrot seems to have been the first person to use the name Sauteur or Chippewa for the river. It so appears on a very remarkable map drawn in 1688, and now in Paris. A facsimile of this is in the Wisconsin Historical Library, at Madison, and a photograph appears in L. P. Kellogg’s, _Early Narratives of the Northwest_ (New York, 1917), 342. At Fort St. Antoine, Perrot in 1689 held a great ceremony, taking possession of all the Sioux country for the King of France. A translation of this document is found in volume eleven of the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, 35-36.

The name of the river indicates that the Chippewa was the home of some portion of the Chippewa tribe. In the early eighteenth century this valley became the battle ground of the great feud between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians, which lasted nearly one hundred and fifty years. Much interesting material on this subject may be found in _Minnesota Historical Collections_, volume five, which is a history of the Chippewa tribe by a half-breed, W. W. Warren.

In the year 1766, three years after the French had ceded all this territory to the British crown, the noted explorer, Jonathan Carver, ascended the Mississippi and attempted to bring about a peace between the warring Sioux and Chippewa. The next year he returned from Mackinac, and with a stock of goods ascended the Chippewa River, at whose headwaters he found a Chippewa village of one hundred fine stout warriors. Their customs, however, were very filthy. This is, so far as we know, the first recorded voyage through the Chippewa valley. No doubt, however, many fur traders had preceded Carver, for he speaks of engaging a pilot to accompany him.

In the last years of the French régime there was reported a copper mine on this river, which was then called for a time “Bon Secours” or Good Help River. Carver calls it the Chippewa River. About six years after Carver’s visit a British trader named Hugh Boyle was killed at this river. See _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVIII, 312-13. According to the court of inquiry ordered by the British officials, the affair was his own fault.

The British traders continued to trade on this river, notwithstanding the danger caused by the fierce intertribal wars. In 1805 the United States government sent Zebulon M. Pike, a young army lieutenant, to ascend the Mississippi and warn British traders that this was then American territory. It became so by the treaty of 1783, but the British kept the forts on the Great Lakes until 1796, and all had continued to act until Pike’s visit as if the upper Mississippi region belonged to the British. Pike found that the traders avoided the Chippewa River because of the danger of falling in with war parties of contesting Indians. He passed the river’s mouth about dusk.

In 1820 an American expedition headed by Lewis Cass descended the Mississippi, and from that time on there were numerous boats going up and down. The first steamboat ascended to the Falls of St. Anthony in 1823. Some very early logging expeditions in 1822 and 1829 are described in the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, II, 132-41, and V, 244-54.

The earliest permanent settlers were the Cadottes. See _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XIX, 171, and _Minnesota Historical Collections_, volume five.

THE CAREER OF COLONEL G. W. MANYPENNY

Can you give me any reference to any publication or record in your library relating to G. W. Manypenny, who was Indian commissioner in 1855 and in that year made a treaty with the Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin?

E. S. GAYLORD, _Minneapolis, Minnesota_.

Colonel George W. Manypenny, who was Indian commissioner in President Pierce’s administration, was not a Wisconsin man. He was born in Pennsylvania, and appointed from Ohio. His home was in Columbus, Ohio, and as early as 1835 he was editor of a prominent Democratic paper at that place. His appointment was no doubt a reward for journalistic services during the campaign; but he seems to have taken his duties seriously and to have undertaken the rôle of a defender of the red men against the extortions of unscrupulous speculators. In doing this he incurred the enmity of a powerful political clique among whom was Senator Benton.

Manypenny went west in August, 1853, and made the series of treaties that opened up the territories of Kansas and Nebraska for settlement. It is claimed that he acted in the interests of the South with regard to the Pacific railroad. See Wisconsin Historical Society _Proceedings_, 1912, 80. In 1855 Manypenny made the treaty with the Mississippi bands of Chippewa at Washington, whither their chiefs had been conducted by Henry M. Rice.

Manypenny retired from office in March, 1857, and returned to Columbus where, in 1859, he purchased a half interest in the _Ohio Statesman_ and was its editor for three years. In 1862 he retired to become manager of the state public works, of which he was one of the lessees. His interest in the Indians continued, and in 1876 he was appointed a chairman of the commission to investigate the troubles that had led to the Sioux outbreak of that year. In 1880 he published a book entitled _Our Indian Wards_ (Cincinnati, Robert Clark & Co.), which is a plea for more fairness in the management of Indian affairs, and a recital of many of their wrongs.

The date of his death we have not ascertained, nor whether he left descendants. An inquiry of E. W. Randall, secretary of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, at Columbus, would doubtless put you in possession of these facts.

TREATY HALL AND OLD LA POINTE

Will you kindly advise me what “Treaty Hall,” La Pointe, Madeline Island, stands for historically? When and by whom was it built? Some say it was erected in 1836 and others say 1857 or 1858. The treaties were signed before the latter date, so why call it “Treaty Hall”? Any information you can give on the subject will be greatly appreciated.

MRS. FRANK H. JERRARD, Representative St. Paul Chapter, D. A. R., _St. Paul, Minnesota_.

The information we have obtained concerning the building on Madeline Island now called “Treaty Hall” does not give conclusive proof of the origin of the building. One fact seems clear--the name “Treaty Hall” was not applied to it until the eighties of the last century, and the building was not put up to accommodate the negotiating of a treaty. Whether a treaty was negotiated in this building or not is another question. As a rule Indian treaty proceedings were held in the open air; if any covering was desired, a kind of shade was built of boughs, or a circle was temporarily enclosed with poles, boughs, and mats. Nevertheless it is not improbable that in the northern region of Madeline Island, with the cold winds from the lake blowing in, a treaty might have been held under shelter, and that some appropriate building might have been thus used.

There were only two treaties held on Madeline Island, that of 1842 and that of 1854. The former was concluded October 4, 1842, and the commissioner was Robert Stuart, who had been for many years the representative of the American Fur Company at Mackinac. He was at the time of this treaty Indian superintendent at Detroit. The inference is strong that Stuart was on terms of friendship, even intimacy, with the American Fur Company’s agents at La Pointe. These were at the time of the treaty of 1842 Charles H. Oakes and Dr. Charles W. Borup, both of whom were present at the treaty. Moreover, Rev. Alfred Brunson of Prairie du Chien, a prominent Methodist missionary in early-day Wisconsin, was appointed Indian agent at La Pointe in the autumn of 1842. He reached his post of duty very late in the year and says both in his printed reminiscences and in unpublished manuscripts in our Society’s possession that there were no agency buildings, but that Dr. Borup had a large storehouse prepared for a council.

With regard to the Treaty of 1854, it was signed September 30 of that year. The commissioners were Henry C. Gilbert and Daniel B. Herriman. Among the witnesses was L. H. Wheeler, whose sons are among our correspondents. H. M. Rice was likewise present. We believe the Minnesota Historical Society is in possession of the latter’s papers. If so, something might be gleaned from them.

COMMUNICATIONS

MORE LIGHT ON THE ORIGINATOR OF “WINNEQUAH”

As a medieval Madisonian, I protest against your summary termination of the activities of “Cap” Barnes at “1873 or 1874, perhaps later.”[127] He was positively an institution in and of Madison, and I positively remember him and his steamboat line at least as late as 1889. His steamboats, the _Scutenaubequon_ and the _Waubishnepawau_, lent new terrors to the aboriginal tongues. His later divergence to _Silenzioso_ bore witness to the liveliness, if not the expertness, of his linguistic imagination. No Madisonian of the Victorian age, so to speak, will recall “Angleworm Station” without a warming of the heart to the memory of “Cap” Barnes. His midwinter straw hat and his irrepressible gaiety are intimately associated with our tenderest Madison memories. Picnics? Madison was the home of them, and “Cap” Barnes and his steamboat, in combination, were preëssential to them. It was “Cap” Barnes who hit upon the first discovered practical use of the abortive capitol park driven well: “Pull it up, saw it into lengths, and sell it to the farmers for post holes.”

Statesmen, prophets, and nabobs, Mr. Editor, may pass into oblivion--but touch reverently on the memory of “Cap” Barnes. Madison would never have been the Madison of its golden age without him.

CHARLES M. MORRIS. Milwaukee, January 7, 1918.

A HISTORY OF OUR STATE FLAG

I have just received the first copy of the new WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, and think it a splendid idea. Of course, I have not had time to examine it carefully, but I did run across the short article with reference to the state flag, which seems rather to carry the idea that Wisconsin had no state flag at any time prior to 1913.

I call your attention to a letter written by me to H. W. Rood, Custodian of Memorial Hall, under date of January 5, 1911, in which I said:

In response to your verbal request of a few days since, I have investigated the matter of the state flag of Wisconsin.