WISCONSIN MAGAZINE ^/HISTORY

. T

Published Quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN March 1949 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY CLIFFORD L. LORD, Editor LILLIAN KRUEGER, Managing Editor

CONTENTS

Chats with the Editor Clifford Lord 257 A Magnificent Centennial Gift Presentation Remarks Mrs. Herbert V. Kohler 263 Acceptance Remarks Dr. Robert K. Richardson 268 The Society As a Research Center Alice E. Smith 271 An Adventure in Education Sister Mary Eunice Hanousek, O.S.F. 284 The Society's Benefactors W. H. Glover 290 The Gunmaking Industry in Wisconsin Jerald T. Teesdale 302 Captain Jonathan Walker, Abolitionist Julius A. Laack 312 In the Moon of Sugar Making Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround .321 (Phebe Jewell Nichols) DOCUMENTS: Silas J. Seymour Letters (II) 328 BOOK NOTES 339

THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE 361

The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN, 816 State Street, Madison, 6. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $3.00; Life, $50). Yearly subscription, $3.00; single number, 75 cents. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison. Wis- consin, under the act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1949 by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. Paid for by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund.

THE COVER EARLY 1900 MANNEQUINS displaying gowns of foamy pink chiffon, filmy beige net, delicate blue lace as fine as gossamer, contrasting with brocaded silks and heavy satins. Weblike ruchings, bands of pastel velvet, finely shirred insets, embroidered flowers, and ruffles of lace from the looms of the fairies, all a part of the Centennial Costumes Collection. For further information turn to "A Magnificent Centennial Gift" in this issue. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY #^» Volume 32 March 1949 Number 3

Chats with the Editor

THE PROBLEM of working out a formula for close and effeaive cooperation between the state historical society and the county and local historical societies is one which has been more or less assidu- ously dodged, so far as I know, in approximately forty-eight states T , r / of the Union. The policy has been one of laissez-faire, Let's WWork . F, ' . . _ or letting sleeping dogs lie. In some areas, i n wisw - . _ ' consin as elsewhere, this has worked well. In others An Open . . ^ , ...... r it has not. The basic elementt s in this situation, it Letter to , . n , . .,. , seems to me, are chiefly sheer timidity—a somewhat understandable but nonetheless unreasonable fear that someone will misunderstand, that local sensi- bilities will be unjustifiably aroused—buttressed by an exaggeration of seeming difficulties which actually melt into insignificance if examined critically and without bias. I believe that the historically minded folk of any state can face and discuss in good faith and good will the programs and issues involved. I am certain that representatives of our various historical societies in this State can sit down and exchange suggestions and ideas—not just as man to man but as friend to friend—on how to improve and strengthen the movement in which we are all inter- ested, and arrive at some sensible agreement. I think that those of us in Wisconsin and elsewhere who have been afraid to open the question in fear of loosening the latch on Pandora's box have been skeered of ghosts. If the some 3,000 people in Wisconsin who are members of the State society and the approximately equal number who belong to the county and local societies can hit on the magic formula of how to work together effectively, maintaining 257 258 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [March our identities as separate organizations yet working as a team toward common goals, we can build a historical movement which would be without parallel in the history of our country. I think we have been cowards not to try. There are at least twelve areas where closer cooperation between the State and local societies would yield handsome results. The list is tentative and is not intended to be exhaustive. Let's recognize before we start that probably no one society will have the re- sources of time, effort, and money to undertake active cooperation in all twelve fields even if it wished to. But to start the discussion, let's launch the trial balloon and see what happens. 1. Public Records. Under the Public Records Act of 1947, the State has an efficient, economical, and effective public records pro- gram. This has no present counterpart at the county and local level, and this lack of a program undoubtedly is causing the almost daily loss of valuable records. Before the war the Historical Records Survey was working toward the establishment of regional deposi- tories for records of this class, but legal obstacles arose. The Supreme Court held that city records could not be stored per- manently in a county courthouse, and recently the attorney general has held that towns, cities, and municipalities lacked the power to transfer their records for preservation to outside agencies. We are working in the present Legislature to remove all legal obstacles to the creation of local and regional depositories for non-current public records at the county and local levels. These depositories could be the county or local historical societies, the local museum, the office of the county historian (of which there are now three), the public library, or other public or quasi-public body. The State society feels that such records should be retained and made avail- able locally. It has no desire to run the show. It merely wants to make such depositories legally possible and to encourage their establishment wherever local conditions warrant. The rest should be done by a local agency, preferably the local historical society, if it cares to and can assume the job. 2. Library Materials. The smaller county and local societies for the most part quite sensibly do not attempt to collect their own libraries, but tend instead to devote their energies to building up 1949} CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 259 the area history materials of the local public library. There is much need for this sort of activity, particularly as interest in local and area studies mounts in school circles. In collecting policies at State and local levels there is no possible conflict but a very real field for eSective cooperation. If, for instance, the State society lacks a given issue of a certain city directory, the local society might help locate a copy in private hands. If the local society also wanted a copy, since the item in question would be a printed volume, two copies presumably could be located almost as easily as one—the first for the local collection, the second for the State. On the other hand, if the local society wanted a par- ticular item and could not find it locally, it would be possible to utilize the columns of What's Going On to try to secure it. 3. Manuscripts. Manuscripts to some pose more of a problem: obviously there is but one original available—who should get it? Yet this difficulty is more apparent than real if only it is faced realistically. The basic consideration is preservation. The location of the materials once preserved is of secondary importance. But in case of important collections locally held, and all too often housed in non-fireproof structures, is there any sound reason why they could not be made available for microfilming by the State society, first for the safety of having a second true copy in existence in case of disaster, and secondly for the advantage of having the important resource materials readily available to the University student and scholar? 4. Business Records. These, of course, fall largely into the same classification as manuscripts, except that for the State as a whole the bulk is so enormous as to present a separate and distinct problem. Indeed the preservation both of the important records of important firms and of representative collections of important industries must call into being regional depositories including the county and local societies as well as the State facilities. There is material enough for all. Could we not work out a cooperative program on what records in this field should be saved and where they should be deposited? Again preservation, not location, is the basic consider- ation. And while microfilming would be too costly in this huge 260 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [March field, would it be impossible to make such materials available on an inter-library loan basis between the various depositories? 5. Museum 'Extension Service. Our experience with the circu- lating centennial exhibits in 1948 indicates quite conclusively both that there is a large public eager and ready to benefit from the teaching values of the visual exhibit in communities lacking their own museums, and that communities fortunate enough to possess museums are equally receptive to fresh and different exhibits of historical materials. All museums have duplicate materials they could make available for such exhibits in a state-wide extension service, working cooperatively with other museums either on joint exhibits or their own exhibits integrated into an agreed upon pro- gram. The Free Library Commission is interested in supplying reading materials to accompany such circulating exhibits in the future. We could procure speakers, either locally or otherwise, and films from the Bureau of Visual Instruction to make the open- ings of such exhibits a local event. We might prepare a brief gallery talk to accompany each traveling exhibit which high school students or others could give to visitors at certain times of the day. It would be worthwhile. It could be done. 6. Museum Collecting Policies. Here is the problem which to a, few people is apparently insoluble. They seem to assume that in this field the State and local societies are inevitable and bitter rivals. Is that the case? In the first place, the question of where a given piece or collection goes is usually determined by the donor. He will give it to the local society or he will give it to the State society, and there is little either organization can do about it. On the other hand, very few items are unique. It is usually not much more difficult to find two than to find one. If two are found, one is for the local museum, the other for the State museum. The State society could help with " want ads " in What's Going On, and if a cooperative program along these lines were worked out, would certainly consider placing materials from its own collections of special local interest on indefinite loan with the local societies able to take care of them. The local society could help locate and collect duplicates for the State society and might even be willing once in a while to lend particular items for some special exhibit at the 1949] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 26l

State museum. In short, I wonder if rivalry is the answer? Isn't it more a case of enlarging the area of mutual help and assistance? 7. School Program. While there seems to be no point in the State and local societies offering duplicate programs at the junior level, the local groups can be most useful and involve themselves in a fascinating field of activity if, as in Lincoln and St. Croix counties, they push the formation of junior chapters in the schools, or if, as in several areas, the local historians make their knowledge and ideas available both to the teachers and the kids, or even turn over a program or two of their society's to the local junior his- torians! Here we are building for a future in which we are all interested: an intelligent citizenry which knows its own com- munity, its history, the background of its problems, its triumphs and its shortcomings. Here, too, we easily and profitably can work together. 8. Research. We can be, and indeed often have been, mutually helpful on research questions. The State society's library can and gladly does furnish information and answers to specific inquiries from the local societies. Conversely it often turns to the local his- torian for help on some problem on which the written and printed records in Madison shed little light. Joint work on area studies, such as Dr. Glover has been expounding in the experimental regional historical conferences he has been conducting in various parts of the State, is by no means beyond the realm of possibility. Indeed it offers a fertile field for collaboration in worthwhile enter- prise. 9. Membership. It is obvious that if all the people who be- longed to the State society also joined the locals, and if all those who belonged to the locals joined the State society, both would be much' stronger than they are today. We have offered in the past a two-year introductory joint membership at a fee for the State society of $2.25, but costs meanwhile have risen to the point where the Magazine of History and its annual index, the Proceed- ings, and What's Going On, including mailing costs but excluding staff time, total $2.97 a member. This means that we just about break even on a $3.00 annual membership fee, and lose money on every joint member. At current prices, at least, the present joint 262 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR membership arrangement becomes a device of dubious return. What can be done? Unions utilize the automatic check-off. How far might we move toward an analogous device in the coming day of lower prices and at perhaps a slightly increased joint mem- bership fee? 10. Appropriations. Here is another field where the State and local societies can be of mutual assistance. We are moving in the present Legislature to abolish the existing limit of $500 which a county board may appropriate to a county historical society. We recently were able to help convince one city council that the divergence between what it thought the local historical museum should be doing and what it was doing was a case neither of faulty vision nor poor administration but of an acute shortage of funds which it would take something like $10,000 a year to remedy. The society did not get an appropriation of that size, but it did get a clean bill of health and a vote of confidence. The State society can help on such matters and on appropriations wherever it is locally politic for it to do so. Conversely, the local society clearly can help the State society in its biennial appeals to the Legislature. 11. Publicity. Here again we can all do much more for each other than we have been doing in the past—in press, magazines, and radio. If our movement is to prosper and grow, more people must be made aware of what is being accomplished on both the local and the State level. Here again the details remain to be worked out, but intriguing possibilities are present. 12. Advisory Facilities. It is reasonably well known that our staff stands ready on request to help a local society in any way possible. We are glad to advise on reorganizing a museum, as we did nearly two years ago in Vernon County. We are glad to help set up a museum catalog, as we were recently asked to do in Plymouth. We are glad to advise on library problems, or to help establish regional depositories for county and local archives or business records, or to assist in any other technical field within the competence of our staff. But we would like to benefit from [Continued on page 3831 A Magnificent Centennial Gift Presentation Ceremony at the Museum November 12, 1948 PRESENTATION REMARKS, by MRS. HERBERT V. KOHLER

DR. LORD, HONORED GUESTS, AND FRIENDS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY—and by "honored guests" I mean those for whom this party is given this afternoon—the donors of the treasures that have made possible our historical collection. I also consider honored guests those members of The Committee on Wisconsin Women and of special cooperating committees on the Women's Building at the recent Centennial Exposition who have given so unstintingly of their time, their effort, and their creative ability these last two years. I can accept your generous words, Dr. Lord, only on behalf of all of these persons. Through their generosity and interest the distaff side of Wisconsin's one-hundredth birthday celebration was possible—and through the generosity and interest of the State Centennial Committee and the Centennial Exposition management. All of you, I am sure, are acquainted with the life story of Cordelia Harvey, the " Wisconsin Angel" of the Civil War. Up- on the sudden death of her husband, Governor1 Louis P. Harvey, Mrs. Harvey undertook to carry on his work in behalf of the wounded Wisconsin soldiers. Realizing the need for hospitals in

THE PRESENTATION to the Society of a collection of early-day wearing apparel and household furnishings by The Committee on Wisconsin Women for the 1948 Centennial, of which MRS. HERBERT V. KOHLER was the chairman, was an outstanding event at the STATE HISTORICAL SO- CIETY'S MUSEUM, Director Lord, presiding, on the afternoon of Novem- ber 12, 1948. Several hundred guests admired the precious heirlooms which once were in the possession of Wisconsin families. Mrs. Kohler, for the committee, presented the priceless gift, and DR. ROBERT K. RICHARDSON, the Society's president, accepted it. A list of the names of the donors to the collection and further information are printed in the Society and State section, under Museum Accessions. 263 264 MRS. HERBERT V. KOHLER [March the more healthful northern climate, she went direct to President Lincoln to plead her cause. In turn the President sent her to Secretary of War Stanton with a note reading, " Admit this lady at once. Listen to what she has to say. She is a woman of intelligence and talks sense." I hope that through this centennial experience the members of The Committee on Wisconsin Women have proved to the men of the State Committee that they have a fair share of in- telligence and talk sense. I also make recognition of the service of the professional staff that worked on the Women's Building—headed by Architect Richard Philipp of Milwaukee. Each member of this staff showed a broad knowledge of the past and an appreciation of the rare excellence in it. To me one of the significant things about the whole cen- tennial undertaking has been the cooperation it has represented —cooperation by many races and creeds, and cooperation by organizations, groups and individuals, widely divergent in their interests and cleavages. Arthur Compton, the distinguished scientist, has said, "We must learn to live together—or we shall not live." If we have made one step ahead in this direction this centennial year, it is, I believe, an outstanding achievement.

As I WORKED the last two years, I often thought of an incident of the summer of 1946. There was a centennial celebration that July 4 on the Alfred Meyer farm near the junction of Highways 100 and 41 which marked a century of Milwaukee County farm history. The newspaperman who covered it felt convinced that no orator ever preached a finer lesson of America than he found in that celebration. More than 100 friends and kin came paying their respects to old Jacob Rohr, the Swiss immigrant, and his daughter Anna, and Joseph Meyer whom she had married. Out under the big maple trees, some almost a century old, the lawn gay with flags and flowers, the descendants of these immigrants dined well, spoke of the old days, and blessed the kindness of God and land. 1949] GIFT: PRESENTATION REMARKS 265

Five generations had lived well on the carefully nurtured land that has stayed in the family. Decorating the farmyard there is still the old split rail fence, termed a "backache" fence, for the work it took. That July day everybody went into the Meyer farm home to see the dress that " Grandmother " Meyer wore when she traveled east to visit her sons before they went to war in 1861; there was the old pitcher used in christening the children, the porcelain pipe and powder horn of the forefathers, lovely old Paisley shawls, the family albums with bearded men and straight-faced women, sturdy people who a century before had pushed back the frontier. In contrast were the modern improvements and appliances which represented the thrift and hard work of the family. In the frugality, the directness and honesty, the personal in- itiative of the whole occasion, there was a sort of sermon of the plow. It was the kind of significance that should attach itself to any centennial celebration. The Rev. Robert I. Gannon, president of Fordham University, has said: "All true civilization is 90% heirlooms and memories —an accumulation of small but precious deposits left by the countless generations that have gone before us. Only very proud or very ignorant people imagine that the present can begin every- thing all over again every day." The progress of civilization has been uneven to be sure, but I believe every generation can derive something, be it little or much, from this heritage of the past and also add something to it. I believe there can be no real understanding of the present without a thorough knowledge of the past.

MORE SPECIFICALLY, the Women's Building at the Centennial Ex- position grew out of the conviction that the documents which form the warp and woof of America's development reveal the minds of the men and women who made our history—but that the houses in which they lived and worked reveal far more intimately the kind of people they were. 266 MRS. HERBERT V. KOHLER [March

As you know, a large part of this collection about you here this afternoon was used in the creation of the twelve historic rooms in the Women's Building, but the idea of collecting significant wear- ing apparel and household furnishings for preservation here at Madison antedated by at least a year the birth of the Women's Building. May I make it clear that it never was the desire of the com- mittee to take away from State communities precious articles when there was facility for preserving them locally. Instead we have encouraged gifts to local museums. Simultaneous with this presentation today we have given to the Watertown Historical Society five of the little mannequins used in the creation of the kindergarten scene in the Women's Building. This gift seemed especially appropriate since Watertown was the city in which the first kindergarten in America was founded in 1856. It is the intention of the Watertown Historical Society to recreate the kindergarten scene in the Octagon House there, I am told. Through Mrs. R. C. Buchanan, who did such a superb piece of work on the territorial bedroom of 1836 in the Women's Build- ing, we have given to the Fort Howard Museum at Green Bay the lovely mannequin used in the territorial bedroom. To each local historical society in the State with museum facilities we have presented a set of black and white pictures of the twelve historic rooms completely captioned, together with copies of the committee's two publications: Wisconsin's Historic Sites and The Story of Wisconsin Women. The latter book represents a great deal of the research background that was necessary for the Women's Building.

THE COLLECTION we are presenting today consists of forty-one fully dressed mannequins that tell the story of fashion from 1830 to 1930. It consists of several hundred individual articles— other hats and wraps and gowns—dozens of accessories and a sampling of furniture. All of these things are from Wisconsin families. They are the things members of these families have Upper (left): Mrs. M. B. Rosenberry, Mrs. Herbert V. Kohler, and Mrs. Oscar Renne- bohm admiring elaborately costumed mannequins in the Museum. Lower: Wearing bustled and draped gowns of rich color and beautiful texture, this group represents the fashions of the late 1880's. From the collection presented to the Museum.

1949} GIFT: PRESENTATION REMARKS 267 worn—with which they have lived and worked through the century. They are truly part of the fabric of the State. There is, for instance, the brown moire dress worn by Mrs. Randall Wilcox when she and her husband, the Honorable Mr. Wilcox, settled at De Pere in 1836. Their charming white clapboard house on the edge of the Fox River still stands. There is the dress in which four-year-old Mary Ellen Warner arrived at Baraboo by oxcart with her family in 1849. There are capes and bonnets of 100 years and more. Hoops of the Civil War period—bustles and brocades of the eighties—leg o'mutton sleeves of the gay nineties, balloon sleeves and rounded hips of the 1900's—suits and the princess dress influenced by the motorcar —the hobble skirt—the chemise dress with the hemline at the knees—all are in the collection. There are German music books of the 1840's given by Mrs. G. A. Kuechenmeister of West Bend who this year has celebrated her own centennial. Beloved Ellen Sabin who this month will reach her ninety-eighth birthday has given a favorite gray cape and a pair of black gaiters.1 We have a homespun linen shirt—one of six that were in the trousseau of M. L. Goetter at West Bend in 1832 and we have the handsome white brocade wedding vest that Edward Sanderson wore in 1850. Included is the beauti- ful white satin wedding dress worn by his daughter, Elizabeth, when she became the bride of Otis William Budd, captain in the United States Army, in a military wedding in All Saints' Cathedral in Milwaukee on June 10, 1884. This wedding was described in General Charles King's book, The Colonel's Daughter. I wish I could mention every article—every donor by name. This is impossible. But let me make note that the largest single gift to the collection has been made by the three daughters of the late Ella Reese Smith of Neenah—Mrs. Daniel Kimberly of Neenah, Mrs. John Sensenbrenner of Menasha, and Mrs. Phillip Schwartz of Suffield, Connecticut—gowns and hats and wraps totaling almost 100. And may I also make recognition of the work done by one committee member, Mrs. George Banta, Jr. 1Both Mrs. Kuechenmeister and Miss Sabin died during the past winter. 268 ROBERT K. RICHARDSON [March of Menasha who has devoted countless hours to the whole project and made innumerable trips from Menasha to Kohler to be of assistance. If ever space is provided here at Madison for the actual recreation of the historic rooms as they were in the Women's Building at the Centennial Exposition, other friends have prom- ised to give the furnishings they then so kindly loaned. I hope sincerely this day comes to pass. In the meantime we are making as a part of this gift a set of framed color pictures of the historic rooms and copies of the committee's books, which together with the catalogue of the collection we believe will be useful to research students. And so through you, Dr. Richardson, on behalf of The Com- mittee on Wisconsin Women, I present to the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY this collection representative of Wisconsin's 100 years. In days to come may it help to stimulate a reappreciation of how far we citizens of Wisconsin have come so fast; of the way we have lived and worked together; of the fundamental virtues of faith and courage and initiative—which have made our record great. We give it into your stewardship repeating the theme that has guided all of our work—that each one of us is a trustee of the past with the important task of protecting our heritage and adding something to it.

ACCEPTANCE REMARKS, by DR. ROBERT K. RICHARDSON

HISTORIANS AND TEACHERS concerned with such objects as have just been presented through your agency, to the HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Mrs. Kohler, commonly feel it obligatory to stress the utility of such memorials to historical study and to local and national patriotisms. True it is that these and like authentic vestiges of the past are warp and woof of history and romance—whether the weaver be 1949] GIFT: ACCEPTANCE REMARKS 269 a Rostovtsev picturing the Hellenistic East or a Roberts or Derleth all but restoring flesh to a Rogers or a Rolette. This afternoon, however, we would stress, rather, an equally valid reason for delight in these assembled gifts—we would ac- knowledge the warming memories they raise in souls nostalgic, perhaps unconsciously, for loved ones of long ago and for the scenes of youth and childhood, of courtship and marriage. Prob- ably few of us here assembled have personally experienced the life of the wigwam—surely not east of the Mississippi. That epoch had passed before we were born. Yet not so long before! My own New Hampshire grandmother shook the hand of La Fayette and could tell tales of begging redskins. But though our experiences do not take us back absolutely to the wigwam, many of us, probably, have gone back and forth, more or less, between the new town home and the older home of grandfather and grandmother, have dwelt alternately amid Hitchcock chairs or chaste Sheraton tables and the polished, veneered and gew-gawish Victorian: have gone to bed of a summer night in the old farmhouse by oil lamp or by candle, only regret- fully to return home in town for the fall and winter to retire by light of the gas-fixture—how we did dread the puff after the application of the match—or, a bit later, of the electric bulb. And the bulb, too, it is said, was found by our Centennial Ladies at Milwaukee to be on its way to becoming a "museum piece." And even at the present moment the old and new rest happily cheek by jowl in our homes, and the lady of the house may occupy the Hitchcock chair or the harp-backed mahogany while her afternoon caller sips her tea in the modern overstuffed armchair. A home where all is of the pure and latest style is indeed bleak! No: those throngs that lingered in the wonderful exhibition room provided by the zeal of the Women of Wisconsin acting through their Centennial Committee were not seeking historical information, nor hunting data for professional depiction of costume, or studying the time limits of hoop skirt, or of corset, 270 ROBERT K. RICHARDSON or of bell-skirt, or of leg o'mutton sleeve, or of balloon sleeve; they were reliving their lives; in the phrase of the old hymn, they were "gathering at the River"—but ahead of time! And so, Mrs. Kohler, it is not only in the name of the mem- bers, curators, and officers of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN that I thank the donors of these objects about us, donors whose mouthpiece and most effective and beloved agent and leader you have delighted to be, but, I am sure, in the name, if only indirectly by the legal authority, of all the people of our State. As President of the Society I give assurance that it will take all possible measures to assure the safety of these collections, and to make them available and intelligible to our own and to coming generations. The Society As a Research Center

By ALICE E. SMITH

N THE YEAR just ended, 52,608 people used the resources of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Library. This figure takes no I account of the 64,991 men, women, and children who visited the Society's Museum in 1948; the 650,000 who were attracted to the History Building at the Wisconsin Centennial; the un- counted thousands who listened to our radio programs or saw our circulating exhibits in the thirty-eight regional centers where they were displayed; or the numerous and varied clientele of Messrs. Lord, Glover, Jenkins, Mrs. Ryan, Miss Drews, and other members of the Society's staff. The visits of these latter groups are important to the Society, and we hope they will continue. But it is not to them that we are turning our attention tonight. Rather it is to those who come to our building with well-worn brief cases, impatiently waiting until the doors open in the morning and regretfully putting away their papers when the gong sounds for closing at night; who plan their business trips so as to allow them a few hours' time at the Historical Library; who overstay their vacation leaves so they may get in a few "last licks" on a topic; who turn their Christmas money into photostats of the Draper manuscripts, then put aside savings so they may have the joy of actually handling the precious documents; who write long letters of inquiry about records that time and cost deny them the privilege of examining for themselves; who spend the hour between their own office closing and dinner

Miss SMITH is the director of research for both the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY and the University's Committee on the Study of American Civilization. This excellent paper was read by Miss Smith at the Society's Founders' Day Dinner, January 29, 1949. The research facilities offered by the Society are described; studies of the Wisconsin area under way and in prospect, by the joint directorship and the joint office of research of the Society and the University Committee, are recounted. 271 272 ALICE E. SMITH [March time every evening for years, systematically scouring the columns of county newspapers for data on their chosen subject; who tele- phone from the Capitol to have records reserved for evening perusal; as well as those who come under compulsion, consulting long mimeographed lists of reading assignments. Let us look for a moment at this library sought by the 52,600 users. In round numbers, it consists of nearly three-quarters of a million volumes of published materials and an even larger number of manuscript items. Supplementing it is the library of the University, whose rich resources have always been generously placed at the disposal of Historical Society patrons. Unquestion- ably the size of a collection is an important consideration with the scholar. It is the first question he asks in regard to an edu- cational or research institution. The fact that this Society's library exceeds all others is a matter of satisfaction to us. But far more important than size is selectivity and completeness. Here we really pride ourselves. I need not remind you that building up a library is more than purchasing books as they come off the country's presses. A library is built around an idea. With wants and needs in mind, books, pamphlets, ephemera, newspaper files, government records, many unimportant individually but producing something of value in the aggregate, are added to the central core. The idea around which our library was built was conceived by Lyman C. Draper. Draper's ambition was to build up a library on the history of the West. The whole West, he declared, was to be his field, and for Draper the West began not many miles in- land from the Atlantic. If the first superintendent of the Society excelled in any one activity more than another, it was in the role of collector. His broad vision was matched by an untiring energy and a keen judgment of values. Through his system of exchanges, employing agents in eastern cities, personal and professional buy- ing and begging, the library of 50 volumes he found when he came here in 1854 had increased to 215,000 by the turn of the century. This number has now risen, as we noted earlier, to more than 700,000. There have been some changes in policy and modifi- 1949] SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 273 cations of the early plans. The growth of the annual crop of books has necessitated cutting down the broad limits set by Draper and resulted in an attempt to collect intensively in a smaller area, rather than thinly over a virtually unrestricted field. The juxta- position of the University Library has brought about an agree- ment on division of fields, to avoid needless duplication but still to guarantee completeness of coverage. In the main, however, collecting still follows much the same paths marked out by the founding fathers. Supplementing the central body of books and pamphlets are other types of special material that probably, even more than the main group, justify classifying the Wisconsin library among the greats in the country. On the first floor of the building are three sections of the library whose low ceilings, dim lights, narrow corridors, and antequated furnishings give little indication of the profusion and rarity of the treasures they house. The southwest wing of the building forms the headquarters for the Government Publications Section. A separate division for public documents is unusual in libraries, but this one has a long history and a large collection. Ever since 1857, the Society has been receiving the official publications of the Federal government and recently we have arranged to secure also the great quantity of fugitive material published by various near-print methods that elude the official channels of distribution. The records gathered by means of these and other agencies, and through the untiring vigilance of the staff, are in constant use. Each month they are consulted by five hundred to a thousand students of economics, political science, commerce, and other branches of the social sciences, an interesting evidence of a growing public concern in the affairs of government. Across the hall is the Newspaper Section. Its collection, rated among the half dozen best in the United States, numbers about 50,000 volumes and around 5,000 reels of microfilm. Here you will find files of publications containing news items ranging in time from the movement of Washington's troops in the Revolution to yesterday's earth-shaking happenings in your own hometown. 274 ALICE E. SMITH [March

Although the department has been forced to adopt measures to curb an indiscriminate use of the collection, still the place is always crowded and you would do well to make an advance reservation if you want space at the tables or the use of a micro- film reader. Next door to the newspapers is the Manuscript Section, unim- pressive in appearance but rich in substance. Beginning an even century ago with the gift in March, 1849, of records of a resident of Mineral Point, the collection is well on its way to the million mark. Varied in form and content, these records, defy summary or brief description. Private letters and diaries, organization files and record books, journals and ledgers, tell of the immigrant wife's loneliness, the politician's ambitions, the merchant's gains and losses. The countless publications based upon these manu- scripts are the best testimonials to their excellence. That the Historical Library has been instrumental in bringing great men to this University and in keeping them here, is a well- known fact. Wisconsin's Frederick Jackson Turner spoke for many scholars in his letter of 1900 to Dean Birge, explaining his decision to reject an offer of another position: I am reluctant to leave Wisconsin, however. Aside from the gratitude I have to this University and the pride in its growth, I realize that the library of the State Historical Society is one of the great treasures of the country, not to say of the University; that it is in effect the most valuable single educational asset of the state, the product of its bounty and of the wise and devoted administration of the men who founded and conducted it. As a Wisconsin man and an alumnus of the University I have a strong desire to aid in the full utilization of this splendid library, and to con- tinue to make use of it in my investigation and instruction. Making the resources of a library available for use is fully as important a step as discovering and collecting books and records. In spite of the difficulties under which it labored during its early years in the State Capitol's cramped quarters, by the time it took the journey to its new home on this campus in 1900 the Society already had laid the groundwork for service that was to make it nationally known as a leading research center for historical scholars. A noteworthy beginning had been made in 1891 when Draper's death brought the bequest of his private library of manuscripts 1949] SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 275 on Western history. The Society showed its appreciation and re- sponsibility for the gift by promptly organizing the papers and opening them to public use, a policy it has maintained ever since in dealing with manuscripts entrusted to its care. In the days when manuscript libraries were jealously guarded and made avail- able only to the privileged few, the open-handed action of the Wisconsin Society was an innovation indeed, and it has gone far to influence other historical agencies to adopt similar practices. Growing collections and the change in location brought increas- ing cares and fresh demands, and new ones continue to arise. An important factor in handling these responsibilities is the Society's staff: the human resources of the library, workers with the accumu- lated wisdom born of training and long experience in specialized fields and meeting strange and exacting wants. Without competent and intelligent handling, books and newspapers and manuscripts and museum pieces would quickly fall into utter chaos. Quiet and undramatic are the roles of these staff members, enacted while serving a public of a size such as is served by no other his- torical society in the United States. Given, then, a growing library, liberal and far-sighted ideals of service, and a competent and devoted staff, what more is expected of the Society? To disseminate historical knowledge always has been the Society's ultimate goal. In addition to the tasks of serving the public around us, we have taken the initiative in preparing tools for smoothing the way of the scholar. We have not stopped at telling what is here or how to use the material. Substantial rows of volumes of original records, magazine articles, monographs, and histories, have been produced by the superintendents and the staff or under the auspices of the Society. These scholarly publications, more than any other one activity of the Society, have made it a leader among historical agencies in the nation. Prospects for continuing and enlarging upon this program of research and publication are promising. An important potentiality for this development lies in the work of the Committee on the Study of American Civilization. This Committee of the University 276 ALICE E. SMITH [March was appointed in 1946 to carry out a program and administer $25,000 granted annually for three years by the Rockefeller Founda- tion. It is made up of eight faculty members in the humanities and the social sciences and the director of the Historical Society. Very broadly speaking, the underlying objective of projects ap- proved by the Committee is to study the Wisconsin area in a search for whatever is common to the culture of this region and other regions of the United States. A year ago the Society and the University decided to establish a joint directorship and joint ofHce of research, to serve as a central office of information and reference on studies in the Wisconsin area. The set-up of the division is very simple. Its personnel con- sists of a half-time research assistant and a half-time stenographer, with myself as director. So completely has the work of the Com- mittee and the Historical Society been merged in the year the office has been in operation that it is impossible, in most instances, to tell what is being carried on under the auspices of the Society and what by the Committee. Speaking, then, from the viewpoint of research in the Wisconsin area, rather than that of authorizing agency, I shall touch upon what is being done, what might be attempted, and what is in prospect. One of the desiderata agreed upon in planning a coordinated program was a survey and listing of all research projects and writ- ings dealing with the Wisconsin area in the field of the human- ities and the social sciences that had been completed or were in progress. This was a big order. You will probably be hearing a great deal about this bibliography in the years to come. Without going into detail on the numerous problems involved, I will merely say that the formidable task is being attacked from the angle of types of production. The first of these is a listing of graduate theses. The listing is nearly completed and will be probably pub- lished directly from the cards in some offset printing by the Society, before the end of this year. A very slight inroad has been made in the mass of books, magazine articles, and pamphlets, working through the medium of the annual Writings on American History. Other plans and procedures under consideration for extending this 1949] SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 277 bibliography need not be enlarged upon here. I should like to mention, however, that we are trying to get a complete coverage of current publications regarding Wisconsin as they come off the press and to keep abreast of research and writing in progress. In this connection as well as for suggestions on any other phase of the project, or aid in carrying it on, we invite the cooperation of the Society's members. Bibliographies such as this are the tools of the worker in the field of the social sciences and their number is all too few. It is no longer possible to write history from such materials as our memories afford. Historians who live outside of Madison can scarcely hope to spend days at the library consulting its manuscripts and published records; those who have daily access to it find the amount of material so bafHing that they are constantly seeking help in finding their way through the mazes. Obviously then, our respon- sibility is to prepare, so far as lies within our means, guides and indexes to these records, as well as to put in circulation source materials of recognized value. Every division of the Society is keenly aware of its responsibilities in this connection. The Draper Manuscript Collection, we are happy to announce, is now completely microfilmed and very soon we hope to circularize libraries and historical agencies from the Atlantic to the Pacific that have been anxiously inquiring about copying privileges, and inform them they may purchase from us positive films of series within the collection or of the entire 486 volumes. The Archives Division, absorbed since its creation less than a year and a half ago, in inventorying departmental records in the Capitol, is building up an elaborate Cardex recording system of its findings which it will some day publish, undoubtedly by the most up-to-date photographic method. Dr. Wilcox leaves here on February 1 to undertake, under a Rockefeller scholarship grant, a survey of unpublished historical materials on the Wisconsin region, found in Washington, D.C., and other eastern cities. Dr. Louis Kaplan of the University Library hopes to begin a leave of absence under a similar grant to continue work on his bibliography of published autobiographies in the United States. Miss Appel's 278 ALICE E. SMITH [March

Bibliographical Citation in the Social Sciences, a manual of style for authors, editors, and students published while she was manag- ing editor of the University Press, has proved so useful that a new edition is being issued. A survey of art museums in the United States, begun two years ago by Floyd La Fayette of the Museum, was rudely interrupted by his having to portray centennials pictor- ially in two successive years, but the sky looks brighter for 1950. The Official Publications Section has a checklist of Wisconsin Territorial Documents, carefully compiled and verified many years ago by Mrs. Anna Evans, awaiting publication. A valuable card index to current publications on local history, compiled by the Reference Division, is receiving less attention and use than it deserves. So accustomed are readers of the Magazine of History to receiving Miss Krueger's annual index or the cumulative ones that they probably fail to realize how few historical agencies perform such a service for their readers. Useful and varied as these services are, there are others badly needed. A catalogue of the holdings of newspapers in all of Wisconsin would be welcomed by journalists and historical workers throughout the State. A supplement to the Manuscript Guide, covering acquisitions since 1940, should be started. Several local historical societies are begging for a manual of instructions on how to arrange, display, and catalogue their collections. The obliging Mr. Jenkins has promised his assistance, but is held back by the pressing need of doing the same for his own collections. The Society's divisions might undertake cooperatively to list materials available in our collections—books, pamphlets, official documents, archival records, manuscripts, pictures, maps, museum items, newspaper references—on selected subjects repeatedly called for: business history, transportation, linguistic groups, churches, cartography of the Northwest, political figures—in other words, to revive the Bulletins of Information series. Historical societies have been reminded of the fact that they are the proverbial hewers of wood and drawers of water for the social scientists. Looking back with me over this brief survey 1949} SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 279 of activities, you may agree that the staff at Wisconsin has been diligent in the Society's business. If our critics sometimes com- plain that we are not more creative, we can only reply that we too could think of more exciting occupations than indexing and inventorying and compiling bibliographies. We do not expect to join the "Hit Parade" of books of the year but do hope to save researcher after researcher the tedium of traveling needlessly down an identical weary path. The joy with which every type of finding aid supplied is received by busy scholars is a convincing proof that the hours spent in compiling these tools is an ultimate saving of time as well as of wear and tear on fragile and irreplace- able documents. For the world of historical scholarship, the nineteenth century was an era of discovery and publication of source materials. The Wisconsin Society took up the task with animation and quickly assumed leadership. Activities centering in Madison assumed the form of a search at home and abroad for records that would throw light on our beginnings as a nation and a state; translating, annotating, and publishing of thousands of source documents in our sturdy volumes of Collections; and the editing of three notable series: the Jesuit Relations, Early Western Travels, and Journals of the Lewis and, Clark Expedition. The searching for source materials is a less dramatic perform- ance now than in those exciting days but it is still going on. The visit of Dr. Wilcox to eastern libraries will, we hope, uncover some things of importance. The quarterly issues of our Magazine keep you informed of new manuscript acquisitions and the re- views in it tell you what has appeared in print. But perhaps we are still not fully impressed with the value of what we have or the need of bringing to light some of these authentic, direct narratives of the past. To illustrate let me tell you about one or two of the many sets of unpublished collections in our files. Among them are the little record books of Anson W. Buttles of Fox Point, Milwaukee County. From 1856 to 1906 he kept a diary of occurrences and 280 ALICE E. SMITH [March

was as good an example of perpetual motion as can be found. Farming, sightseeing, household economies, politics, education, sell- ing insurance, road building, were all a part of his life nor did he and his wife neglect the welfare of their numerous relatives around them or of their own eleven children. Butties' even fifty years of records were exceeded in span by those of Willett S. Main of Madison whose diaries run from 1850 to 1902. Main's entries take you back to the time when gentlemen paid New Year's calls, starting out at one o'clock in the afternoon and getting around to at least a couple of dozen places before the end of the day. The ladies, naturally, stayed at home, gowned in stiff black silk, to receive. Although in later years digestive disturbances lessened somewhat the pleasure of the party cakes and tea, it was Main's proud boast in 1902 that since 1850 he had never missed an ob- servance of the custom. For another slant on Madison society a century ago you should read the chatty correspondence that passed between Sarah Fairchild, who became the dignified Madame Con- over, and her girl friends. While we're on the subject of feminine chatter, we might mention the letters that Ursula Grignon of Green Bay wrote home from her convent school in Ohio in pre- territorial days. Ursula's letters have been carefully transcribed and translated and are soon to be published at Sinsinawa. Others of these early records deserve, it would seem, a wider audience than the casual visitor to the Manuscript Room. In reviving records of the past we should not overlook pieces once available in print but long lost to view. Newspapers of Wisconsin and eastern cities contain frequent descriptions of our communities in those inspiring days when progress was a common philosophy of frontier life. A careful selection of excerpts from them would have a significance far beyond the immediate region with which they deal and in a sphere much wider than the im- mediate topic. Mr. Banta's republication of Wau-bun serves to keep alive that delightful character, the early mistress of the Fort Winnebago agency house. No one can successfully compete with Mrs. Kinzie's deservedly high reputation as an early Wisconsin 1949] SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 281 writer but there were other publicists in those days. I am surprised that the State Centennial did not find some person or organization republishing William E. Smith's Observations on the Wisconsin Territory which came off the press in 1838, or of Josiah B. Grin- nell's Home of the Badgers, a slender volume published in Mil- waukee in 1845, or one of the numerous writings of Increase A. Lapham, an early scientist, scholar, and Wisconsin booster. These have been but a few suggestions for exploitation of inter- esting and too little known source materials. Many more could be listed. I do not want to leave the impression that projects of this sort can be carried out easily. But the gold is there if you are willing to dig for it, and the reward I am sure will be proportionate to the effort. The Wisconsin theme is receiving a great deal of attention on the campus these days. As knowledge of the possibilities of the Rockefeller Committee spreads, more and more projects are sub- mitted for consideration. The diversity of projects is an indication of the wide interest in the program. Workers in the arts, music, languages, folklore, sociology, history, law, and other fields have taken advantage of the generous provisions of the grant. Some of the research projects they are carrying on are short-range ones, considered to be complete in themselves. Others are opening phases of broad interpretative studies or additional examinations along a path already marked out. A few are making a microscopic inspection of the Wisconsin area to test generalizations and con- cepts observed over a wider field. Among the arts and literature are an interpretive study of Wis- consin humor; another on the folklore of the Great Lakes; a history of the people of Wisconsin as they expressed it in their architecture; a volume on Wisconsin music with annotated tran- scriptions from recordings; and a presentation of native decorative arts. There are studies of representative foreign language com- munities—Norwegian, Polish, Finnish—and of local popular speech in Wisconsin. A social history of the Wisconsin frontier, an in- quiry into the impact of the lumber industry on Wisconsin law, 282 ALICE E. SMITH [March and biographical studies on leading Wisconsin figures are in progress. Some of the search projects for source materials were mentioned earlier. The Committee is sponsoring a symposium on American regionalism to be held in Madison on April 14-15 of this year. Research methods adopted by these scholars are varied. The time-honored ones of painstaking and exhaustive examination of printed and manuscript records, here and in out-of-state depositories, naturally predominate. On the other hand, a number of workers in the study of human relations and social patterns have chosen to go directly to the people for information. Their methods of recording their findings are as direct as their approach. Thus photography, sound recordings, and personal interviews have taken their places beside the traditional forms of research and writing. In so short a period as this program has been in operation, one can scarcely expect to point to impressive results. Yet some books and articles have already appeared in print, and manuscripts of others are in the hands of publishers. Two projects have become so vigorous that they have separated from the parent and are establishing independent bases with their own individual grants; a third, the Wisconsin dialectic study, gives promise of becoming a basic model for similar studies over the entire country. What, you may ask, is the significance of these studies? Is there any unity of design or purpose among them or are they merely an unrelated collection of pleasant excursions into the past? The answer to these questions is probably best found in the title under which the committee was organized: the Committee on the Study of American Civilization. Inhabitants of the most powerful country in the history of the world, we are distressingly ignorant of what constitutes the American way of life. We do not know what this civilization of ours is, if it can continue, and if so, what are the forces that will keep it going. We are not agreed as to how to attack the problem. Shall we study it by broad subjects such as law or finance; shall we examine its institutions; shall we select phenomena in human experience for study? Or shall we turn our 1949] SOCIETY AS A RESEARCH CENTER 283 attention to small areas and concentrate on trying to understand what is occurring in them, and then test those findings over the larger area? Undoubtedly, we shall have to use all these methods and will need every bit of knowledge and wisdom we can extract from each and every one of them. In the next few years the Wisconsin committee plans to emphasize the last named method of approach, and will turn its main attention in even greater degree to its own state. Around social and economic problems, using the Wisconsin area as an ideal testing ground, the program of research and writ- ing is being built. Into this program can be fitted the techniques we have set up, the studies we have begun. We are living in an era of great changes. When we examine our own small slice of history, analyze it, and compare it with the general development of other regions, suggestive similarities and differences appear. Checking these lines of development against general hypotheses and examining general concepts in the light of what we find in the Wisconsin area, we believe we can move a long way towards an explanation of the causes of the changes and the ways of coping with them. A sociologist has stated his conviction that effective group re- search is not brought about by an arbitrary decision to work together. Unity of action, he believes, springs from a genuine con- cern in a common problem, one of sufficient interest and impor- tance to engulf individual differences in favor of the group. A year ago tonight Dr. Lord told you of numerous ways in which the University and the Historical Society were cooperating for mutual betterment. In this past year we have added another item to that list. Surely the social goals involved in this study of the Wisconsin region make it a matter big enough and important enough to continue to engage the full efforts of both Society and University. An Adventure in Education

By SISTER MARY EUNICE HANOUSEK, O.S.F.

HIS year the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is assembled at an historic spot. One hundred years ago, this Tarea called Nojoshing, an Indian term meaning a strip of land extending into the water, was a clearing amid forests and wilderness. Today, it is an educational center of many outstanding institutions. They are: St. Francis Seminary, Major and Minor De- partments, the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Mary's Academy, The Cardinal Stritch College, St. John School for the Deaf, and until 1930, St. Aemilian's Orphan Asylum. Since the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi is the oldest institution in this locality, let us briefly sketch its be- ginnings. Political upheavals in Europe in 1848 caused Father Anthony Keppeler, pastor of Ettenbeuren, Bavaria, to predict an era of sorrow and travail for their European neighbors, for Bavaria. He foretold of destruction, ruined lands, a homeless people. Revo- lutions had broken out in France forcing Louis Philippe to flee to England. Uprisings and tumult prevailed in Germany and the Austrian Chancellor Metternich had taken flight. Rumors of revolt had come from Italy where the Pope had been deprived of some of his temporal possessions and had been forced to leave Rome. Father Keppeler, therefore, invited his parishioners to go to America and there build a new and better Ettenbeuren. Urged on by this appeal and anxious to win souls for Christ and the Church, lay members of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi—Father Mathias Steiger, assistant to Father Keppeler, five

THIS enlightening historical paper was read by SISTER MARY EUNICE HANOUSEK, O.S.F., The Cardinal Stritch College, Milwaukee, at the Annual Meeting of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, August 19, at Mil- waukee. It was of special interest since the Society was meeting at St. Francis Major Seminary and The Cardinal Stritch College. 284 AN ADVENTURE IN EDUCATION 285 men, and six women, drew up, on December 8, 1848, some guid- ing principles for an American foundation. This band of immigrants reached New York in April, 1849; after traveling by train, canal packet, stagecoach, and steamboat, the wayfarers arrived at their goal, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On May 28, 1849, they presented themselves to Bishop Henni who accepted them as co-workers in his young diocese. From Franklin, Wisconsin, where the group had temporarily settled, they went to a site on the southern point of Milwaukee Bay, Nojoshing, as their permanent place of settlement. This spot which had been selected by Bishop Henni has an interesting historical tradition. It is believed that as early as 1679 the Frenchman, La Salle, while exploring the region voyaged southward on the western shore of Lake Michigan. When his four canoes reached the southern end of the bay, they were nearly swamped by an easterly gale rolling the waves high against the beach. Leaping from his canoe, La Salle and three of his followers dragged the boat ashore. Then they went to the rescue of the other men, among them two Franciscan missionaries. When all were safely ashore, they camped on a knoll overlooking the lake, supposedly the present spot where St. Francis Seminary stands today. Like the German immigrants who settled in Milwaukee in the fifties, they realized that land is a tangible factor in the founding of a church. Therefore, their leader, Father Keppeler, purchased some thirty-five acres of land at Nojoshing, paying $1,000 for the property. There these pioneer settlers lived in log houses until a suitable dwelling could be built. All helped in the work. While the priests and men constructed the primitive convent, the women carried the building material, rooted out stumps, and tacked on the brushwood. By December of 1849, one of the first convents in Wisconsin, in the Old Northwest, stood completed. In an environment of forests inhabited by Indians, these men and women began their missionary work not without hardship, trial, and labor. Scarcely had the priests accepted their first pastoral duties in the neighborhood and two of the women set up a room for the teaching of school in New Coeln, Wisconsin, when the 286 SISTER MARY EUNICE HANOUSEK, O.S.F. [March

Nojoshing family faced its first crisis. The two priest leaders were stricken with cholera and died a few days apart. For these years, 1849-54, were long remembered as the "Cholera years." This terrible scourge swept over Europe from Asia, across the ocean in ships to America. Traveling along the immigrant routes, it reached Milwaukee with tragic suddenness. A man walking down the avenue unexpectedly pitched forward and lay face downward on the sidewalk. In a few weeks, the town was filled with people dying of the epidemic. Faithful physicians and heroic Sisters of Charity cared for the patients. Even the gravediggers could not keep pace with the plague. Squads of hardened men, stimulated by high pay and strong liquor, buried the dead. Life in the town of Milwaukee was grim and deadly; the disease spared no one— native or immigrant. When the end came, it was months before the rigid quarantine was lifted. Though the leaders of the Nojoshing band had been stricken, the plague had not taken any other member of the group. The men and women struggled on for a few years, and conventual life began in earnest for the women when a religious garb was fash- ioned, a rule was formulated by the new chaplain, Father Heiss, and when vows were taken for the first time in June, 1853. Another institution was transferred to Nojoshing in 1854. The cholera epidemic caused many children to be orphaned in the Milwaukee diocese. At first, Bishop Henni undertook the care of the orphans indirectly, for the establishment of orphanages was not planned; they were the spontaneous growth of an existing need. But, with the renewed outbreak of the cholera, more children were without support and maintenance, so in 1854, an unpre- tentious frame building was erected at Nojoshing to house the forty-nine orphan boys of Milwaukee. Both the care and training was intrusted to the Sisters of St. Francis, thus giving them re- munerative work and marking the beginning of their many charitable and diocesan works. Within a year after its founding at Nojoshing, due to the carelessness of a carpenter, the orphan home burned to the ground. Though the loss made the Sisters' work harder, the Milwaukee 1949] AN ADVENTURE IN EDUCATION 287

Catholics came to the rescue of Mother Aemiliana, and within four weeks several hundred dollars was collected to construct a brick building for the twice-orphaned children. Besides collections, the orphanage at Nojoshing was financed by Doctor Salzmann, pioneer Milwaukee priest, who went on begging tours in behalf of the orphans. When money was scarce, he asked for and received wood or farm produce from friendly neighbors and household furnish- ings from city folks. At other times assistance came from promi- nent Catholic men who formed a society, the Orphan Fathers, to help pay the orphanage's current expenses. During the first decade of its existence, St. Aemilian's saw hard times. Often there were not enough benches to seat the little orphans. Often, too, the Sisters would admonish their charges to pray for food, for the cellar was almost empty and the slices of bread were getting thinner and thinner. The orphans' prayers were often heard; help and food were brought by neighbors and benefactors, especially the Orphan Fathers. The third institution erected at Nojoshing in the fifties was St. Francis Seminary. Few institutions of the Midwest enjoy the repu- tation and rich heritage of the Seminary of St. Francis de Sales, the Salesianum. It stands a lasting memorial to three outstanding pioneer ecclesiastics: Bishop Henni, Father Heiss, and Doctor Salzmann. As soon as Bishop Henni took charge of the Milwaukee diocese, he visioned a clerical seminary. He was urged on to carry out this project because of the cry of German immigrants, " We have bread. Give us priests." When the eminent prelate, Archbishop Bedini, came to Milwaukee for the dedication of St. John's Cathe- dral, he also visited Nojoshing. After his visit there, he suggested to Bishop Henni the forest-covered knoll, once the camp site of La Salle, as a suitable site for the provincial seminary. From that August day in 1853, Bishop Henni and his co-worker, Doctor Sakmann, had but one ambition—to make the seminary a reality. Soon additional property was bought adjoining the convent and orphanage, and projects launched for the collection of funds. By the end of May, 1855, contracts for the building were let. Soon 288 SISTER MARY EUNICE HANOUSEK, O.S.F. [March

in place of the giants of the forest, the foundations of the new seminary were laid. The day of the laying of the cornerstone was a holiday for all the Catholics of Milwaukee, of Wisconsin; it was a day " that was to usher in a new* era for the Catholic Church of the Northwest." Assisting in the building of the seminary were the five men who had come to Nojoshing with the first recruits from Bavaria. These Brothers hauled lumber from the lake shore to the grounds. This lumber had been shipped from Manitowoc and Sheboygan. They also cleared a part of the convent grounds for a brickyard, and made 300,000 bricks for the seminary building. They assisted, moreover, with the carpenter and mechanical work and thus helped materially in lightening the burden of the great triumvirate: Henni, Heiss, and Salzmann. The Sisters, too, did their share to promote the work of build- ing. They cooked and served meals daily for the eighty workmen. When the building was completed, the Sisters were the house- keepers and did the domestic duties at the seminary. This work v/as far from easy for electrical appliances and labor-saving devices were unknown in the fifties of the past century. Two events stand out in the first decade of the seminary's history. On January 29, 1856, after impressive ceremonies of dedication, the Salesianum was formally opened with twenty-five students in attendance. From that day until March 1, 1944, Nojoshing was called St. Francis, Wisconsin. Again, on Decem- ber 16, 1859, fourteen young men, the first fruits of the Salesi- anum, were anointed priests of God. Uniquely enough, this was the first class of men in the United States to include so large a group at one time. Since 1849, when these Bavarian men and women built the first convent at Nojoshing, later St. Francis, it has been a great center of missionary activity, of educational and charitable en- deavor. From this area have gone forth thousands of priests as pathfinders and apostles of souls throughout the surrounding states of the Northwest. Sisters, educators of children, have left their 1949] AN ADVENTURE IN EDUCATION 289 motherhouse located here to staff schools scattered from Wisconsin to North Carolina, from Massachusetts to California. On these grounds are located institutions of a later date—St. Mary's Acad- emy, opened in 1904, and The Cardinal Stritch College. Special mention must be made of Pio Nono High School, and of St. John School for the Deaf, located a little distance south of us, where the Sisters have cared for and trained deaf boys and girls for the past sixty-three years. In other cities of the State, Sisters from St. Francis care for and train orphans and mentally retarded children. All these educational and charitable works emanate from the No joshing center. What was begun with great hardship by the pioneer founders has been the inspiration of all who live on this historic spot. All of us in this area are willing to dedicate ourselves anew to the cause of education with the hope of even a more fruitful apostolate in the second hundred years. The Society's Benefactors

By W. H. GLOVER

HE PEOPLE of Wisconsin have shown singular felicity in combining volunteer with official efforts in the accomplish- Tment of the innumerable tasks of a modern society. The cooperation of a variety of associations with agencies of the State government is a familiar phenomenon in industry and agriculture, and is one of the solid supports of democratic government in the State. The STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is no excep- tion to this rule. It lies across the boundaries of the official and volunteer fields. For the discharge of administrative and educa- tional functions it is supported by State funds. But for the dis- charge of its duties as explorer and publisher in the field of Wisconsin history it depends heavily upon the support of its mem- bers and friends. Many new aspects of historical study and service have been opened up as the result of contributions of money and materials by people interested in their State's history. It is fitting that the value of these contributions should be assessed at the con- clusion of a century of service by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

FROM THE VERY beginnings of the Society's career, the necessity for such collaboration was realized. Its founders included a gener- ous number of the State's officials, including governors, as well as lovers of history who were quite conscious of the opportunities for compiling the records of a frontier society. In 1854, at the time of the formal chartering of the Society, the Legislature was persuaded to begin its generous annual support. The Society soon

DR. WILBUR H. GLOVER is the Field Representative of the STATE HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY. Since he promotes the organization of local societies and plans for regional society meetings, he is well known throughout the State. 290 THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 291 paralleled this action with a proposal to raise funds, in addition to its regular membership fees, for its own support. Partial self- support has from that time been the goal of the Society. The charter itself provided that the Society "may acquire and hold, and at pleasure alienate any other personal and real estate and may acquire the same by devise and bequeath or otherwise, not exceeding ten thousand dollars in value." * Small sums began to flow into the treasurer's coffers at the suggestion of the secre- tary. The first such to be recorded and published was from Moses Sheppard of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1854; the sum was $25. During the following years a number of smaller contributions, freely given, kept alive the feeling of responsibility among the members. The devoted labors of Secretary Lyman C. Draper, abetted by unselfish aid from many members brought the Society to a condi- tion of relative prosperity. In 1866 the very young State of Wis- consin could boast a library of 25,000 books and 1,300 bound volumes of newspaper files, all newly shelved in reasonable security in the Capitol. The Society congratulated itself on that measure of success and upon hundreds of manuscripts, dozens of oil paintings, and its "cabinet of curiosities." It was impossible, however, to rest at that point, nor was it ever Draper's intention to do so. Already he had striven to raise funds for a new fireproof building, but wartime conditions had balked him. Now he turned to a substitute project which bore fruit, and which set the pattern for the Society's careful husbanding and utilization of its resources. Immediately after the removal to the Capitol, Draper determined on the next step in organizing a satisfactory center for historical activities. He called for the establishment of an endowment fund. Even three to five thousand dollars, he declared, would go far to- ward relieving the pinch of higher prices which was restricting the accumulation of books and other historical literature. He proposed that the first step be the creation of a Binding Fund, the proceeds of which would pay for binding the library's classified pamphlet 1 This modest limit was amended in 1919 when the work of Draper and others had made it clear how great were the possibilities for the Society. 292 W. H. GLOVER [March collection and thereby relieve State funds for book purchase. He appealed to the Society's members to pledge donations and an- nually renewed his appeal. John Catlin and Cyrus Woodman were the first to respond. In the annual meeting of 1868, Catlin gave $100 to the Binding Fund, and a year later, Woodman matched it. The membership fees and receipts from sales were also assigned to the fund. In 1874, its first big break came in the form of a donation of $500 from Alexander Mitchell, the banker and railroad magnate, who had been named president of the Society in 1872. Draper's report for 1874 gave the total of the fund as $1,803.59, and he craftily raised the goal to $10,000. J. F. " Bowie Knife " Potter exhibited once again his understanding of human psychology by offering to be one of ten to give $50 each. Governor C. C. Washburn pledged $100 annually, and John Catlin set aside a section of land in West Texas which in due course was bequeathed to the Society—the first bequest, other than of cash or books, in its history. For some years thereafter, Draper's reports record an exciting competition in which the sum already in the fund, the number of volumes in the library, and the goals set for the Endowment funds were component parts. By 1879, there was over $6,500 in the fund, but with about 80,000 volumes to be cared for, Draper insisted that $15,000 must be raised before any income be spent. Three years later, with the library approaching the 100,000 mark and the fund close to $10,000, the goal shot up to $25,000. The steady flow of contributions brought the goal nearer, even so. The list of donors, which Draper published in the Annual Report, shows heavy support by Washburn, Woodman, Philetus Sawyer, Breese Stevens, and P. D. Armour. In 1886, with the increasing returns of interest rapidly hoisting the total of the fund, it was announced that its income would be used when it reached the total of $20,000. Accordingly, $250 was drawn for binding during the following year. At that time about $5,000 had been donated and $7,000 had been produced by returns on investments. The remainder had been realized from membership dues and the sale of duplicates from the library. 1949] THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 293

At the start of his campaign, Draper had stated that in addition to the Binding Fund, the Society must have a fund of $50,000 for general purposes. He therefore suggested an Antiquarian Fund, of no specified size, to permit the Society's officers to acquire his- torical materials other than books—a first gesture towards a full- scale museum. He reviewed the growth of the British Museum and the Library of Congress, and concluded: "We need a large General Fund, so as to cease being a pauper on the state treasury; we need a special fund, the income of which is to be devoted to historic investigations, and the procurement of historical manu- scripts and other rarities." But before history could repeat itself in the establishment of the Binding Fund, the whole outlook for the Society changed, in good part because of a flow of donations from its members and friends. The persistent efforts of Draper were renewed in 1893 by his sucessor, Reuben Gold Thwaites, in anticipation of the growing needs of the library and museum. The quarters in the Capitol had become inadequate and were recognizably in danger of fire or collapse. In this crisis the State intervened to provide the present library and museum building, to be shared on a temporary basis with the University Library. This was the easier to arrange because of the existing relationship with the University. The excellence of the collecting work of Draper and Thwaites and the alertness of Frederick Jackson Turner and others in exploiting their finds for the purposes of research and teaching now made it natural that the needs of both institutions should be met at one stroke. The Legislature's provision for the new building was more than adequate for the time, and it was a further challenge to the Society to extend its program by its own initiative. After the Catlin bequest of Texas lands, others followed his example of remembering the Society to its great advantage. Before the Texas section was sold, netting about $1,800, a cash bequest was made by Stephen Taylor of Philadelphia. Mr. Taylor had served in the United States Land Office at Mineral Point during territorial days, and, although he had not lived in Wisconsin for 294 W. H. GLOVER [March over thirty years, he had not lost his interest in the State. His gift amounted to a little over $1,000. Again it was Draper who affirmed most strikingly a faith in the Society which has at all times smoothed its path. His bequest, announced in 1891, pro- vided that his possessions should go to the Society. The income- producing items of his estate were to be devoted to his widow's support during her lifetime. The Society's ultimate profit from Draper's beneficence is impossible to calculate because it acquired his unrivaled personal collections of manuscripts and books on the American West. His other properties, including duplicate books, in spite of disappointment with respect to the value of his securities, created a fund of over $10,000 by 1905. After binding and indexing his manuscript collection from this fund, the income from the remainder made a sizeable addition to the Binding Fund. The gradual accretion of funds was matched by the Society's care in handling them. In 1884, the Board of Curators created a Finance Committee to supervise the funds of the Society. The committee moved promptly to adopt the soundest possible policy in handling them, ruling out loans secured by real estate. All in- vestments were put into mortgage loans for the greatest possible security. Such real estate as came into the possession of the Society was held only until a favorable market permitted its transmutation into the soundest of bonds. Each fund was kept rigidly separate; loans from them were punctiliously repaid. Increasing support by the State produced further changes. The binding of books was assigned to the State Printers as a part of their contract, releasing the Binding Fund income for other pur- poses. Since the State appropriations sufficed for book purchases also, the endowments were available for salaries. The expanded fund for salaries made it possible to extend the services of the So- ciety in the field of reference and research. The officers of the Society began to move out into the State on frequent occasions, encouraging the formation of local societies and extending the popular range of its activities. The Antiquarian Fund for museum purchases had grown to $10,000 by 1908, and its income was being used. Superintendent Thwaites felt that the most pressing 1949] THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 295 need of the moment was a fund to care for the famous and invalu- able manuscript collection. The Society's position was strengthened after 1900 by the crea- tion of a number of special funds. The Antiquarian Fund had made its pedestrian ascent to a productive stature during the years 1887- 1908 by virtue of a slow accretion from many moderate-sized gifts and the Society's miscellaneous receipts. The example of Draper's bequest began to bear fruit in 1902 with the gift of jewelry and other property by Mrs. Charles Kendall Adams, wife of the president of the University. Her object was to provide the money for a fund the income of which was designated for the purchase of books and papers on art for the library and objects for the museum. The jewels realized $3,850 at their sale, and donations to the fund immediately increased it to over $4,000. The present level of the Mary M. Adams Fund is $14,000. In the meantime it has provided scores of books on art for the library. From its income came the materials used by W. A. McCloy for the great Wisconsin mural which he painted in 1948. A second fund for similar purposes was acquired shortly when in 1908 the daughter of Mrs. Anna R. Sheldon presented her mother's books of art and travel to the Society and initiated a fund in her memory. The Memorial Committee deposited $1,500 immediately and that amount has increased to $2,700 at present, meanwhile serving purposes similar to the Adams fund. A highly specialized function was assigned to the Society under the wills of Colonel and Mrs. Albert H. Hollister of Madison. Their identical wills provided that one-half of their estates was to be paid to the Society for the establishment of the Hollister Pharmaceutical Library. One-half of the income was to be ex- pended for books, and the other half was to be added to principal until it amounted to ten times the original sum. Upon the death of Mrs. Hollister in 1912, two years after the demise of Colonel Hollister, almost $10,000 was paid to the fund, and further ad- ditions brought the original principal to about $11,500. Because of the existence of a first-rate Pharmaceutical Library in the Phar- macy School of the University, it has not been thought wise to 296 W. H. GLOVER [March attempt to duplicate it. Rare books in the field have been reprinted with the fund's backing, but its comparative inactivity has led to its rapid increase. It now totals over $33,000, and its ultimate application to its specified purpose awaits its maturity and a chance to fulfill with efficiency the object which Colonel Hollister's absorp- tion in his drug business led him to adopt.

THE ACCRETION of special funds did much to enlarge the scope of the Society's activities, but the main stream of its work still depended upon the continuing trickle of contributions which would fill new channels. There is record of many gifts from its members, thoughtfully made for purposes essential to healthy growth. When Thwakes took a trip to Europe in 1891, President John Johnston of Milwaukee gave him $500 to purchase rare items in the book line. The opportunity to purchase a collection of Piranesi engrav- ings brought contributions from George F. Peabody and George B. Hopkins of New York, and William F. Vilas and many others in Wisconsin. W. J. Thompson presented land in Jackson County valued at $1,200. Innumerable others aided in bringing the general funds to productive levels. This gradually growing aid received a massive reinforcement from the bequest of George B. Burrows. His will, dated Au- gust 21, 1903, made the Society the residuary legatee of his estate, conditional upon his son's dying childless. When that event occurred, as Mr. Burrows had unhappily anticipated, the court estimated the estate's value at $381,000. This considerable fortune had been the proceeds of a laborious and devoted life. Mr. Burrows was born in Vermont on October 20, 1832, the son of a man who was poor, but distinguished as an early Aboli- tionist. The consequence of the family's poverty was early acquaint- ance with work, and Mr. Burrows came to Wisconsin in 1853 prepared to make the best of his opportunities. His experience as a merchant he turned to account by becoming a banker in Sauk City. In 1865 he moved to Madison, where he dealt in real estate, including large operations in pine lands. Business success did not divert him from public service; he was State senator 1877-82, assemblyman and speaker in 1895, president of the State Forestry 1949] THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 297

Commission, and a Curator of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY from 1877 to his death in 1909. As assemblyman, he greatly aided the effort to provide the new building for the Society. Mr. Burrow's service for many years on the Finance Committee was climaxed by his thoughtfulness in drawing his will. When his son died in 1916, there was some controversy as to when the trustee of the estate should surrender it to the Society, which the Supreme Court resolved by ordering it done immediately. The son's widow was guaranteed a life income by the Society, and the George B. Burrows Fund began to work its benefactions to Wisconsin history. The use of its income, left to the discretion of the Board of Curators, has been various and pervasive, but it encouraged the beginning of at least one major project in Wis- consin history: Dr. Joseph Schafer's monumental "Domesday Book" studies. Problems of-publishing the Wisconsin Magazine of History were also eased. The size and diversity of the Burrows estate involved the Curators in problems of management which still continue. The probate court had valued the estate at $381,000 and $292,142.83 was actually charged to Treasurer L. S. Hanks in 1920 when it passed to the Society. Costs and obligations to the family reduced the working fund to $195,000 initially, but by 1925 the principal had risen to $257,851.68. The principal now stands at about $360,000. A second problem was the acquisition of cutover lands in the northwestern part of the State. The Ramsey Land Company, which Mr. Burrows had formed to deal in tax titles, collapsed under the pressure of the land deflation of the early 1920's. The Society controlled one-half of the stock, and when the other stockholders refused to pay their share of the company's obligations and divide the assets, the Society appropriated $35,000 from the Burrows Fund, paid the debts, and claimed the assets, which were 12,000 acres of land in Clark and Taylor counties. The sale of these lands through a long period of agricultural depression and man- power shortage has necessarily been slow. A small portion was purchased by the Federal government in 1936 to be included in the Chequamegon National Forest, but a great amounts still re- 298 W. H. GLOVER [March mains, much of it not unfavorably located with respect to roads and established cities and villages.

NUMEROUS OTHER gifts and bequests have strengthened the hands of the curators in undertaking new projects and in maintaining the organization through the disasters of the Great Depression. Reuben Gold Thwaites, second superintendent, by bequest established a $10,000 fund in his name, the income to be freely assigned by the Board of Curators. Genevieve M. Mills left her half-share of the house erected by her father, Simeon Mills, early mayor of Madison, at Wilson Street and Monona Avenue. Since it proved to be unsuitable for use as a museum, as she had hoped, it was sold to establish the Maria and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund, her alternative choice. The house, with other property, provided a fund of about $29,000, the income from which has, since 1922, borne much of the cost of editing the Wisconsin Magazine of History. ' \ \ A thousand dollar bequest, freely given by Hattie L. Fisk in 1926, allowed some valuable experiments in the use of photography, including motion pictures, in the making of historical records. Mrs. Emily House of Reeseville contributed, by bequest in 1912, $500 for investigation of Dodge County and Wisconsin history and antiquities—a sum which has grown to $1,200—besides 2,500 Indian relics picked up near her father's homestead, and named in his honor, the Martin Harder Memorial Collection. Wisconsin's famous scientist, Stephen Moulton Babcock, turned over his per- sonal papers and by bequest left his household effects to the Society to be disposed of for its benefit, a benefaction which netted over $600. Mary Cousins Joyce made bequests of $2,500, received in 1942. The Wisconsin Centennial, Incorporated, an organization to lead the observances of the Territorial Centennial in 1936, turned over $2,500 in cash and 4,470 commemorative half-dollar coins in 1938. The original object of a rare coin collection has been changed by agreement to general historical purposes. Many other individual members have given lesser gifts and bequests, in- cluding Archbishop Sebastian G. Messmer, Fred Cams of Mani- 1949} THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 299 towoc, William P. Gundry, and Henry A. Huber. Many anonymous gifts must likewise be acknowledged. In recent months a number of generous donors responded to the opportunity to purchase the famous T. B. Walkef Collection of Indian Portraits, and through William J. Campbell of Osh- kosh subscribed over $10,000 for this purpose. Before the pur- chase, negotiations collapsed, and many of them contributed smaller sums to make possible the publication at a reasonable cost of the catalog of that collection which is now on loan to the Society. Still others have taken out sustaining memberships in the Society as a direct and effective means of supporting its program, or have contributed to its endowment funds.

To CONVEY an adequate impression of the treasures in gifts which have poured into the museum is more difficult. The selection of donors for mention is certain to involve injustice, just as the sacrifices of many who contributed money have not received the notice they deserve. Visitors to the museum are aware of the extent of the benefactions which have made its operations possible, and a constant stream of new acquisitions is pouring in, accelerated by the awareness aroused by the Centennial of the value of material objects to the elucidation of the story of Wisconsin. Only the larger collections, however, can be mentioned in the space available. Many have contributed to the museum's holdings of Indian relics. The W. A. Titus Collection of Southwestern Indian pottery and the Henry P. Hamilton bequest of native copper implements are much in evidence constantly in the museum. The Hamilton materials, assembled for the most part of finds about Two Rivers, was augmented by the coppers which his estate purchased from Dr. C. H. Hall of Madison. The richness of these Indian collec- tions can be appreciated only by careful observation in the set- tings provided by the meticulous planning of the museum's staff. The Perkins and Harder Collections are notable supplements. Innumerable gifts have created the means of reconstructing the taste of Wisconsin people in arts and decoration since the settle- 300 W. H. GLOVER [March ment of the State. The Maude L. Hurson jewelry and furniture, received upon her death in Milwaukee in 1938, represents the discriminating taste of a family through the period of a century. Its value in money can only be a guess, but it cannot be estimated except in terms of many hundreds of dollars. Mrs. Frances B. Fairchild, widow of Lucius Fairchild, bequeathed a Sargent por- trait of her husband and a quantity of furnishings—the aesthetic legacy of a family of sophisticated taste. This is paralleled by the Gregory Collection. The recently acquired E. B. Trimpey Collection of luster ware represents the last word in the cultivated taste of a professional collector. The most recent collection of them all, the gift of the Centennial Committee on Wisconsin Women, is a worthy symbol of social charms and graces of the distaff side of past and recent generations. Certain Wisconsin activities have gained representation by the alertness of collectors, scouts, and donors. Our modest holdings in the circus field, which is so much Wisconsin's own, reflect credit particularly upon Mrs. Frank Hall, Mrs. William Campbell, Mark Bruce of Evansville, Miss Rose Dockrill, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Gormley, George Holland of Delavan, Harry Wintermute of Fort Atkinson, and Mrs. Ida B. Ringling of Baraboo. Wisconsin also has had its share of pioneers in the field of photography. The fruits of the ingenuity and labor of H. H. Bennett of Wisconsin Dells have again and again been made available to the Society by his daughter, Miss Miriam Bennett, who still operates this famous studio. Bennett's startling successes were paralleled in many ways by the remarkable photographs of the Chippewa Falls region made by A. A. Bish, who operated a studio there, 1888-1913. A considerable bulk of his negatives has survived, and is in process of transfer to the Society through the generosity of his daughter, Mrs. C. A. Bowman of Menomonie. Lumbering is another field in which Wisconsin has special interest. The Society possesses a full collection of photographs and a representation of characteristic tools and equipment. Among the donors are to be found names well-known to the industry as well 1949] THE SOCIETY'S BENEFACTORS 301 as to historical work: Harry G. Dyer of Madison, H. O. Halverson of Stevens Point, Ed Le May of Cornell, and Charles G. Weye of Fountain City. In addition, the Manuscript Section possesses the business records of a number of Wisconsin companies. In the workaday fields of industry and agriculture the gradual accretion of the basis of a good collection recently has been swelled, in part by the generous interest of industry itself, and in part by individual gifts. The readiness of both individual and corporate possessors of interesting machines, products, and models to part with them is convincing demonstration of the limitless potentialities in this field. The responsibility of the Society is, in this matter, to find the means of preserving and displaying the treasures which only await a call.

IT HAS NOT ALWAYS been possible, through wars and depressions, for the State to match in spirit the contributions of the loyal and generous membership of the Society. In the operation of the Society this has often meant that contributions intended to en- courage research and collecting in the field of Wisconsin history have been used for day-to-day operations, where constantly grow- ing demands from the State, the University of Wisconsin, and the public have imposed increasing burdens which cannot be neglected. Again and again in recent years the Society has appealed to the Legislature to meet the entire operational budget so that the largesse of a convinced and public-spirited membership need not be shriveled by operational demands to an ineffective pittance. Substantial relief has been granted from time to time, but the depression's effects have not yet been fully wiped away. In the last two decades the benefactors of the Society have had the con- siderable satisfaction of knowing that they were its pillars in the time of direst need. In the days ahead they will once again be the chief support of its research and publication programs, and the source spring for its acquisition of special collections, helping always to expand its influence as an effective educator in the life of their State. The Gunmaking Industry in Wisconsin

By JERALD T. TEESDALE

HE " GOLDEN AGE " of individual gunmakers in America covered a period of approximately a century, ending about T1840. During that period almost all sporting (or privately owned) firearms were made by individual gunmakers on a "custom-built" basis. Anyone wanting a gun went to the local gunmaker, told him what he wanted, and returned in a few weeks or months to get it. The small amount of factory firearms produc- tion of this period was confined almost entirely to military weapons and gunlocks for those gunmakers who preferred to buy them ready-made; private arms were supplied by the gunsmith with his minimum of tools and abundance of ingenuity. About 1840 a few large machine shops began making more or less standardized models of sporting rifles which became avail- able where transportation permitted. These rifles were fully as good as the handmade product and cost less than half as much, so their introduction began to force the private makers out of business. This process continued until about 1875 when the breech-loading repeater appeared with its obvious superiority to the single shot muzzle-loader both for hunting and home defense. Standardized guns and ammunition now began to pour from new or expanded factories. A nationwide network of transportation and supply routes was available for their distribution, and the combination spelled the end for the private craftsman except for a small continuing demand for custom work. Because of the population distribution about 1840, the greatest number of private gunmakers were located in the East. In fact Ohio is the westernmost state to have had any larg$ number of

JERALD T. TEESDALE, Madison, was a former student assistant in the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S Museum. Widely read on the subject of firearms, Mr. Teesdale is a gun collector and the secretary of the Wis- consin Gun Collectors Association. 302 GUNMAKING INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN 303 these craftsmen. In Wisconsin the early demand for gunsmiths was slight because the population was small until well after 1840 and the earliest settlers had brought with them guns made in the East. By the middle 1840's, factory-made rifles could be shipped into the State on established trade routes. There were, therefore, comparatively few Wisconsin gunmakers. A search of American Gun Makers by Satterlee and Gluckman, the standard work on the subject, reveals only seven Wisconsin names and many of those are in the last third of the nineteenth century. Wisconsin, however, did have a number of other gunmakers, including many worthy of recognition. One of the earliest Wisconsin gunmakers known was Samuel Spangler. He came to Green County from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1844, with his wife and their seventeen-year-old son, George. In 1846 the family settled in Monroe.1 Samuel evidently stopped working before long as advertisements in the Monroe newspapers of 1856 are in the name of George with no mention of his father; no record of his death or retirement has been found. No guns made by Samuel Spangler in Wisconsin have come to light, but George was an active maker and many of his pieces are still extant. He made double- and single-barreled hunt- ing rifles, shotguns, and target rifles. His guns are usually signed " G. Spangler, Monroe, Wis.," sometimes in one line, sometimes in two. When the gunmaking business went slack after the Civil War, he turned to hardware supplies and was always interested in the latest improvements in farming equipment. He is said to have installed the steam heating system in the hotel at Monticello. He was active in local civic and social affairs and was mayor of Monroe from 1888 to 1890.2 His death occurred in 1913. Records have been found indicating that a gunmaker named Caspar Messmer did business at Manitowoc contemporary with the Spanglers, possibly as early as 1843, but no definite data has yet been located. The next maker with a positively established date was Austin Seeley of Reedsburg. Seeley was born in Medina County, Ohio, 1 Monroe Evening Times, April 5, 1913, contains the obituary of George Spangler. 2 Ibid. 304 JERALD T. TEESDALE [March in 1820. In 1845 he moved to Wisconsin, stopping first in Wal- worth County and settling in Reedsburg in 1849. Incidentally, in the summer of that year he built the first frame dwelling in Reeds- burg which had previously boasted only five shacks.3 A number of Seeley's pieces are still in existence, including a light hunting rifle in the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S Museum at Madison marked " A. Seeley, Reedsburg, Wis.," and a medium-weight target rifle in a private collection. In both of these pieces the workmanship is good but not outstanding. In 1847 the first mention of gunmakers in Milwaukee appears in the city directories. William Haywood was located in the 200 block of West Water Street from 1847 until 1861 and advertised that he was an " Importer, dealer and manufacturer of guns, pistols, and maker of Improved Gain Twist Rifle." (In gain twist rifling, the pitch is slow near the breech and increases toward the muzzle, differing from the more common uniform twist now almost uni- versal.) William H. Smith was listed at 15 Spring Street in 1848 and 1849. Mathias (or Matthew) Stein was located at 25 Market Square from 1847 to 1865 and in 1865 at 260 Market Square (now East Water Street). Stein had a fairly large shop with several employees. Stein came to Milwaukee from Detroit in 1837 but whether he started making guns before 1847 is not known. Also on East Water Street, at Number 210, was Owen Van Dyke from 1847 until 1856. Apparently he gave up gun- smithing about 1856 as the city directories after that date list him as a machinist and metal caster.4 Albert Bolkenius was a famous Milwaukee maker of this period. He was born in Prussia in 1820, came to the United States in 1847, and moved to Milwaukee the following year. He had his shop on Oneida Street until after the Civil War when he moved to 501 East Water where he remained until his death in 1890. He made many fine target rifles in his later life and was one of die best and most famous Wisconsin makers.5 There seems to have been a period in which no new makers appeared in Milwaukee, but a group of them began operations 3 David O. Stine, Reedsburg, communication to the author, July 26, 1946. 4Harry Wandrus, "Milwaukee Gunmakers," manuscript 1945, owned by author. 5 Ibid. 1949] GUNMAKING INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN 305 during the middle 1850's. Norbert Wesle was first listed in 1854. He was at Third and Prairie until 1874, and from then until 1880 at 315 State Street. Several examples of Wesle's work in the Milwaukee Public Museum indicate that he had a shop with something approaching mass production methods as all of the specimens are very similar. John Meunier appeared in 1855 and was located at various addresses on West Water Street and later on East Water until his death in 1919. His shop, however, was maintained under his name until 1940. Other Milwaukee makers of this period listed in the city directories include: Caswell & Gaylord (1858), 194 East Water Street; Duekert & Brock- haus (1858), 75 East Water Street; E. J. Martin (1858), 294 East Water Street; Gregory Menzel (1851-52), Lake Street; Daniel O'Meara (1851-52), 25 Huron Street; John O'Rourke (1851-55), Spring Street, later Martin Street; William Raymond (1854-55), Basement of Ply- mouth Church; Bernhard Reismuller (1858), Vliet and 12th; Julius Rone (1854-55), North Kraatz Street; John and Peter Rumpel (1854- 55), Galena and 5th; Charles T. Stamm (1858), Reed and Oregon.6 It should be noted that the mere listing in a city directory does not mean the man made guns; he may merely have done repair work or he may have owned the shop and had another man working for him. This is certain to be the case in at least part of those listed during the period just covered, and the percentage of such becomes greater in more recent directories. But it is equally certain that part of these men—probably a considerable proportion at this early date—were real gunmakers and, although many of their jobs were undoubtedly repair work, many of them could and did fabricate complete firearms. Outside of Milwaukee in this period there were a few gun- makers, mostly in the southern part of the state. At Beloit, W. H. Calvert is first mentioned in 1857. He had a gunmaking shop for some years and later branched out into sporting goods, hard- ware, and similar items.7 His sporting goods store was in exist- ence at least until 1909. An Eau Claire maker, Herman Schlegel- milch, was born in Suhl, Germany, and came to this country in 1853. He worked at the gunmaking trade, which he had learned in the gun works in Suhl, and in New York, Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 6 ibid. 7 Elizabeth Heuke, reference librarian, Beloit Public Library, communication to the author, April 29, 1946. 306 JERALD T. TEESDALE [March vania, and Chicago before settling in Beaver Dam in 1855 where he remained until early in I860. He then left Wisconsin and moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he spent a few unprofitable months in the grocery business before moving to Eau Claire in the fall. Here, in 1866, he built a brick building at 217 South Barstow Street which is now the oldest brick structure in that city. He carried on his business, supplementing his trade with hardware and farm supplies, until his death in 1903. Two known specimens of his work are double-barreled hunting rifles marked "H. Schlegel- milch, Eau Claire, Wise," but he also made other types of guns and did a good bit of the fancy wood carving popular for trim in the architecture of his day.8 In this general period J. B. Atwater operated at Ripon, Ebenezer Stevens at Oshkosh, Sprague and Lathrop at Stevens Point (a known specimen is a double-barreled hunting rifle of slightly better than average workmanship), Charles Withington at Janes- ville, and a man named Love at Baraboo. Practically no data has been found about these makers. At that time there were relatively few gunmakers in Madison, partly due perhaps to the large num- ber as near as Milwaukee. However, the city directories list: "James D. Batcheller (1855-59), University Avenue near Lake; George and Theodore Bovee (1885-59), Pinckney Street; Milo C. Hawes (1858-59), Spaight at Ingersoll; Charles Laib (1858-59), Webster Street; Anthoney McGovern (1858-76), Main Street."9 The German and Swiss settlers coming into America brought with them a style of target shooting which they had practiced in the old country but which was unknown to Americans. American target rifles had been patterned after the everyday hunting rifles, and shooting was done from a normal standing position or from a prone position with the muzzle of the rifle resting on a log and the elbows of the shooter resting on the ground. In the German and Swiss target matches both the rifle and the firing position differed from the American style. The rifle was heavy and short. The buttstock had considerable downward pitch, and

8 George C. Barland, and Louise Schlegelmilch, Eau Claire, communications to the author, April and May, 1947. 9 Harry Wandrus, "Madison Gunmakers," manuscript 1945, owned by author. Top: Meunier Scbuetzen Middle: Lee Rifle Bottom: Spangler Rifle (See reverse for further information) Top: Heavy schuetzen rifle made by John Meunier, about 1858. This rifle is almost identical to the very ornate Meunier mentioned in the text but it is not decorated. The extreme drop in the stock (even for a Schuetzen) and the unusual arrangement of the trigger guard and set trigger arc peculiar to Meunier's better guns. Milwaukee Public Museum Photo. Middle: Lee .38 rimfire sporting rifle made at the Lee factory in Milwaukee. The government con- tract .44 carbines had round barrels 8V2 inches shorter than this specimen. Bottom: G. Spangler, Monroe, double-barreled hunting and target rifle from the author's collection. No efforts were spared in making restorations as authentic as possible. Bullet moulds for both barrels were made, and the gun is an accurate shooter. 1949] GUNMAKING INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN 307 the buttplate had long "horns" which fitted above and below the shoulder. A short distance ahead of the trigger was a palm rest (which resembles a doorknob) on a rod extending down- ward for a distance of eight or nine inches. The rifles had fine sights and were superbly accurate. All shooting was done from a standing position; the design of the stock made any other position impossible. The shooter rested his left elbow on his left hip and held the palm rest in his hand. The shank of the palm rest was adjusted to such length that the rifle would hang there horizontally. This position looks rather clumsy but, if once mastered, it is the steadiest known for offhand shooting. The entire support of the rifle is through the skeleton of the shooter, and an eighteen- or twenty-pound rifle can be held with practically no muscular effort for an almost indefinite length of time. The immigrants who used this type of rifle and style of match had no special name for it; they knew no other style. The match was simply a Schiltzenfest (shooting match), and an organized group of shooters was a Schutzenverein (shooting club). Ameri- cans wanted a special name to distinguish that type of rifle and match from the older style with which they were familiar and they simply adopted the word schuetzen to serve as an adjective. By about 1850 the schuetzen type of shooting had become very popular in the United States, and Wisconsin had, if anything, more than its share. Because of the precision required of the rifles, only the best makers with the finest available equipment were capable of turning out really good schuetzen rifles. The rifles were expensive, and were usually made with an eye to beauty as well as accuracy. The wood for the stocks was carefully selected for superior color and grain pattern, and the stocks were often beautifully carved. Locks, barrels, and other metal parts were always given a superior blued or browned finish, and were often engraved, carved, or inlaid to a degree depending on the skill of the maker and the pocketbook of the purchaser. Probably the most beautiful piece of this type ever made is one by John Meunier of Milwaukee made about 1875. The rifle weighs twenty- 308 JERALD T. TEESDALE [March one pounds, and is covered with carving, engraving, and gold and silver inlays. It was Meunier's personal rifle, and with it he won many awards both for shooting and for its beauty. This rifle is in a collection, and is pictured in the supplement to The Muzzle Loading Cap Lock Rifle by Ned Roberts. It is recognized as one of the finest known examples of top-grade American gunsmithing. Several of the best Wisconsin makers went into the schuetzen field and turned out some very fine pieces. Included among these were Meunier, Bolkenius, and Stein of Milwaukee, August Her- furth and Fred Huels of Madison, and George Spangler of Monroe. Schuetzen shooting flourished until about 1900 and then died, partly of over-specialization, and was superseded by modern " mili- tary " style target shooting. But even today it is practiced by many individuals who like the precision of the game, and there are still a few scattered schuetzen clubs around the country. One of the most vigorous is the Black Wolff Schiltzenverein at Van Dyne, Wisconsin, which has been active since 1854. A rifle similar to the Schuetzen, and sometimes confused with some of the less ornate of that type, is the so-called bench rifle. The barrel of the average bench rifle is somewhat longer than the Schuetzen, and the stock is considerably straighter. Bench rifles of twelve to twenty pounds (almost the complete range of the weight of Schuetzens) were considered "light," those up to forty pounds "medium/' and the "heavy" ones sometimes ran more than sixty pounds. The light ones could be and often were pressed into service in schuetzen matches but they were more often used from a bench rest as they were intended. In bench shooting, the shooter sat behind a low bench upon which the entire rifle, muzzle and butt, was rested. The shooting of bench rest matches was not so much a test of the shooter as a test of the ultimate ability of the rifle and the skill of its owner to get the very best out of it. The writer has never seen a " medium " or " heavy " Wisconsin- made bench rifle. The use of this type was confined largely to New England. Several of the "light" type have been seen, including a plain but well-made specimen by Austin Seeley of Reedsburg. Records of bench rest match shooting in Wisconsin do not seem 1949] GUNMAKING INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN 309 to exist. Possibly the small use of these rifles here consisted of long- range shooting (more than 220 yards), their use as schuetzen rifles despite handicaps, and occasional use in the bench rest style by shooters competing only against their previous targets simply for the enjoyment of the game. The Civil War heralded the end of the private maker and the beginning of the great eastern factories. At this time James Paris Lee made Wisconsin's most notable contribution to the field of American gunmaking. Lee was born in Scotland in 1831, educated in Canada, and made his first known gun in Stevens Point about I860. It was the pilot model of the Lee Civil War carbines and was the first of a long line of designs. (The above specimen is now in the possession of a Wisconsin collector.) The arm used a rimfire cartridge and, when the hammer was brought to half cock, the barrel could be swung aside to load. It was patented in 1862. Towards the end of the Civil War—perhaps late in 1864—in anticipation of a government contract for some of these guns, Lee moved to Milwaukee and established a factory. On April 18, 1865, Lee was awarded a contract for 1,000 carbines of .44 caliber but when delivery was made the government refused to accept them, ostensibly due to a misunderstanding about caliber. Lee appar- ently was able to sell the carbines for sporting purposes and he made an unknown number of rifles on the same pattern in both .38 and .44 rimfire calibers. These guns are marked on the barrel "Lee's Fire Arms Co., Milwaukee, Wis." While the car- bines were not accepted or used by the army, they have the dis- tinction of being the only Civil War government contract fire- arms made in the "West." After securing more patents on several different types of rifles, Lee moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1874, to supervise some experimental work being done at the National Armory on several of his designs which had interested the army. He continued to design guns and gun parts, and many features of modern guns can be traced to him. His design for a detachable box magazine is widely used today. He helped design the present British service rifle, the Lee-Enfield. He designed the Lee Straight Pull bolt 310 JERALD T. TEESDALE [March

action rifle which was made by Winchester in a military model for the United States navy. They were standard navy issue from 1895 until 1903. This rifle was unusual not only for the straight pull bolt but it was also the smallest caliber military rifle ever used by any country (6 mm. or about .236") and it was the first American military rifle to be loaded with a clip. The navy ceased using it because it wished to use the same small arms as the army rather than have patterns of its own, not for any particular defect in the arm itself. Probably no other inventor, with the exception of John Browning of Utah, has contributed more to the American gunmaking industry of the past and present than James Paris Lee. He died in Connecticut in 1904.10 Very few new makers are to be found, following the Civil War. Among the private makers are listed August Herfurth and Fred Huels of Madison. Herfurth made rifles from about I860 to 1878, including two fine heavy schuetzen rifles. These are not decorated at all, the workmanship is of the very best. Huels came to Madison about 1875, and at first worked for Herfurth and after the latter's death carried on by himself. When the demand for muzzle loading rifles ceased, Huels had a sporting goods store. He died about 1909, but the store was in business until about 1915.11 With the coming of the factory arms, and the factories all located in the East, Wisconsin became negligible as a source of firearms. There were not even many custom makers, and their output by the turn of the century was small. One company which failed is, however, of more than passing interest. Henry Pitcher, dentist and physician of Neillsville, invented a gas-operated, semi- automatic rifle about 1887 and received his first patent, on it in 1889 (U.S. patent #397,143). He formed the Pitcher Automatic Repeating Firearms Corporation with a capital stock of $15,000 and made a small number of specimens—probably not more than three or four. No existing specimen is known. He submitted a model to the Ordnance Board in 1890, but it was rejected—prob-

10Satterlee and Gluckman, American Gunmakers (Buffalo, New York, 1945). 11 Harry Wandrus, "Madison Gunmakers." 1949] GUNMAKING INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN 311 ably because of immature design and poor manufacture. Had Pitcher worked longer on his model and improved the weak points, the test might have been more favorable. That gun is believed to be the first semi-automatic infantry rifle tested by the army. His second patent (#433,420) issued July 29, 1890, pictures the gun as it probably looked when submitted for trial.12 The twentieth century saw the end of gunmaking in Wisconsin as an industry of any importance, but a few small companies have existed. There was a Schue Air Rifle Company in Milwaukee about 1914 and an Oshkosh Trap Gun Company in Oshkosh about 1910. A specimen from the latter firm has been seen, a cheap single barrel ten-gauge shotgun. At present (1949) there is a company in Racine, the Sheridan Products Corporation, which makes an air rifle called the Sheridan. Although rather expensive, it is without question as fine an air rifle as has ever been made in this country. One of the country's finest gunsmiths at present is William Staege of Omro who has made a few complete rifles but whose fame comes mainly from his very excellent .22 target rifle barrels. It seems that no small arms were made on government contract in the State during the recent war; there were cartridge plants at Eau Claire and Milwaukee, and the Badger Ordnance works at Baraboo, operated by the Hercules Powder Company, made explosives.

12 Harry Wandrus, " The Pitcher Semi-Auto," Relics magazine, January and Febru- ary, 1946. Captain Jonathan Walker, Abolitionist

By JULIUS A. LAACK

O THE LEFT of the road, just below Winooski Hill, south of Plymouth, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, lie the stones Twhich were once a part of the foundation of the house in which Jonathan Walker lived, in the 1850's and 1860's. He is immortalized in John Greenleaf Whittier's stirring poem, "The Branded Hand." There are those who may place him among such reformers as William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and others. The title of the poem refers to the letters SS, branded on Walker's right palm, brought about by his hatred of human slavery. To understand his tenacious adherence to principle, re- sulting in the marking of his hand, it is necessary to know some- thing of the trying experiences which plagued him throughout his early life. These, it seems, helped to develop an innate courage that stood him well in later life. When a lad of fifteen, he fell through the ice on a pond at Harwich, Massachusetts, and was rescued by a boy of about his age, almost miraculously. It is said that he was lured by the sea throughout his boyhood, and in 1816 became a sailor. The tedious life of a seaman was interrupted by a severe illness. He was attended by strange people on a lonesome island in the Indian Ocean, thousand of miles from his home. He vividly recalled the innocent lizards with their sparkling eyes as they crept over him and about the walls, helping to pass his tormented nights. After suffering twenty days with a raging fever, he re- covered.1

JULIUS A. LAACK is a resident of Plymouth. President of the Plymouth Municipal Electric and Water Utilities for many years, he has written and lectured widely on Wisconsin subjects. He was a member of the Executive: and Planning Committees of the Wisconsin State Centennial Committee. 1 Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker. . . Containing a Sketch of His Life (Boston, 1846) written by himself. See Appendix, 112-17. 312 CAPTAIN JONATHAN WALKER 313

An interval of several months passed, and the adventuresome youth almost lost his life when he was knocked down and lay unconscious on board a ship in the English Channel during a terrific gale. About a year later—in the spring of 1820—in crossing from Europe to the United States, he fell from a brig into the sea on a dark night and nearly drowned.2 The summer of 1824 found Walker in Havana during a vicious yellow fever epidemic when, he wrote, " in some cases there were not men enough left to pass their sleeping shipmate over the vessel's side into the waterman's boat, to be transferred to the dead-cart." Fortunate, indeed, was the young man, for after five days of critical illness he began to recover.3 Jane Gage had become his wife in 1822, and she and her son, John Bunyan, born in 1823, were at home in Harwich. The family later moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where sev- eral of their other children were born. Benjamin Lundy of Philadelphia, who had spent some time in Mexico, had obtained a grant to settle a colony there on very liberal terms. Jonathan had some correspondence with Lundy, became interested, and in order to inspect the colonization venture, left with his twelve-year-old son and a young mechanic from New Bedford on a vessel of twelve tons. They encountered heavy seas and a number of severe storms and, when their destination was reached, found a growing prejudice against United States citizens brought about by the conflict between Mexico and Texas. Walker remained at Matamoras for some time, but no American colonists arrived; he found work with mercantile houses at that place, traveling to and from New Orleans as their courier. On his last trip to Mexico he, his friend, and son were attacked by robbers at sundown, and escaped by swimming about in the Gulf of Mexico. Walker was twice shot by the ruffians but after dark he and his son reached shore—his friend had been lost—suffering from fatigue and thirst.4 Stumbling into a small village, they were aided by strangers. Eventually they found their way back to the United States and from five to six years made their home in Pensacola, Florida.

2 Ibid., 113. 3lbid., 114-15. 4 Ibid., 115-17. 314 JULIUS A. LAACK [March

Such were the racking experiences of Walker, which helped to steel him for his fight for the emancipation of the slaves. The Pensacola years enabled him to observe closely the operation of the slave system and its injustices. He tried to understand the position of the slaves, to meet their problems, to feel their wrongs. He saw a slave seize an axe, cut off his fore-finger and thumb to reduce his price in the market; saw others run down with bloodhounds and guns, their flesh torn to pieces by savage hounds, and left in the woods to die. As he became increasingly cognizant of the wrongs inflicted on the slaves, his compassion increased over the anguish which they suffered. The Walker family left Florida for a several months' stay in Harwich, Massachusetts, where a ninth child was born in 1843. Late that fall the impatient Walker went to Mobile where he spent the winter and spring at his shipwright trade. Now forty- four years old, he was described as a large, ungainly, dark-haired and dark-complexioned fellow. He was about six feet tall, with stooping shoulders and a swinging gait, a little lame in one arm from the gunshot wound received from the robbers in Mexico. On June 2, 1844, in a small craft of his own, he went to get the copper that was attached to the wreck of a vessel, which had been lying off the coast of Pensacola for more than thirty years. Unable to agree on terms with a man who claimed it, he lingered near Pensacola for a time. While there, he boarded and roomed at a colored woman's home. Her lot ran to the beach, and there under the shade of the trees, he worked on his boat. It was a light craft, twenty-five to thirty feet long, propelled by three sets of oars and rigged with fore and main sails. During his stay he made an additional sail for his boat, two more oars, and two paddles, and watertight boxes to fit in the bow and stern. On Wednesday, June 19, he equipped his boat with a binnacle, 2 barrels of bread, about 120 pounds of pork and bacon, a keg of molasses, a cheese, a barrel and a demijohn of water, and other supplies. At this time he talked with several slaves who wanted to go to Nassau, a British island, off the Florida coast, to obtain their liberty.5

5 Ibid., 9-10, 59. 1949] CAPTAIN JONATHAN WALKER 315

Actuated by the strong feeling of the wrong done many slaves, sympathizing with the thousands of black children born in servi- tude, and reminded of the underhanded methods used to procure slaves from Africa, Walker felt compelled to take the slaves aboard on June 22. Sick at this time and exposed to the weather night and day, Walker grew much worse; after he had been at sea five or six days, he was so ill he did not expect to live. Be- cause of his indomitable courage, however, and the kind attention of the slaves, he improved slowly. At daybreak, July 8, they had been at sea fourteen days and had gone more than 700 miles. They saw two sloops, the Reform and the Eliza Catherine, of eighty or ninety tons, manned with fifteen to twenty men each, approaching them. "Where are you from, and where are you bound?" shouted the captain, as they came within hailing distance. " From St. Joseph's bound to Cape Florida," was Walker's answer. St. Joseph's had been the last port, and they intended to call at Cape Florida. " I am going that way, and will give you a tow." Simultaneously the boat ran along side of Walker's and made a rope fast to it, and invited them on board the sloop. His men were going on board, when Walker advised them to stay in the boat. Four had stepped on board, but one of them returned at once. The others were not allowed to.6 Stout-hearted, though reluctant, he boarded the Eliza Catherine at the command of Captain Roberts, was placed under arrest, and taken to Key West. He was still weak but, supported by two men, was taken before a magistrate. He was required to give bail for $1,000 and to appear in the next November court. Unable to furnish bail, he was held.7 After remaining in jail for four days, he was put in double irons in the hold of the steamboat, General Taylor, Commander Farrand in charge, and taken to Pensacola. The seven slaves had been sent on ahead.8 He did not know until someone gave him a handbill after he had been incarcerated in the Pensacola jail for some time that a reward of $1,000 had

6 Ibid., 13. Ubid., 14, 61. 8 Ibid., 15-16, 59. 316 JULIUS A. LAACK [March been, offered for his apprehension in addition to $100 for the capture and the delivery at Pensacola of each of the seven slaves if taken out of the territory, and $50 if taken within.9 On July 18, after a journey of six days, Walker arrived at the navy yard. The following morning the deputy marshal conducted him to Pensacola, eight miles distant, in a small boat during a terrific rainstorm. Walker on his way to the courthouse passed through a noisy crowd which had been waiting at the wharf. The court was already convened, and Walker's bail was set at $10,000. Again being unable to provide it, he was ordered to jail. Too weak to walk he was " carried there in a cart, placed in a room by himself, and secured to a ring-bolt by a large size log-chain, and a shackle of round iron, weighing about five pounds, around the ankle."10 Here he awaited trial and on November 11, between ten and eleven in the morning, was taken to the courthouse. Because he had no counsel, the trial was continued until the fourteenth at which time Attorney Benjamin D. Wright did his best for Walker, but his sympathies were strongly for the South and slavery. Four separate indictments for taking "with force and arms" Negro slaves valued at $600 each were brought against Walker.11 "The jury was charged in a few formal words and the first indictment handed to them." After about a half hour's consider- ation, they found Walker guilty. His punishment was to be branded on his right palm with the letters S S—slave stealer.12 The same jury, after consulting between two and three hours, found Walker guilty of all the charges contained in the other three indictments and "awarded him to stand in the pillory one hour, to be imprisoned fifteen days, and to pay a fine of one hundred and fifty dollars." He was again taken to prison where he remained until November 16 when the punishment was inflicted.13 Shortly after ten o'clock that morning he was placed in the pillory outside of the courthouse. When he had been there about half an hour, George Willis, the owner of one of the slaves whom 9 Ibid., 59-60. ™lbid., 16. ulbid., 33-34. *lbid., 39. 13lbid. 1949} CAPTAIN JONATHAN WALKER 317

Walker had attempted to save, left the crowd of spectators that was standing by and grabbed a handkerchief that had been placed upon Walker's head, to shield his eyes from the sun. No one had accepted Willis' offer of $1.00 to do it. Willis then took two rotten eggs out of his pocket and hurled them very spitefully at Walker's head. He was also heard to offer boys a high price for rotten eggs, but no one was vile enough to get more for him. Willis was indicted, tried, and fined the nominal fee of 6lA cents for his disorderly conduct.14 After the expiration of the required hour, Walker was re- turned to the courthouse, permitted to wash, and conducted back to court where the branding was to occur. Had Walker's pur- pose in helping the slaves not been so profoundly sincere, had he not felt that slavery ranked with the highest crimes, that the system of slavery subjected one group to the deepest degradation, and brought to the other a feeling of personal well being, he would have been entirely frustrated by the injustice of the pillory episode. As it was, he was able to offer to hold his hand un- supported during the branding. Marshal Ebenezer Dorr, an old acquaintance of Walker's who originally came from Maine but who toadied to the slave owners, tied Walker's hand, despite his protest, to a post of the prisoner's box. Dorr took the hot brand- ing iron and applied it to the ball of Walker's hand, "pressed it on firmly, for fifteen or twenty seconds. It made a spattering noise, like a handful of salt in the fire, as the skin seared and gave way to the hot iron." 15 The branding iron was made for the occasion. One black- smith refused to pattern it, saying he made irons to be used on hogs, horses, and cattle, but not on men. Another one was found who made it but refused his forge to heat it when it came to be used. He swore there was but one fire in the universe that should heat an iron for such a purpose.

14 Ibid., 39-40. 15 Ibid., 40, 43. Thirty years after the day they were imprinted, according to the Rev. James C. Mac- Laughlin of Michigan, who saw them, the letters S S on the captain's palm were still visibly raised a little. 318 JULIUS A. LAACK [March

Shortly after the branding, Walker was taken back to prison, and within a few hours Marshal Dorr served three writs upon him " for trespass and damage to the amount of one hundred and six thousand dollars, on the property of Robert C. Caldwell, Byrd C. Willis, and George Willis," whose slaves Walker had assisted.16 He did not go to trial for the above offenses until the following May. During the six months that intervened before he was brought to trial again, Jonathan Walker recorded in a published diary some of his observations of the cruel treatment the Negroes received: A slave woman flogged twenty-four blows with a paddle, and twelve with the cowhide because she attempted to defend herself when about to be whipped by a mistress.17 "A slave man committed for going out of town on Christmas and staying too long" with his wife and children.18 From the day that Walker was first arrested, July 8, 1844, until June 16, 1845, he was kept in chains almost constantly. For several months his feet and legs were badly swollen; the first irons which had been partly buried in the flesh were replaced by larger ones. Thinking that his enemies would spare no pains in doing him injury, Walker finally seized a favorable oppor- tunity to escape from jail. The noise was detected upstairs, and his escape was prevented. The following day the marshal took him before three magistrates. Satisfactory evidence was produced to insure his imprisonment until the following term of court in May unless he paid the necessary bail of $3,000.19 He had no money. He was accused of damaging the locks of the cell doors during his attempted escape, and although he said he did nothing to them, he was charged $10 for repairing the door and lock. On May 8 Walker was conducted to the courthouse expecting to be tried on the indictments served upon him a few hours after his palm had been branded. As he was again without an attorney, the court appointed Alfred L. Woodward to serve as his counsel, and W. W. J. Kelley, as assistant. The case was argued the follow- ing day. Walker's attorney questioned "the validity of the law in the multiplication of punishment for the same offense, and at

10 a Trial and Imprisonment, 43. " Ibid., 46. Ibid.f 45, 50-51. 19 Ibid., 48-49. 1949] CAPTAIN JONATHAN WALKER 319 different periods." The court decided, however, that Walker was to be tried for each charge although there was but one act of commission.20 Thereupon he was found guilty, assessed $5.00 in each case, and ordered to remain in custody until the fines and costs were paid. Although Walker's patience was being tried, there was noth- ing for him to do but submit to the endless punishment. During the wearisome days in jail his spirits were buoyed by letters from friends and Abolitionists in Massachusetts, telling that meetings of citizens were being held to see what could be done in his behalf. The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society of London sent a letter of sympathy. John G. Palfrey, secretary of the state of Massachusetts, wrote to the governor of Florida, requesting investigation of Walker's case.21 The encouragement of his friends together with the sincere belief that he had acted from the purest motives made his tribulations bearable. As Walker rotted in the Pensacola jail, hatred for slavery was growing in the North. His case became famous. Many who learned of his persecution willingly contributed to a fund to bring about his release. A group of his friends raised approxi- mately $750 and sent Thomas M. Blunt to manage his defense or take appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Blunt did not appear until eighteen days after the trial, giving Walker various excuses for this nonappearance. Walker asked Blunt to make some arrangement to satisfy the fines to make possible his release from prison. Blunt, however, neither left the money nor helped in any way, telling Walker that he was going for a short business trip to the next county. Neither the money nor Blunt was seen again. Some time after Walker's last trial on May 9, 1845, an old friend whose name Walker does not mention, sent a draft covering the sum necessary to release him. On June 16, 1845, Walker was discharged, arriving on July 10 at New York on board the brig " Lowellen." A short time later, upon his return to Massachusetts, his friends not only welcomed him home, but his heroism was lauded by Whittier in his poem, "The Branded Hand," composed in 1846. Something of Jona-

20 Ibid., 52-53. ™lbid., 76-78. 320 JULIUS A. LAACK than Walker's courageous character is delineated in these lines: Welcome home again, brave seaman! with thy thoughtful brow and gray, And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day; With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain!

Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the waves! Its branded palm shall prophesy, "Salvation to the Slave!" Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.22 It was at this time that Walker became intimately associated with the leading antislavery workers of the day. From 1845 to 1849, accompanied by Henry Watson, a fugitive slave, he toured the northern states lecturing on the injustices of slavery. Public opinion was also stirred by his books written on the subject. Though he rarely spoke in public after he was fifty, his interest in abolition did not diminish in the least. Slaves who found the going difficult could count on Walker to aid them in their escape. During 1850 and 1851 the Walkers made their home at Ferrisburg, Vermont, from where they removed directly to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, residing there one year. Next they lived on Spring Farm, town of Mitchell, Sheboygan County, for about four years; in 1855 they built the house east of Winooski, men- tioned earlier. For fifteen years the Walkers stayed in Wisconsin, and Mrs. Walker became understandably reluctant to leave, but the captain was possessed of a roving and restless spirit. After the marriage of their daughter, Marie, in 1866, the Walkers left for Lake Harbor, Michigan, where in 1863 they had purchased a few acres of land which later were devoted to small fruit culti- vation. In 1872 Mrs. Walker died and lies buried at Lake Harbor. Walker's health was excellent until the autumn of 1877 after which it gradually declined. He died in 1878, when seventy-nine years of age. His daughter, Marie, died at Plymouth in 1928; a son, Dr. Lloyd Garrison Walker, who made his home at Pound, Wisconsin, followed in February, 1931. 22John Greenleaf Whittier, Anti-Slavery Poems: Songs of Labor and Reform (Boston, 1892),111-15. In the Moon of Sugar Making

By MRS. ANGUS F. LOOKAROUND (Phebe Jewell Nichols)

OT CAKES and maple syrup on a frosty March morning! Who hasn't smacked his lips over such a breakfast? H Yet, did you ever stop to wonder who first discovered maple syrup? Perhaps you thought it was the Yankee, but it wasn't. It was one of his neighbors who had to learn to get his vitamins from the things that lived around him, because he had no ships coming from the Mother Country nor super-markets just around the corner. This neighbor was the North American Indian. We whites had no more to do with inventing maple syrup than we did with creating corn and squashes, potatoes and pineapples, chocolate and tapioca, tobacco and cocaine, or democracy, every one of which in the true American brand we got originally from the Indians. Of course the Indians are the last to brag about such discoveries. They just laugh, as they have been doing in a more or less silent chuckle for a good many years, at how silly some white people are to believe all the " truck" they do and grab all the credit. It is an actual fact that Indians were making maple syrup when the first white settlers came to North America, just as they were making fine fish nets of the hemp they grew, needles and knives of copper, boats of skin and bark and tree trunks, and utilizing the principle of woman suffrage in their political confabs. Intuition,

Mrs. ANGUS F. LOOKAROUND, Keshena, is the widow of the notable Indian athlete and musician, Angus Lookaround. The first historical novel, still popular, written by Mrs. Lookaround was Sunrise of the Menominees. In Mr. Lookaround's old home on the Menomini Indian Reservation, his widow opened the Angus F. Lookaround Memorial Museum recently, honoring one who was always interested in education and the authentic presentation of things Indian. The narrative which is printed herewith contains both Indian lore and cookery which may be " new " to many of the readers. 321 322 MRS. ANGUS F. LOOKAROUND [March

Mother Nature, or just plain " Injun injunuity " told the aborigines that they had to have sugar in their diet. Someone in the long ago must have licked a trickle of juice as it drizzled down the trunk of a maple tree, on one of those deceptively balmy spring days, and got an idea which he worked out later in his home laboratory. Remember how the "heathen Chinee" of the dim past discov- ered roast pork—and thereafter burned down his house everytime he wanted some—unless the venerable Charles Lamb could be wrong? There is no raconteur to tell whether the Indian burned down his wigwam with his experiments, but at least he found out how to make syrup from the sap and sugar from the syrup of the trees we call sugar maples. Perhaps he knew the southern sugar maple and the whitebark maple, though not as Acer Floridanum and Acer leucoderme, respectively; the wavy and curly maples, or the two great sugar maple species Acer Sacchamm and Acer nigrum among the thirteen native North American species. Par- ticularly, he set great store by the stately grey-barked tree whose highly polished wood had marks like little birds' eyes all through it, as if in memory of all the birds that had nested in it during its lifetime. Recent tests by two scientists of the University of New Hamp- shire, Charles Stevens, forester, and Russell Eggert, horticulturist, have proven that root pressure, generally accepted as the principal cause of sap flow, has nothing to do with it.1 They put a freshly- cut eight-foot maple log into a barrel of water and got sap flow: root pressure was out. That twigs and branches and leaves pulled sap up was a theory also exploded when the two men drew sap from a maple stripped of all but its bark. These scientists " de- crowned" and "de-rooted" trees, stood them on end or laid them horizontally, and they all gave sap when in water—the horizontal log being supplied with water by means of an inner tube attached to one end. But none gave sap when deprived of water, as when placed on a rock. Therefore, it was proved that in order to produce sap a tree must have water.

1 Data on the experiments performed by Stevens and Eggert at the New Hampshire Agri- cultural Experiment Station, Durham, New Hampshire, is quoted from Plant Physiology, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 636-48 (1945). 1949] MOON OF SUGAR MAKING 323

Next, Stevens and Eggert tried temperature tests and found that, when the outer layers of a tree freeze, tension of the cells develops and water is drawn from the bottom of the tree to the top and from the center to the surface. Sudden drops in temperature mean less water absorption than when the drop is gradual. They found that freezing and thawing, sunlight and snowfall—" sap weather," in fact—make sap flow and that sap could be obtained in October as well as in March with a few variations in technique. The Indians didn't try it. Neither did they denude trees. Perhaps they knew that that special flavor, garnered through the summer, has to be in the making in the maple heart all winter and is not ready for release until spring. The sap runs while the snow is deep and clean in the maple woods and "sugar bushes." Without that snow water, no good sugar can be produced according to the Indians. They also say their sugar hardens best in deep clean snow. They know that they must collect the sap while the frost is still in the ground, which prevents the tree roots from drawing up moisture, and before the leaves begin to receive the natural flow of sap. Little spouts strategically placed will offer an outlet for the precious juice. Frosty nights and sunny days and hard work tending the con- tainers will finish the process and bring the syrup to the break- fast table.

INDIANS TOOK their work and recreation together. Sugar mak- ing was anticipated far ahead, the children dreaming of their share from one sugar making to the next. In the late winter the small spouts were whittled and the leakless buckets of birchbark made by taking long oblong strips of bark, folding an inverted plait in each end and sewing that together with basswood cord of which all good Indian housekeepers always had a good store on hand. Stout cord or bark handles were added. Indians with a " weather eye " knew just when to go into the woods and tap the trees and open up the camp which had been set up the previous spring and would be intact unless some white prowler with a perverted sense of humor had passed that way. 324 MRS. ANGUS F. LOOKAROUND [March

The first warm suns of March would bring out the Indian house- wives to inspect the camp while the children played gleefully, shouting (if they were little Menomini) " Sopoma! Sopoma!" which means sugar or candy, and " Nanapun! Nanapun! " which means the hot " Injun " bread made to accompany any good Indian meal and especially toothsome with generous helpings of fresh syrup. The families packed up their necessities and climbed through the snow to the wigwam-like shelter with the center of the roof open and racks around the inside walls on which one could rest while tending the fire that must be kept just right under the big syrup container that hung from the ridgepole. Here the sugar was made in all the three stages, the wax candy that the children dreamed of, the thicker kind to be hardened in molds in the snow, and that cooked to granulation for everyday use. The iron kettle appeared among the first trade goods brought to the Indians, but it is known that before that time sap and syrup were cooked in bark kettles. The bark will not burn while it contains liquid. Since syrup was difficult to store, it was custom- arily made into sugar. Small containers for collecting sap and cooking k, small steady fires, and a great deal of that proverbial Indian patience put maple sugar on the prehistoric Indian's pantry shelf. Formerly, Indians made only enough sugar for family use. Later, when the large kettles and the iron vat for syrup boiling and tin syrup cans were introduced, they made it for trade. At this time the Menomini Indian Reservation maps showed sites of sugar camps designated by family names. There was marked competition between the camps in quality and sale of their product. For the vat a large rectangular space had to be dug and sided with logs, the vat was placed over it and a fire built in the space beneath. Into the vat went all the sap. Cooking it to the right syrup stage, dipping it off at just the right moment, and pouring it into cans to be sealed was an art. These cans went to market along with the birchbark mokuks, those bark boxes with rounded covers sewed on with basswood fiber and full of patty cakes or granulated sugar. 1949] MOON OF SUGAR MAKING 325

But the little Menomini did not care about what went to market. " Visions of sugar plums [had] danced through their heads " since the last sugar making. They wanted to stand beside the great bubbling kettle and have ladlefuls of taffy-like syrup dropped into their buckets filled with snow where it formed the most delectable tidbits, any child ever relished. They wanted that nanapun, the soda bread cooked in grease in a huge iron skillet. In very early times this bread was made from corn ground by mortar and pestle, and the "raiser" was made from a solution derived from wood ashes. After being allowed to " set," the bread was cooked on top of hot stones, or rolled in wet leaves and baked in hot ashes, or wound around a stick which was angled over the fire till the bread was done. Pieces of the hot bread were dipped into the warm syrup and eaten till all waistbands felt unbearable. Maple sugar was the only seasoner known to the Indians of North America for many years, sugar cane being of later develop- ment. Salt was a late comer among these people. As the chief seasoner, maple sugar was added to meat and fish as well as to cereals and mixtures' of berries and bear fat and deer tallow. A specially popular dish among the Wisconsin Menomini was a one- dish meal of blueberries, wild rice, boiled duck, and maple sugar. Squashes and pumpkins which were cut into rings and dried on strings in the fall were cooked in the winter with maple sugar. After the appearance of salt, sugar was used less frequently in meat and fish dishes. Maple sugar water was the soda pop of the little aborigines. The Indian women knew just how much syrup and sugar to expect from their trees, and they planned accordingly. We know now that it takes about four gallons of sap to make a pint of syrup or a pound of sugar, and that few trees yield more than eight or less than two pounds of sugar a season. On bright sunny March days you will hear the older Indians saying, "Good for sugar making, if anybody's willing to do it." You see, the old sugar makers are few now, and the young people can't be bothered. Buying a lollipop is much less trouble. Besides, they never stood holding a little birchbark bucket filled with snow 326 MRS. ANGUS F. LOOKAROUND [March into which mother could drop the hot " almost-sugar," nor sat around the campfire dipping nanapun into warm syrup, tasting the pure lusciousness of it. They don't know the difference. Indians have a legend about every one of their important customs. So there is one about maple sugar, and it varies with the different tribes. An elderly Indian told me one which I would like to tell you, with a few nostalgic touches, for the venerable man went on the Spirit Road several years ago. He was thinking sadly of the past, too, as he told it, for he was the Menomini Mitchell Waukau of the generation of Reginald Oshkosh, Peter La Motte and Frank Gauthier. They had seen the impact of the new ideologies upon the old and, as leaders, had done their part in facilitating the necessary adjustments between their own people and the United States government's reservation policies. He had been a trusted reservation employee since young manhood and a worthy member of tribal councils and delegations. Gifted with a very retentive memory and a sense of strict integrity, he was the source of much Menomini Indian data collected by recordings and studies per- formed by the Smithsonian Institution. I remember he was sitting in a chair under a thornapple tree in his yard when he said, "I will tell you a story about maple sugar, my own story, that is." He was smoking a pipe, and his face was not unlike the Great Stone Face of Hawthorne's tale, as rugged as if cut from granite. His nose was aquiline, the chin jutting, and about the mouth and eyes lines chiseled by stern de- votion to duty, by disappointment, grief, kindness, and patience. He was a tall man, very straight, with head set nobly on wide shoulders. He began in his low grave tones: In long ago, Indians did not have maple sugar. One time a young girl was about to go on her first fast as is the custom of my people. This is so they will learn how to get along with little and learn what the Great Spirit expects of them. All young Indians must go on this fast when they reach a certain age. They go off all alone, without food or water and are not supposed to eat or drink or come home till they have found out what their life is to be. Well, this young girl was going, and her mother was anxious as all mothers are. She was getting ready the food she would take to her daughter in case she should be too faint to return all the way home. In a couple of days, the mother went with this food to find her daughter, but she was nowhere to be found, and the mother went 1949] MOON OF SUGAR MAKING 327

sadly home. On another day she started out once more, and she found a small trail which her daughter must have used because pieces torn from her dress were sticking to the bushes, but the daughter was not there. A third time the mother went and followed the small trail on and on, only seeing pieces of her daughter's dress, till she came to a tall tree she had never seen before. It was very straight with grayish bark with sooty smudges on it. She stood still under the tree wondering where her daughter could be. Soon she heard a whispering in the treetop where the leaves were blowing together. Then it seemed it was her daughter's voice saying, " Mother, Mother, do not feel bad for me. I shall not come home any more. In my place I have given you this tree. See, it has the black of mourning on it, the black of your mourning for me, my mother. But do not be sad. This tree is for all our people. Go back and tell them. This is the maple tree. Its sap is sweet, you will have sugar." The voice in the leaves stopped, and the mother knew her daughter was gone for- ever, and in her place was the maple tree. She went sadly home and told her people. From that time on, the Indians always had maple sugar. I suppose, nowadays, you would call that girl a saint, eh? That is my story, Missis. Chippewas and Winnebagoes have other stories about it, but that's how my grandfather told me. From my west window now I can see a grove of evergreens marching down the hill and among them is a great sugar maple, pink in the spring, flaming in the fall. I recall the kindly Mitchell Waukau and his story of the young girl who loved her people so clearly. And in this Moon of Sugar Making I can see the tall tree lifting its head in the frosty moonlight listening to the night wind, perhaps whispering its age-old promise. Come breakfast time I lift the syrup pitcher with an almost reverent hand. What if my forefather's neighbor had never licked a sap-wet finger, never dreamed up maple syrup? Documents Silas J. Seymour Letters (II)

Jared and Clarissa Seymour write the family news from Coving- ton, New York, to their brother Silas, and address the letter as he has directed, to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, for, as Silas has told us, a post office has been established there now. Covington, New York September 23, 1849 Dear Brother Silas, I suppose you would like to know how we are all getting along this summer. We are as well as common. I sold my summer fallow to Pa about the first of July last. He gave me $10 for it. I have been at work out ever since. I went down in Caledony and worked 7 days and then I came back and helped Pa cut his wheat. I then worked for Mr. Harris 7 days at 12 shillings per day and then a half

THE SECOND installment of the excellent Silas J. Seymour correspond- ence appears in this section. These letters are in the possession of Seymour's granddaughter, Mrs. RUTH SEYMOUR (CHRIS) BURMESTER, who resides on Grandfather Seymour's farm near Reedsburg. The intro- duction to the series, printed in the December Magazine, was written by Mrs. Burmester who generously supplied the information used in annotat- ing the letters. These family epistles traveled between New York State and Wisconsin, to and from Silas. His series of letters and the replies received cover the the years 1846-50 and 1854. Leaving his parents, his sisters Clarissa, Julia, Naomi, Emeline, and his brothers Jared, Enoch, and Elijah in New York State, Silas arrived in Wisconsin in 1849, accompanied by his sister, Elizabeth. That year he selected and purchased a farm in the town of Dellona, Sauk County, and moved into a shanty which he erected on the land in the untamed Middle West. Mary Conine from " out East" became his wife in 1851. Their children were Ellen and Ida, Merton E.—the father of Mrs. Burmester—Walter, and Arthur. The daughters died in childhood; all of their sons were graduated from the University of Wis- consin. Silas was a member of the State assembly, 1876-77, and was instrumental in creating the State Board of Health. His death occurred on April 24, 1899. The spelling and punctuation were faithfully retained in these letters; repetitious and somewhat irrelevant parts were omitted. Without a doubt the readers will enjoy the warm family portrayals which record a phase of the winning of the Middle West.—EDITORS. 328 SEYMOUR LETTERS 329 a month for 7 dollars. I then started to go to Rochester to buy me some clothes and got as far as Fordham's1 and stayed over nite. He wanted to hire me all the fall and have board and go to school this winter. I have been there about 4 weeks and have just come home to get up Ma some wood for winter. Pa has got his wheat all in. It has almost all come up and looks nice. I shall probably go back in about a week. I think that Fordham is a good man to work for and I guess he is pretty well satisfied with me. Fordham's wife is dead. She died about 5 weeks ago. They have got a little girl that is now about 7 weeks old. It was the cause of her death. The baby is well and smart. Mr. Wylie [Lorenzo} wanted me to tell you that he had not got any letter from you. Cathrin' Clarke2 says that if she had hold of your ears she would pull them, for not writing her a letter. She is going to keep house for Fordham this winter. Well, if you are a mind to secure that 40 Acres of land I would be very glad for if I have my health I can get that amount of money. I could get that amount or more this fall but I don't like to risk it in a letter. I have bought me $13 worth of clothes. I got my clothes at Rochester and got them very cheap, and good ones. After I get done work at Fordham's I shall have somewhere between 50 and 60 dollars. Clarissy wrote you about my steers. I have been offered $20 for them. Fordham Clarke offered it. He says he will give me his note payable in one year and I guess I shall do it. for if I leave them at home I am afraid that Pa would not take good care of them and I think it is best to sell them. The rest of my money I have not concluded what to do with—but I can tell better what to do with it when I get it all together. I got my steers with the money that I got for my corn. There is not hardly any fruit here this fall. I want you to write about any wild animals where your land is—whether there are many cattle there. Did the wheat come in good or not? It was very good in this country. I want to know whether it is windy or not in that country. Is the land gravelly or sandy or what? ... You must write an answer to this as soon as possible. Direct your letter to North Chili, Monroe Co., N.Y. Yours Affectionately JARED SEYMOUR 1 Fordham Clarke is a cousin of Silas. He was named for his grandmother Clarissa Fordham Ostrander. 2 Fordham's sister. 330 DOCUMENTS [March

Dear Brother Silas, Jared has left the remainder of this sheet for me to fill. In the first place we are all well as usual. I am at present at the Stone House with Julia. My health has been quite poor most of the summer I have been tormented with the toothache about half the time. About three weeks ago my face swelled badly and discharged a great deal. Since then my teeth have behaved quite decently. I thank you heartily for answering my questions so readily. I suppose that you will take some of the Wisconsin papers. There are some quite equal to the " Wyoming Mirror ". Abram Dickard has just lost his twin boys aged one year, of a species of cholera. They have lost three boys in one year Have just heard from Pompey—all well but Caroline. They write that you have bought a yoke of oxen and a waggon. Jared has thought of sending some money to you but does not know that it would be safe to send it All send love. Write soon CLARISSA You need not fear to interline the next letter. I believe in having the worth of one's money for letters. Send some flower seed if you find any worth sending I saw advertised a " Teacher's Institute in Sauk County " in a Wis- consin paper. So you are coming up I see. We send some currant seeds. If they do not satisfy you, we will send some more in the next letter. Wheat never looked better than now. Julia has been writing to Elizabeth and is so tired that she cannot write in this letter. Her health is some better. Naomi is well and likes her place

The letter which follows was a part of one written by Elizabeth at Fort Atkinson to Silas, in Dellona. Nov. 12, 1849 Dear Silas, I have neglected sending this letter a week and am glad of it now for I have just got a letter from home and one from Harriett Gorum. The letter from home was dated Sept. 22—most 2 months ago. The reason of my not getting it before was it was directed to the wrong place and went to Koshkonong Post Office—8 miles from Uncle James* Jerry sold his chance on that land to Pa He has got his 1949] SEYMOUR LETTERS 331 wheat in and it looks nice Ma is well but has had to work so hard she is most worn out. Jerry says he will have 50 or $60 this fall and means to buy that 40 Acres Aunt Miller had not returned but was expected in 2 wks. Naomi intends staying in Perry the coming winter Mary Ann [Conine] had made them a visit. She sent her love to western folks—I suppose YOU come in for a share of course. Mrs. Conine [2nd wife] ran away from her husband and stayed 2 months He then commenced a 2nd courtship and coaxed her back, but the girls have left home. Mary Ann lives at her Uncle Sweet's and Jane at Mr. Crouch's. Mary's health is better than last spring.... Harriett [Gorum] gave me a very pressing invitation to visit Madison and told me how to go but I did not get the letter until too late—and I am really sorry. She and Mrs. Gorum both wanted me to come very much. I suppose you recollect that notorious scoundrel Mr. Little John— well, he is in this place lecturing on Temperance and Morality—and wants to get up a protracted meeting. He has not been mobbed yet, but I presume he will if he stays long. Mr. Busby is building and repairing his house. I shall probably stay here 2 or 3 months—perhaps longer. Now do write and tell me how you get along keeping " Bach " and all that. ELIZABETH

Many pioneers of Wisconsin knew hard times, and among them was Silas. Cash was very scarce, and he had used most of his savings in payment for his farm. The folks back home wished to help as much as they could, and sent $20 of Jared's money to Silas by one, Thomas Collins. Covington, N.Y. Nov. 19th, '49 Dear Brother Silas, You inform us by John's letter that you have received no letters from us for some time. If this be so it is no fault of ours. We wrote you a very long letter about 7 weeks since and directed it to Reeds- burgh. Perhaps it did not reach there on account of the currant seeds enclosed, though they made the letter no weightier than the letters you send us. Be that where it may, I will write another and see if that 332 DOCUMENTS [March will share the same fate. Perhaps should you receive this that you will be greeted by Thomas Collins at your new residence before this has time to reach you. He started from La Grange [N.Y.] on the 14th, intending to pay you a visit in about three weeks from that time. We sent by him $20 of Jared's money. There were three five dollar bills on the Livingston County Bank—one five dollar bill on the Lee Bank, Massachusetts. I have been thus particular that there might be no mistake about it. We thought you probably needed money and knew of no safer way than to send it by Thomas. Jared left word to have the money sent to you should any good opportunity offer. We thought could you not make out the money from your own means by another fall that Pa might as well pay him as you. You did not write as you had taken up that 40 acres of land that you wrote Jared about. He is very anxious that you do so and if you should not need the $20—save them to apply on the Land The neighbors are well and also our own family. My health is much better this fall. Pa is peddling and Ma weaving—Enoch singing and the children [Emeline and Elijah] learning We wish you to answer this as soon as received and inform us about the money affairs. We have had about 60 bushels wheat, 50 bu. potatoes, but very little corn I should not think that you need want for a wife as long as there is plenty of Squaws there!! If you will let me choose for you I will send one up to you!—not a squaw, but a real live genuine white one... and somebody besides M. A. C. [Mary Ann Conine] ... tho' she is good enough for any- body. If you cannot read this you must lay it to my lame arm. Write soon and excuse this miserable scrawl. Yours &c CLARISSA Where is Eben [Boutelle]? We hope you will write about that good country beyond you after you have been to see it. The weather here is remarkably warm and fine. And if it is so there, you must enjoy a tramp " out west" finely. I hope Thomas will buy near you.

Jared Seymour is working for his cousin Fordham Clarke and attending school during the winter months. He is industrious and 1949] SEYMOUR LETTERS 333 greatly interested in Silas' adventure in Wisconsin. There is no doubt that eventually he will join his brother in the West. December 2, 1849 Dear Brother, I received your letter 13 days after it was written and was glad to hear from you. I had not heard from you in 2 months or more. I was glad to hear you was getting along as well. I concluded that you had found it pretty hard getting along; but it is so in all new country at first I suppose It is getting quite dark and I must go and do the chores so good nite for this time. It is now evening and it is a good deal more comfortable in the house than out-doors It has been very cold today.... I have been to school 3 weeks. They have a very good school here this winter—have about 25 scholars. Mrs. Classy [?] Herd is the teacher. She taught school in Mr. Martin's district the summer of 1848. I calculate to go to school this winter and learn all I can and then in the spring hire out by the month for 6 or 7 months and get as good wages as I can and then I am coming out there to see what the Wisconsin woods are made of and I calculate to buy as much land as possible there, some- where. I think that as soon as I get my money together I shall send it out to you and have you buy me some land for I think I can not do anything with it that will be of any more profit to me. I think it will be better than the interest of my money. If I send it I shall not get it ready in several weeks so I thought I would write you a letter to let you know how I was doing. I sold my steers for $20 in cash. Fordham owes me $20 and Ma has got some of my money and when I get it together I shall send it to you as you directed in your letter. Pa sowed about 9 acres of wheat this fall. It looked well when I was home last, which was more than 2 months ago. Ma and Clariss came down here with me when I came here with a wagon to bring my trunk. Ma wants to go to Wis- consin, but she won't own it. Pa raised corn enough for his own use I guess. He had not sold his last year's corn when I was home. Naomi is a-going to live in the same place where she learned her trade [dress-making]—for 10 shillings a week. She was well the last I heard from her I like living here very well. It is a very good place after all. I like Fordham first rate. He shows me how to do work up right and 334 DOCUMENTS [March that is the way I like to see work done. Fordham has been on a journey this fall to Connecticut. He stopped at Pompey to see Grandpa [Ostrander]. His health was as good as usual. The old age is fast creeping up on him The folks were all well as usual. I suppose you will want to know what I studied this winter. I studied grammar, arithmetic, and history. I have got most to fractions in arithmetic I have not heard from Elizabeth in 3 months or more. I wrote to her when I did to you. Do you know where she is? I want you to give an account of the weather where you live— whether it is cold or not this winter there. If I send money to you I will put it into such an envelope as this that I put around this. If I don't send you the money to buy land I will send you part of my money—some $30 or more and you may have the use of it 'till I come out there—for I had rather have it in your hands than anybodies elses If I send it I shall not send it in 2 or 3 weeks. I will write [a] week before hand. I am ashamed of this letter, but you must excuse all mistakes and bad spelling Yours Affectionately JARED SEYMOUR

In his letter Silas writes his sister Elizabeth that he is complet- ing his "shantee" and will be cooking his "own grub the last of this week." He does not expect to see any butter during the winter and has been unable to get any meat. There is loneliness, but pioneer courage is evident when he writes, " I live in hopes of seeing better times by and by." Baraboo, Dec 10, 1849 Dear Sister Elizabeth, I received your welcome and interesting letter a week ago and I assure you I was right glad to hear from you. I think by your letter that you was getting initiated into the pleasures of Western life with a [illegible] to it. I hope however that your situation is a little more pleasant by this time if that house has been repaired. I am glad you have found employment in the milliner's business, but I hope you will not work too hard and make yourself sick. My health is first rate and has been for some time past. I have not finished my house & shall not this winter. I have got a little shantee about done that I intend to stay in this winter. I built it where I wanted to cut some rail timber. My shantee is 10 feet by 12 Just large enough for one 1949} SEYMOUR LETTERS 335 to " batch " in. I will try to finish my house in the spring. So if you should come here then I think I shall have a place for you to go into. I have paid for my board so far in work. I have also earned some boards to put on my house and some potatoes and turnips, too. If nothing happens to hinder I shall be cooking my own grub the last of this week. I received a letter from home and one from Laura the. next day after I got yours. So you see I had a good share of news for one week. Our folks were all well. Thomas Collins had started for Wis. and they said he was intending to pay me a visit but I have seen nothing of him yet. They sent $20 for me by him which I expect to get when I see him if he comes. That may be soon and it may be not. I shall be very glad to see him if he comes. Aunt Miller had got home and her health was much improved by the journey Tis bed time so good night. Wednesday Eve— I resume my pen to try to finish my letter. I shall go into my cabin tomorrow if nothing happens to hinder. O I wish you could be here to see what an awkward figure I shall cut in my new home. I fear I may be favored with some new bumps on my head as I can hardly stand erect in it I am very much obliged to you for those verses, but I assure you I am " lonely and sad " enough even without reading them very often. There is a Batch's Cabin not far from here of which those verses are as complete a description as could be given. Sunday Morn— ... I commenced batching last Friday and guess you would laugh to see what a horrid figure I cut. I have not been able to get any meat of any kind yet. So that makes it worse than it otherwise would be. My first batch of t( Irish Bannocks " 3 lasted me till this morning. I do not expect to see any butter this winter. I had not seen any but once or twice in three months. I live in hopes of seeing better times by and by. I hope to raise enough of the substantiate of living for another year. I said there was nothing particular in Laura's letter, but I was mis- taken It contained the sad news of Uncle Stephen Ostrander's death. He was going from home to Auburn in the Stage and it turned over and he was killed. This news they learned from a man who came

3 In another letter Silas writes that " Irish bannocks" are short cakes " minus the shortening." 336 DOCUMENTS [March right from Baldwinsville but they had not learned any of the par- ticulars It is now almost noon and I must stop as I have to go to Reedsburg with this & I cannot more than do that and get back in time to get my " grub " & do up my Chores. Give my love to Uncle James' folks & accept a share for yourself from Your affectionate brother SILAS Write soon.

Elizabeth writes to Silas at Reedsburg that she has been sewing for a milliner at Whitewater for about nine weeks, and is now spending a week at Koshkonong. She complains about the short letter he last wrote to her and thinks he has had the "blues." Koshkonong, Dec. 23rd, 1849 Dear Brother Silas, I received, a few days ago, your letter of Nov. 20th stating that you had not received any news from me. I wrote a letter to you about 6 weeks ago—as long as the moral law and quite as dull. I am really sorry you did not get it for I am sure you would have been amazingly edified with the astounding wisdom displayed therein. Are you boarding or keeping " Batchelors Hall "? I think you must either have had the blues or else had a great quantity of housework on hand when you wrote that letter to me for there was not a dozen lines in it. Now Sile, if you ever write me such a short letter as that again I will write an answer so long that you will not dare to do it again. I rather guess you have the hypo once in a while. Well, that is something I have not seen anything of since I came from Aztalan. I went about 9 weeks ago to sew for a milliner in Whitewater. I have been there ever since till a week ago I came home but expect them after me tomorrow to go back again. I am well except a hard cold which I am getting over and as fat as a pig. I like the folks in Whitewater very well indeed. I have not been homesick any for four months. I had a long letter from Aunt Emeline a short time ago inviting and urging me to come and stay with her this winter— but I thought I would not go for various reasons. Aunt Rowena 1949} SEYMOUR LETTERS 337

[Ostrander] has returned home. She left cousin Rowena in Oswego [New York] at her aunt's to attend school. Uncle Eben's children have all been sick and he has not been well this fall and winter so Aunt E. said. They have not bought yet but Uncle Eben has taken Mr. Hawk's farm for 3 years. Mr. Hawks lived about a mile north of Uncle Jared's. Uncle Jared and Cousin Levi have got well. I had a letter from Harriett Gorum. She seemed in high spirits for her mother and brothers had come and her Uncle Daniel had got his house done and they had moved into it. I had a letter from Naomi a few days ago. She was well. She did not write much news as she had not been home but once since we came from home. She said Ma and Clarissa were there to make her a visit a few days before. She wrote our folks were all well There is quite a California-fever raging here at the present time caused by the arrival of a man just from the diggins with $15,000. There is considerable of a stir around here and it bids fair to rid this and adjacent towns of some scaliwags there is in them. I believe the man from the diggins is going to get up a company and accompany them back to California. Uncle James says I must tell you to get a span of ponies and he and you better start and get a load of gold. I think I see you on your way there. Well, do you find it very pleasant living in a shantee alone and cooking your own grub? O, how I should like to stand behind the door and see you get breakfast once. I'll warrant I should see you tip the tea kettle over, burn the potatoes, and bake the Johnnycake without salting it, burn your fingers taking up the meat and put your teapot down to steep without any tea in it! I guess you would look as Cross as you did when you made Naomi and me sit with the boys in school for whispering! Amelia [Bliss] and I talk of coming to take tea with you some time so you must have some gingercake and mind when you make it don't forget to put the ginger in I want you to write me a long letter and tell me what you are doing this winter and everything else. I did not get your first letter till about a month after it was written. It was sent to Chicago by some mistake or other and did not reach Cold Spring in most of 4 weeks. It has been snowing—last night—and today—and I guess we are going to have sleighing. You must take care of your health and not work too hard, from your affectionate sister. _ J ELIZABETH 338 DOCUMENTS

Does not Mr. Cheeseborough owe you a dollar? And if he does, may I get and use it and I will pay you when I see you. Now Sile, do be careful and not get sick, or if you do get sick, send word and don't neglect to. I am well and fat as a pig. I weight 140! I hope you will not get the ague. I have had a few shakes, but think I shall not have anything more of it. It is not half so bad as I thought it was. I took some medicine and cured it Uncle James' folks send love. I wrote this letter a week ago and have not sent it to the post office yet, but will soon. Are you working on your farm?—or what are you doing this winter? Write me all about it. I dreamed all night last night about you. I thought you was sick but as I don't believe in dreams, I shall not worry about it. Now, Sile, do you think that if I can get a first-rate, good-natured, industrious man, that I should get married? [ELIZABETH] [TO BE CONCLUDED] Book Notes The University of Wisconsin, A History, 1848-1925. By MERLE CURTI and VERNON CARSTENSEN. TWO volumes, $10; each volume, $6. Volume I, 1848-1903. (The University of Wiscon- sin Press, Madison, 1949. Pp. xviii, 739.) This volume, which covers the period 1848-1903, reads to me like a family chronicle, my family chronicle. It goes back half a century before I joined the faculty; but that is the way family chronicles go. I didn't know Professor John W. Sterling, the first member of the faculty (1849); but I did know his daughter, Susan, who was born in South Hall, where, for many years, I had my office. Nor did I know Professor Obadiah M. Conover, who augmented the faculty by 100 percent when he was appointed in 1850. But I lived for three years in the same house with his charming son, Allan D., the archi- tect, who had been a professor of engineering in the 70's and '80's. I was acquainted with Professor James Davie Butler, who had joined the staff in 1858. I met former President Chamberlin and attended President Adams's last (and my first) convocation in 1901. I never knew President Bascom at first hand; but I did know him through his devoted pupil and later colleague, Dr. Birge, who came to Wis- consin in 1875 and happily is still with us. And I have long been familiar with " Sunny" Pyre's remarkably competent one-man and one-volume history of the University, entitled Wisconsin, published in 1920; the best of the Oxford University Press's " American College and University Series." Indeed I know about all the old stories con- cerning the early days of the University. No wonder, then, that the first volume of Curti and Carstensen's history rings many peals in the bell-tower of my memory! It is customary in a book review to analyze the work, point out its virtues and defects, and finally, guardedly and pontificially, to assess its value. Well, I can't follow the custom; the book is too good for such deliberateness. It is a masterly performance, throwing into the shade all other state university histories and having only one rival among the histories of the " private " universities of the United States. The style is so good that the reader never thinks of it. The book is unmarred by panegyric or propaganda; it is a documented, " let-down- your-hair" study of men and measures, against a background of 339 340 BOOK NOTES [March regional and national social currents. It is presented in four chrono- logical-topical parts: Origins of the State University Idea (pp. 3-34); Years of the Beginning, 1836-1866 (pp. 37-204); New Foundations, 1866-1887 (pp. 207-498); and College to University, 1887-1903 (pp. 501-739)^ The way in which the book creeps up on the reader is partly to be explained by the abundance of quotations from contemporary con- versations, speeches, documents, letters, and minutes, drawn largely from the University files and the rich collections of our STATE HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY, which give the reader the effects of a ringside seat. The frankness of the size-ups of regents, presidents, professors, stu- dents, legislators, and other friends and foes operates in the same direction. None of the presidents (or chancellors), for example, gets a grade of 100; one of them at least is flunked. Only once do the authors carry their frankness to lengths which strike this reviewer as regrettable, when they name names in describing a protracted cribbing case. The regret may be due in some measure to the re- viewer's trouble as a schoolboy when, in an important provincial examination, a chum, two seats away, slipped an SOS. note to him. The chum in later years became a worthy and prominent minister of the Gospel. And the lad whose trial is set forth at length by the authors also made a successful career, marked by probity and repute. Of course cribbers and cribbees have to be disciplined for their own good and " pour encomager les autres "; but to put one of them into a great and enduring book nominatim runs counter to the folk- wisdom regarding bygones, even though the illustration in question exhibits to perfection the divergencies possible among parents, faculty, and regents in such matters. It is impossible in a review to do justice to the varied riches of this book, which includes every sort of university problem. These range from fights for a more practical curriculum, opposition to compulsory military drill, complaints against the lecture system, a battle against the incidental fee which was lost in the State Supreme Court, and the advent of the co-ed, to hazing, the cost of living, the literary so- cieties and their scholarly, massive joint-debates, college journalism, and the rise of athletics. Presidents Chadbourne, Twombly, Bascom, Chamberlin, and Adams have individual chapters, President Bascom, as is fitting, receiving most space. All the great professors are suc- cinctly characterized. The inclusiveness of the book will be easily 1949] BOOK NOTES 341 manifest when the index, which will accompany the second volume, is available. The early regents of the University seem to have had no traditions to guide them other than those of a frontier school board, and it took their successors several decades to discover their appropriate functions and those of the president and of the faculty. It was the regents who with the chancellor's aid fixed the course of study. The faculty had no certain tenure. The regents were usually sanguine that a new chancel- lor would work a miracle. In 1859 they offered to dismiss the entire staff in order to give Chancellor Barnard a free hand (p. 168); in 1867 they actually did it (p. 203), against the coming of President Chadbourne (1867-1870). Professor Sterling, who had captained the ship during the stormy years 1857-1867, without any chancellor or extra pay, was the only one of the faculty of six who was reappointed. In 1874, however, the regents enacted that the officers and employees should serve " during the pleasure of the Board " (p. 209). That was the year that John Bascom came. It would be interesting to know whether the two events were connected. Judge Keyes, commonly dubbed " Boss," regent 1879-1889, some- time mayor of Madison and a keen politician, was the chief thorn in Bascom's flesh. A genuine old curmudgeon, to whom Regent George H. Paul once wrote: " You are old enough in sin and iniquity to know better than to accept every statement of a newspaper reporter for fact" (p. 267), Boss Keyes protested against Bascom's campaigning for prohibition and strove to drive him out. The Boss was no rose, as the authors make abundantly clear, but he furthered the material wel- fare of the University, and stoutly opposed the movement, supported by Regent Hiram Smith and Professor William A. Henry, later dean, to establish a separate college of agriculture (pp. 471-472 and note). Under President Chamberlin (1887-1892) "educational policy came to be shaped more completely by the faculty and the president" (p. 507). Under President Van Hise (1903-1918), who had grown up academically as a professor in the University, the predominant share of the faculty in the formulation of educational policy—as we shall doubtless be told in the second volume—was quietly established and accepted. The tardiness with which the University embarked upon the de- velopment of courses of a practical and utilitarian sort and the way in which it clung to most of the old " classical" curriculum are ex- 342 ' BOOK NOTES [March plained by the authors largely by the training and interests of the early faculty: " Conover, Sterling, and Butler were trained in divinity schools. Read... was by taste and temperament one of them" (p. 184). The reviewer ventures to suggest that another partial ex- planation may be the circumstance that the old curriculum was almost the only one there was, and that years were required to elaborate practical courses into satisfactory educational media. The treatment of women students in the early days left much to be desired. Their presence during the Civil War had virtually kept the student body in existence; but Chadbourne refused to accept the presi- dency unless their rights were curtailed by the State Legislature (Chap. VIII). It was Bascom and the faculty who finally asserted in 1874 and successfully defended the full student rights of the co-eds (pp. 369 ff.). One of their contributions to the social life of the student body was noted by Patrick Walsh, janitor and messenger to the president, and a celebrated " character " of the middle years: "The byes are gintlemin all now. Ye should'a seen thim twinty years ago. Ah they were woild injins thin! " (p. 381). Pat's picture can be found in Reuben Gold Thwaites, The University of Wisconsin (Madi- son, 1900), p. 168. It will be interesting to learn—presumably in the second volume of the work under review—whether or not it was the comic spirit which led the university authorities to change the name of the women's dormitory from Ladies Hall to Chadbourne Hall. The question is still debated whether the State acted wisely in dis- posing of its federal educational land endowment cheaply, in order to hasten the settlement of the State, instead of holding the lands for the increased values which time would bring. The facts are for the first time fully set forth in Chapters IV, XII, and XXI. The Uni- versity authorities were not slow to argue that the State owed the University the income from the difference between what the lands would have brought under the second alternative and what was actually received. The argument grew more and more ingenious. In 1876 Regent George H. Paul baited the university request for a mill tax with the stipulation that the appropriation " shall be deemed a full compensation for all deficiencies in said income arising from the dis- position of the lands donated to the state by Congress " (p. 314). The request was granted. Twenty years later President Adams claimed that the parent (the State) had no right to make such a bargain with 1949] BOOK NOTES 343

its ward (the University) after having "misused its trust," and that " the State is still the moral debtor to the amount of $129,000 a year." And he added, for good measure, that anyway it was the duty of the State to support its child with generosity (p. 596). Fortunately for all concerned the recognition of that duty was not delayed much longer, and the question of the lands became a pleasant problem in economics, ethics, and dialectics. The Ely case—the " trial" of Professor Richard T. Ely, the econ- omist, before the Regents, in 1894, for undue radicalism, which resulted in the sweeping vindication of Dr. Ely and gave occasion for the celebrated declaration of freedom of investigation at Wisconsin, is admirably handled (pp. 508-527). The conclusions reached by Mr. Theodore Herfurth of Madison, recently published, on the author- ship of the text of the declaration, conclusions which support the view of Professor Pyre {Wisconsin, p. 293, note), are accepted by our authors: President Adams drafted the declaration. One cannot for- bear applauding their final words on the larger topic: " The Board of Regents, still made up largely of those whom President Bascom had denounced as politicians, had deliberately chosen, at the prompt- ing of John [M.] Olin, to meet the issue of academic freedom. The Board met the issue directly and they met it gallantly" (p. 527). It is cheering too to note that the authors dedicate their history " to that staunch Board of Regents of 1894 and to their predecessors and successors" (see the full dedication, p. vii). The University of Wisconsin, A History, 1848-1925 is a Wisconsin product, written by Wisconsin professors, manufactured by George Banta of Menasha, and published by the University of Wisconsin Press. The format is admirable, indeed distinguished, but not lush. Typographical errors are at a minimum. The illustrations are well- chosen. Perhaps it would have been well to indicate that the sketches of the campus at various periods, reproduced from contemporary drawings, are not precisely factual; the most aberrant is the one facing page 271. The authors and their University sponsors are to be con- gratulated on a most distinguished study of a phase of the development of the State which must inevitably surpass any other Centennial monument. Madison G. C. SELLERY 344 BOOK NOTES [March

George Washington. By DOUGLAS SOUTHALL FREEMAN. Vols. 1 and 2. (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1948. Vol. 1, xxvi, 549 pp., Vol. 2, 464 pp. Appendices, illustrations, maps. $15). There have been biographies of Washington without number for a century and a half, but for the first time we have one that is based upon intensive research, not only in the personal life of Washington, but in the history of the period in which he grew up. There is for instance a chapter on the structure of Virginia society in the eighteenth century so long and detailed that the author has included an elaborate outline of it as an appendix. At times the volumes read like a genealogy of all the planters in Virginia, but once one has ploughed through the detail, one has a conception of Virginia society which can be ob- tained from no other work. The Washington that appears is in general familiar to scholars, in fact makes what they know respectable. Washington was an intensely ambitious young man of minor standing in a society dominated by great planter aristocrats. He was lucky in that older half brothers and sisters died and left him property which otherwise he would never have had, and in his marriage to a wealthy widow. But he was more than lucky. As a young man in his teens he began surveying land and buying land piece by piece with the money he made as a surveyor. By these various means he acquired land in a society which demanded the ownership of land as a prerequisite to social standing. Washington climbed upward also from one military position to another. He courted royal officials. Of course he was in no way different from other young Virginians of his time; he differed only in that he was both more persevering and more successful than the average. The first two volumes leave Washington at the age of twenty-seven, a successful land owner, and on the whole, a successful officer. Mr. Freeman plans to complete the biography in four more volumes. This reviewer is willing to bet that it will be nearer ten volumes if the present scale is continued. The complexity of sources, of problems, of Washington's activities after 1758 can never be contained in four volumes that can be held in the hand of an ordinary reader. University of Wisconsin MERRILL JENSEN 1949} BOOK NOTES 345

The State Historical Society of Missouri: A Semicentennial History. By FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER. (The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, 1948. Pp. 193. $3.50). Here is an interesting addition to the limited literature on the history of historical societies in this country: the life story of the society which since 1937 has occupied an enviable position as the largest organization of its kind in the United States and probably— statistics are lacking—in the world. It is largely the story of the lifework of Dr. Shoemaker who has been secretary of the State Histor- ical Society of Missouri since 1914, or for thirty-four of the society's fifty year life. The book is divided appropriately into four sections covering the beginnings, the foundations, the expansion, and the modern period of " fruition and maturity " of a state society. It is an impressive story of accomplishment, of building collections, of enlisting support and public recognition, or creating an effective vehicle for the dissemina- tion of information about Missouri's heritage. The society, inter- estingly enough, was a child of the Missouri Press Association, and Missouri's newspapers have long continued an active interest in the affairs of the society, contributing to its collections, furnishing the first seven presidents, and rendering effective support without which, in the opinion of the author, " it is conjectural whether the Society would have survived its first two decades." The unanimous support of the Press Association and the subsequent editorial backing of its members helped substantially in putting over the program of the society in 1913-14 for a new building to be shared, as in Wisconsin, jointly with the university library. The discerning reader will enjoy the numerous references to the Wisconsin society and note frequent parallels in the story of the two organizations: the slow building up of endowments, the con- tinuing fight for adequate state support, handsome participation in the state's centennial, the establishment of a joint catalog with the university library (which lasted only three years in Missouri), a great collector for an early secretary—a Sampson for a Draper, a continuing publication program comparable to ours in average annual output, and encouragement for the founding of local societies. There have been marked divergencies, too, in which Missouri has pioneered fields long before Wisconsin took them up. Its magazine was started in 1906, twelve years before ours, and changed to an 346 BOOK NOTES [March

illustrated cover six months ahead of Wisconsin. Its successful news- filler, "This Week in Missouri History," antedates our "Wisconsin Historical News " by sixteen years, is a weekly instead of a monthly, and has been consolidated in its first series into Missouri, Day by Day, a much used and popular reference work. It was one of the seven founding organizers of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. Its "Who's Who in Missouri," a biographical card index, antedates and is more comprehensive than ours. Its newspaper subject index is something we have long wished to emulate. It undertook the historical survey and preparation of a set of highway markers as early as 1931. It does not operate the state museum, though in recent years it has acquired collections of Benton and Brigham paintings and the cartoon collection of Daniel R. Fitzpatrick. It is not the state archives nor does it handle the state's public records program, though it received the archival documents surviving the capitol fire of 1911. Its library is less than half the size of ours, but, starting late, it has built up a strong collection, featuring the Sampson, Bay, and Mark Twain collections. It has no junior program, but like Wisconsin serves the state as its public documents exchange agent. Throughout its career, particularly in the last three decades, it has stressed popular appeal in combination with scholarly production, and has felt free to experiment in fields in which most historical societies have not ventured until the case had been proved in Missouri. These, perhaps, are the major reasons why as of June 30, 1948, the membership of the Missouri society stood at a national peak of 4,212. This little book summarizes a record of achievement of which our Missouri colleagues, and par- ticularly their long-time secretary, can well be proud. State Historical Society of Wisconsin CLIFFORD L. LORD Wayfaring Stranger (An Autobiography). By BURL IVES. (Whittlesey House, New York, 1948. Pp. 253. $3.50). It was in 1940 when I first heard Burl Ives sing on a Saturday morning N.B.C. radio program. The first song I heard him sing was "Wayfaring Stranger," and the haunting melody of the old tune stayed in my mind for a long time. I even made an adaptation of the song for a play I was writing, and I think the singing of Burl Ives opened up the whole field of folk song for me. Later on when Burl's albums began to appear, I bought them all, and we spent many an evening playing our favorites in the collections. 1949] BOOK NOTES 347

Naturally, I wondered often about this man Ives—who he was, how he became a folk singer. When his autobiography appeared, I was glad because now my curiosities would be satisfied. It had seemed to me that Burl must be an inspired spirit—entirely disassociated from the usual struggles of man searching for his creative voice—com- pletely entuned from birth to his destiny which was singing the songs of the people. And now I have read his autobiography and I have chuckled over it and enjoyed his yarns, but I am dissatisfied. For here is a man and not a Titan. Here is no glorious, free and natural giant, but indeed, a human being like thousands of others who have torn their destinies from the toils and tribulations of earth. Here is a book that is a success story, the tales of several incidental love affairs, the story of a singing career that took its final folk-song shape in the canyons of New York rather than in the byways and folkways of American countryside life. The result of the struggle—Burl Ives—is gratifying, but the story (as told by Burl) is not too powerful. It is fresh in spots, where Burl sticks to the tales of his friends and neighbors in Illinois. There are corking yarns about Burl's life there, involving the lusty and robust humor and fantasy of the place. There are also some very well done vignettes that embellish and develop the character of Burl. But for me a portion of the book does not ring true. Autobiography is one of the trickiest forms in literary craftsmanship, and trivial detail and self-conscious plot-making are among the most dangerous devices of the form. The results of a satisfying autobiography should probably be either a feeling of complete honesty about the work, the emergence of a character completely three dimensional, or a telling picture of the times and manners of the period in which the author lives and works. Wayfaring Stranger doesn't quite score with any of these three results. There are chuckles, there is a tear or two, there is sympathy for Burl in his struggles, and there is some reader's admiration of Burl's success in love. I do have a slight feeling, however (and I might be wrong) that the material in Wayfaring Stranger was put together more from a desire to get out a popular type of book than a completely honest one; that some undue emphasis was placed on the sort of subject matter that from its sensation might boost sales. 348 BOOK NOTES [March

And I am sorry I feel that way, for, as I said, Burl Ives was to me a sort of giant ideal of the American folk-singer and I wanted him to be as free of commercialism and as natural as a stalk of corn growing in an Illinois cornfield. Wayfaring Stranger is pleasant reading, though, and Burl is still a mighty fine singer. University of Wisconsin ROBERT E. GARD

The Territorial Papers of the United States, xiii, Louisiana-Missouri Territory, 1803-1806. Compiled and edited by CLARENCE EDWIN CARTER. (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C, 1948. Pp. xi, 641. $3.50). In this volume as in preceding ones, the documents published are primarily those, hitherto unpublished, which concern territorial ad- ministration. For a complete picture of even the administrative problems of these years, the student must supplement these Papers with the documents published in Marshall's Life and Papers of Frederick Bates. Since neither public lands nor Indian affairs had any great relevancy to territorial administration, they are dealt with only casually in the Papers: in regard to both, research must depend on the published materials in the American State Papers and unpublished documents in the United States Archives and elsewhere. The documents of this volume are arranged chronologically under three heads: The Foundation, the District, and the Wilkinson Admin- istration. The first two contain little or nothing that is new. Appar- ently the people of Louisiana were rather indifferent about the transfer of authority to the United States, but they did object to being attached as a District to the Territory of Indiana. But Governor Harrison conducted himself circumspectly, and the period of his administra- tion was quiet. With the beginning of Wilkinson's administration, July 4, 1805, the Territory of Louisiana became involved in a turmoil which steadily increased in virulence until he left for the Sabine frontier a year later. Some three-fourths of the documents in this volume have to do with the Wilkinson administration and throw considerable light on the personality of the governor. It is plain that before he had been in office six months he had become embroiled with practically all the military and civil authorities of the territory. From the evidence submitted it is impossible to assess the blame for the altercations, but Wilkinson throughout seems to have retained the support of the French element of the population. President 1949] BOOK NOTES 349

Jefferson supported him and insisted on the confirmation of his appointment regardless of his troubles. Jefferson, however, probably rejoiced when the situation in Orleans Territory became such as to give him an excuse for ordering the doughty general to that region. Wilkinson's letter to Samuel Smith, June 17, 1806, shows that the general realized he was being eased out of the gubernatorial chair. The document published throws some light on the Indian trade, revealing to what extent it was in the hands of the Canadians. These Wilkinson would have excluded from the trade had he not been restrained by the administration fearing the effect of such an action on Indian relations. Wilkinson would also have constructed forts inland in the territory to guard against British and Spaniards but again the administration forced him to remain inactive. This volume of the Papers evidences the same careful and judicious editing as shown in the previous volumes. There are numerous occasions, however, when the reader will have cause to deplore the fact that " editorial interpretations of the text are not supplied." Florida State University R. S. CoTTERILL

Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs. Introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Hermitage Press, Inc., New York, 1948. Pp. 486. $4.00). There seems to be a revival of interest in the career of Eugene V. Debs if one can credit fully the evidence of recent and prospective publications about him. Last year appeared Irving Stone's moderately successful fictionalized biography Adversary in the House and Charles Madison's essay in his Critics and Crusaders, this year a left wing interpretation by Morais and Cahn and the present edition of his Writings and Speeches, and next March the promise of Dr. Ray Ginger's full scale biography. And all of this activity comes in the face of some half a dozen volumes about him already in print, though admittedly they are less than adequate, individually and collectively. In one respect this revival of interest in Debs is a curious one. It coincides with what is probably the low point, politically at least, of the Socialist Party to which Debs devoted most of his energies during the last thirty years of his life. Except for the personal prestige of its six-time presidential candidate Norman Thomas and its ability to elect party members to the mayoralty of such obviously non-Socialist cities as Milwaukee and Bridgeport, the party exhibits none of the promise that Debs saw in it forty years ago. 350 BOOK NOTES [March

But if the present role of the Socialist Party cannot account for the contemporary interest in Debs, perhaps his peculiar place in that party can. Neither a theoretician nor an organizer, he was able to remain largely aloof from the bitter factional struggles which rent the party and alienated sympathetic outsiders. Moreover, he was a respectably native American exhibit among such foreign-born comrades as Hill- quit and Berger, whose socialism smacked too much of European doctrine. Consequently, Debs appears today as an idealistic agitator and propagandist, a visionary who was always a humanitarian and seldom doctrinaire or dogmatic, another in the long line of authentic American radicals. Essentially that is the picture of Debs drawn by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in the sketch of his life that serves as an excellent foreword to this volume. The rediscovery of Debs may be merely another phase of the re-examination of the American past. Some evidence to substantiate this interpretation of Debs's present popularity may be found in his Writings and Speeches here reprinted. These range in time from his " Proclamation to American Railway Union," issued at Terre Haute on June 1, 1895, on the occasion of the affirmation by the United States Supreme Court of his jail sentence growing out of Pullman strike activities, to the excerpts from his posthumous Walls and Bars, an appeal for prison reform. The bulk of the selections fall in the first half of this thirty-year period; more than two-thirds of the almost 500 pages are devoted to the period from 1902 to 1912, when optimistic members projected growing Socialist electoral totals into imminent control of the national govern- ment simply through geometric progression. The source of these writings is almost exclusively the Socialist press, such weeklies and monthlies as Appeal to Reason, International Socialist Review, Social Democratic Herald (edited by Curator Frederic Heath in Milwaukee), and WUs hire's Magazine', the range of publications represented and the persistence of propaganda on almost every page emphasize the remarkable faith that the Socialists placed in the efficacy of the printed word in their agitation. Inevitably these selections involve some repetition of a few favorite Debs themes. There is much on labor organization as an accompani- ment of Socialist political action: on the American Railway Union, the railroad brotherhoods, the A. F. of L, the I.W.W., and industrial versus craft unionism. There is a good deal on the alleged control of government by business and its use against the interests of the people, as in the Pullman strike, the Moyer-Haywood and McNamara 1949] BOOK NOTES 351 cases, the Ludlow massacre, and the Sacco-Vanzetti executions. And there is frequent appeal to the example of some of labor's heroes, such as Martin Irons, John Brown, Mother Jones, Thomas McGrady, and John Swinton. Among the more interesting selections are "How I Became a Socialist," "The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike," a reply to Cleveland's defense of his actions in 1894, " Arouse, Ye Slaves," an emotionally charged threat of revolution during the Moyer-Haywood affair, and "The Canton, Ohio, Speech," which led to Debs's indictment under the Espionage Act. State Teachers College, Milwaukee FREDERICK I. OLSON

Colonel Dick Thompson: The Persistent Whig. By CHARLES ROLL. Indiana Historical Collections, Vol. 30. (Indiana Historical Bu- reau, Indianapolis, 1948. Pp. xv, 315. $2.50). The career of Richard W. Thompson, minor Indiana politician who was famed in his region as an orator and who served the Whig and Republican parties in routine fashion, had more length than dis- tinction. His biography has the same qualities. Thompson was born in Virginia in 1809, migrated to Indiana in 1831, taught school, practiced law, served in the legislature, was a Harrison elector in 1840, went to Congress in 1841, moved to Terre Haute, went back to Congress in 1847, campaigned for Taylor in 1848, joined the Re- publican Party, made speeches during the Civil War, was taken into Hayes's cabinet as Secretary of the Navy but resigned to work for the Panama Canal Company, and lived on to 1900. His biographer's bungling efforts to make Thompson appear a significant character are entirely unconvincing. The multiplication of minute details, in- eptly strung together without analysis, never succeed in breathing life into a completely wooden figure. University of Wisconsin WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE

The Age of the Great Depression, 1929-1941. By DIXON WECTER. (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1948. Pp. xii, 362. $5.00). Here is a book designed to cast up the balance sheet of the New Deal when the latter was commonly believed heading at least for cold storage. November 2, 1948, has made the book not only a record of a phase that has passed into history but also an aid for fore- casting the immediate future. 352 BOOK NOTES [March

The book abounds in " hard facts." But this is not its chief merit: it is in its handling of the American intangibles. Because America's spectacular ideological period is in the past, in the Jeffersonian age, writers about America, both American and European, have acquired the self-defeating habit of ideological condescension. The author does not commit the mistake of overlooking the current American ideology, or better ideologies, because they do not stem from great books but are of the " homegrown variety." He concentrates on them even when he quotes statistics. The American view of life demands activism in situations of distress, a joyous activism that is not afraid of making mistakes. It will forgive such mistakes but not a mere drifting because the will to act is benumbed by theoretical taboos. This was the secret of Roosevelt's grip. In the course of this experimental action, frequently in oppo- site directions at the same time, new American standards have been formulated such as the nation's obligation to give to each citizen a minimum of economic security as well as of dignity security—work relief and not just relief—Harry Hopkins' contribution to the Amer- ican civilization with the full blessing of his patron. Even more important, a product of this same experimental action was a remak- ing of America's social topography through an enduring activization of new groups, labor and the farmers, not as revolutionary uprisings against " free enterprise" but as insistently demanding that the nation safeguard their security within the adjustment to life each of them has already made—as self-employed farmers or as unionized wage earners. Not the least of the official rememberings of the "for- gotten man " was the concern shown for the most helpless of the white collar workers—the writer, the researcher, the artist. The book also deals with the more visible " culture " of the epoch, literary productions and the like—probably with no aim at " defini- tiveness." University of Wisconsin SELIG PERLMAN Horns of Thunder—The Life mtd Times of James M. Goodhue, In- cluding Selections from His Writings. By MARY WHEELHOUSE BERTHEL. (Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, 1948. Pp. 276. $3.00). Appearing on the eve of Minnesota's Territorial Centennial, this biography of a pioneer newspaperman commemorates not only the one-hundredth anniversary of Minnesota, but also the centenary of 1949} BOOK NOTES 353 journalism in that region. It is also of special interest to Wisconsin readers because Editor Goodhue of the Minnesota Pioneer began his career in Platteville, and later in Lancaster became publisher of the Wisconsin Herald and Grant County Advertiser (successor to the Grant County Herald), This is the story of a frontier editor, whose paper still lives as the St. Paul Pioneer Press. From the spring of 1849 until the summer of 1852, Goodhue's lively little sheet reflected the vitality and aspira- tions of the teeming settlement that one day was to become a great city. He was the reporter of a new society; " sniffing the news" and recording the " fashioning of democratic... institutions ... in the life of a new region." J. B. McMaster, who never hesitated to use newspapers as source material, would have delighted in this book. For Goodhue described every aspect of life in a growing frontier town. Almost two-thirds of the book is taken up with the writings of the editor. Indeed, the one criticism would be that not enough space is devoted to the back- ground of the subject. For this phase readers might profitably read Richard E. Eide's The Influence of Editorship and Other Forces on the Growth of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, 1849-1909 (Graduate School, University of Missouri, 1943). The book is liberally illustrated with charming and intimate little sketches by Robert O. Sweeny, an early St. Paul druggist, whose work was preserved on the backs of prescription blanks. Mrs. Berthel, an alumna of the University of Illinois, has been a member of the Minnesota Historical Society staff since 1920. She was editor of the four-volume History of Minnesota, by Dr. William W. Folwell. She is also the author of frequent reviews and articles in the Society's Quarterly. University of Wisconsin HENRY LADD SMITH Fighting Indians of the West. By MARTIN F. SCHMITT and DEE BROWN. (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1948. Pp. 362. $10). Hanging in the Madison Club main dining room at Madison, Wisconsin, is a picture of an Indian. It is an oil painting by H. H. Cross from the T. B. Walker Collection. The subject is Flat Iron, one of the great chieftains of the Oglala Sioux. He lived to be 107 years old and made three trips around the world with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. 354 BOOK NOTES [March

If you happen to go into the club, take a look at this picture. Note the strength of character in the face of this Indian who was known as "The Grand Old Man of the Oglala Sioux." Cyrus Townsend Brady says of this Oglala tribe of the Sioux nation that in point of physique, mentality, and as fierce fighters they had no equals on earth. If you are interested in the Indian history of the West, it will pay you to secure a copy of Fighting Indians of the West, by Martin F. Schmitt and Dee Brown. The book is so intensely interesting that it really would take an entire issue of the Magazine to review it ade- quately. I shall only touch a few of the highlights. Most of the pictures in the book were taken, not with the modern camera, but with those in use in the 1860's. The preface to the book states: " Chief credit for this book must go to the small group of intrepid photographers of the West who recorded with the magic of light and chemistry the actors and scenes, and sometimes even the actions in the great historical drama of the Indian wars." The few of these records left today in picture form are, as the preface states, " second only to reality." The period covered by Fighting Indians of the West begins at about the end of the Civil War. Gold strikes had been made in Colo- rado, Montana, and other points in the West, and there was a wild surge of all kinds of adventurous people across the Mississippi River. The various tribes resented this invasion, and as a result many treaties were made with these tribes. Fully as many of these treaties were broken by us as by the Indians. But no tribe resisted the white invasion longer nor more successfully than the Sioux of the Northwest. Sitting Bull who was medicine man and chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux was more statesman than warrior. He directed the forces that annihilated Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 and he never was finally conquered until the battle, or rather massacre, of Wounded Knee in 1890. Unusually interesting is a chapter on Black Kettle of the Cheyennes and the account of the part that Custer here played. Most writers and historians have placed Custer somewhat in the light of a martyr. All agree that he was a great fighter and general, and most agree that his annihilation at the battle of the Little Big Horn occurred because he disobeyed orders. His orders were to find the trail of the large band of Sioux and then to await and make a junction with other troops in this same campaign. He found the trail. His scouts reported 1949] BOOK NOTES 355 about double the number of Indians to his own trained troops, and so instead of waiting he ordered an attack. Sitting Bull, however, knew not only of the movement of the federal troops, but he knew the exact positions and movements of some 7,000 Sioux warriors. He had thrown 2,000 of these warriors across the path of Reno, who was supposed to come to Custer's assistance, and according to the best accounts he had 5,000 left with which he attacked Custer on the Little Big Horn. There were two large bands of Sioux on the way to this position who arrived at about the time Custer did, so that Custer instead of having 800 to 1,000 warriors to contend with, had in the neighborhood of some 5,000 led by Crow King who surrounded and killed his entire command. There is an interesting account of Custer, in this volume, however, that I believe most authors and historians have glossed over as to detail. Black Kettle of the Cheyennes had been striving earnestly to settle the differences between Indians and Whites through diplomatic means. He had been successful in holding back most of his followers although some of the younger warriors had broken out in various places. His camp, without provocation, had been attacked by Colonel J. M. Chivington on November 29, 1864. This attack resulted in indiscriminate slaughter of the surprised Cheyennes. Even Kit Carson was disgusted over it and said that " no one but a coward or a dog would have had a part in it." Black Kettle escaped and in 1865 signed a new peace treaty with the government. The Whites ignored the guarantees of this treaty, and Black Kettle lost his prestige with his followers. Then after the close of the Civil War the authors state that General Custer came west with the cold-blooded intention of making a glorious career out of the business of slaying Indians. He had been much publicized as an idol, riding up Pennsylvania Avenue, and " longed for his lost days of glory " after being reduced to the tempo- rary rank of major in the demobilization that followed the Civil War. He met a number of defeats by the Indians in western Kansas in 1867. According to this account he was court-martialed in November, 1867. One year later he was back at the head of the Seventh Cavalry. In November, 1868, the Seventh Cavalry moved out of Fort Dodge " to make the savages live up to their treaty obligations." General Philip Sheridan agreed with Custer's plans, in fact he " gave the official order 356 BOOK NOTES [March to proceed south... to the supposed seat of these hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies; to kill and hang all warriors and bring back all women and children." Just prior to this and through the efforts of the United States Indian Agent at Fort Larned, Black Kettle succeeded in obtaining supplies, including ammunition, for the annual buffalo hunt. This hunt was very successful. Black Kettle and other Indian chiefs returned to their encampment the night of November 26, 1868. Custer was moving steadily south under the orders he had from Sheridan. " There were more women and children than warriors in the camp." At dawn on the morning of the twenty-seventh Custer's forces attacked. Black Kettle and his squaw were both killed. A few of the Indians escaped, but more than 100 Cheyenne warriors were killed " as well as many women and children never counted "; tepees were knocked down and heaped into piles with the winter supply of buffalo hides and pemmican. Everything was burned. Several hundred ponies were killed. All the Indians who were left alive were made captives. There is no more interesting period of American History than that which covers the conquest of the Indians of the West beginning in the early 1860's, and I have yet to see a more interesting book devoted to this subject than Fighting Indians of the West. It supplements in splendid shape the T. B. Walker Art Collection now at the Historical Museum in Madison. Oshkosh W. J. CAMPBELL

Michigan and the Cleveland Era. Edited by EARL D. BABST and LEWIS G. VANDER VELDE. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1948. Pp. 372. $2.50). This volume has been written by a group of alumni of the Uni- versity of Michigan. It records the services and leadership of Mich- igan University graduates and faculty members during a given period in American history.

The recently organized Neenah Historical Society adopted as its first major project the reprinting of G. A. Cunningham's History of Neenah (1878). The result is a book with a format of seventy years ago. The George Banta Publishing Company of Menasha has done an excellent job of reproducing the volume. Each page is quaintly framed with a line surrounding the printed matter, and the reader could well believe he were living in the last century. It is fortunate that the 1949] BOOK NOTES 357

reprinting of rare histories is done now and then. For the sake of the researcher, who is almost without exception working "against time," it would be helpful to have an addition to these reprinted volumes. An index is time-saving beyond measure and, if a brief person and place names index was added (though a complete index is preferable), the researcher would be eternally grateful. Copies may be ordered from Wilbur Sparks, 328 East Doty Avenue, Neenah. Price $2.75.

Mrs. Minnie A. G. Ozanne has written My Memoirs (72 pp.) which deals with the locality now the town of Somers, Kenosha County. Mrs. Ozanne, who donated two copies of her book to the Society, was for many years the correspondent for the Kenosha Evening News which gave her an adequate background for writing this type of history. Settlers, roads, churches, landmarks, mail service, schools, parks, and other subjects make an entertaining narrative. The illustra- tions were selected with care and are an attractive feature of the book. The volume may be obtained from Martha Merrell, 610 College Avenue, Racine. Price $2.00.

The Making of Our Wisconsin Schools, 1848-1948 (33 pp.), by Edgar G. Doudna, is a brief history of education in Wisconsin, re- printed from the January, 1948, Wisconsin Journal of Education, by the Centennial Education Committee. It discusses the development of our schools: elementary, secondary, vocational, and higher education. Copies are available at the office of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 816 State Street, Madison. Price 25 cents.

New Diggings Is an Old Diggings (111 pp.) was compiled by Mrs. Fremont Carter, a teacher in the New Diggings high school, and the " Prospectors," the Junior Historians whom she advises. The story begins with the founding of New Diggings and concludes with " New Diggings Today." It is an interesting compilation in which the older people in and around New Diggings gave what information they could to the Juniors, as they were working on this material. Copies may be had from C. L. Lacke, New Diggings. Price $1.00.

One of the most beautiful publications to reach the Society for some time is the pictorial record in five divisions of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company (106 pp.). A master photographer produced the pictures, no doubt, and the format of the publication is a joy to 358 BOOK NOTES [March behold. Shipbuilding, engineering, fabricating, equipment, and manu- facturing works are appropriately illustrated. The president of the company is Charles C. West.

Among our accessions is a brief biography, neatly printed, of Lev- erett C. Wheeler (14 pp.) who was a native of the town of Wau- watosa and a resident of the city of Wauwatosa until his death in May, 1948. During Mr. Wheeler's lifetime his community grew up, and much of the history he knew has been lost. The booklet was sent as a gift by Adele Graves Wheeler.

A 48-page brochure has been received from the author, the Rev. Gordon Gilsdorf, St. Francis Major Seminary, Milwaukee. Wisconsin's Catholic Heritage was issued during the centennial year and deals with the contribution of the Catholic people to the State during the past century. Exploration, immigration, church and school construction, religious orders of women as well as of men, and the Catholic press are among the subjects found in this publication. Address: Office of the Chancery, 15 East Wilson Street, Madison. Price 50 cents.

Kohler of Kohler News, the monthly publication of the Kohler Company, carried a well-illustrated story of the Historical Society's Museum ceremony, November 12, when the women's costume collec- tion was presented by Mrs. Herbert V. Kohler for the Centennial Committee on Wisconsin Women.

The Society's church history shelves have been enriched by a mimeographed account (31 pp.) compiled by Irene Bidwell, assisted by J. R. Chad wick, relating to One Hundred Years in the First Metho- dist Church, Appleton, Wisconsin. The story is written in four sections and is developed chronologically. Accompanying the mimeo- graphed material is an attractive booklet issued at the time of the centennial observance of the founding of the church.

"A representative showing of the best creative photographic art from all over the world " is contained in the Wisconsin Centennial International Salon of Photographic Art (52 pp.). The exhibition of this outstanding photography was sponsored by the Boston Store in cooperation with the Milwaukee Art Institute and the Milwaukee Photo Pictorialists; the display was open to the public from August 5 1949] BOOK NOTES 359 through August 31 at the Milwaukee Art Institute. The showing was one of Wisconsin's centennial projects.

The Pfister and Vogel Tanning Company, Milwaukee, has issued an attractive booklet (17 pp.) showing 100 years of progress since the founding of the firm by Guido Pfister and Frederick Vogel. Pro- fusely illustrated, one can almost read the history from the pictures. From working forty hides a day it has developed into a great industry, and today is known as the largest tannery in the world.

The late A. D. Polleys of Melrose contributed from time to time the pioneer history of his area to the newspapers. Stories of Pioneer Days in Black River Valley (89 pp.) is a collection of his contributions relating to the history of Jackson County of the early day, and is adequately illustrated with pictures of pioneers and scenes of the locality. It was published by the Banner-] ottrnal of Black River Falls. Price $2.00.

The Gun Collector is a magazine for the student of firearms and the serious gun collector. It is devoted to a new field in history, that of research into the design, development, and manufacture of arms, especially in America. The Gun Collector is now in its third year of publication. Obtainable from the publisher, S. Charter Harrison, Jr., 110 Vaughn Court, Madison, 5. 12 issues a year for $4.00.

Wisconsin readers who have a special interest in Carl Schurz would be interested to know that Professor Chester V. Easum, of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, has contributed " Carl Schurz at Watertown " to the June, 1948, American-German Review. Though the Society has published Carl Schurz, Militant Liberal and Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz in book form, and several sketches about him have appeared in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, the Easum article contains some political and family aspects of the Wisconsin Schurz which are " new " reading.

The following general publications have been received by the Society: Association of American Railroads, Wisconsin's Railroads—Their Part in the Development of the State, 1848-1948, 1948 (24 pp.). J. I. Case Company, Serving Farmers since 1842, 1948 (42 pp.). 360 BOOK NOTES

Historical Committee, Plum Valley Watershed Association, History of Plum Valley, [Town of Woodland, Sauk County (1948?) ] (48 pp.). F. V. Koval, A Pioneering Railroad, Chicago and North Western System since 1848, 1948 (24 pp.). William M. Lamers, Forward Wisconsin, A Pageant in Two Parts, 1948 (47 pp.). A. W. Lund Company, The First Seventy-Five Years, 1873-1948 (15 pp.).

The following church publications, marking the anniversary dates of the founding of the churches, have come to the attention of the Society: Cedar Grove, First Presbyterian Church, 100th Anniversary, 1848-1948 (11 pp.). Dacada (Ozaukee County), Saint Nicholas [Catholic] Centennial, 1848-1948 (96 pp.). Green Valley, Bethel Lutheran Church, Seventy-fifth Anniversary, 1873-1948 (27 pp.). Kewaskum, Peace Church [Evangelical and Reformed}, Golden Anni- versary, 1898-1948 (48 pp.). Neenah, The Centennial Story, First Presbyterian Church, 1848-1948 (65 pp.). Plymouth, Silver Anniversary of the Mission Circle, Saint John's Lutheran Church, 1923-1948 (16 pp.). Racine, 75th Anniversary of the Organization of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 1873-1948 (23 pp.). St. Kilian, St. Kilian's [Catholic] Parish, Centennial Jubilee, 1848- 1948 (63 pp.). Viroqua, One Hundredth Anniversary, First Methodist Church, 1848-1948 (16 pp.). Whitewater, Diamond Jubilee, First Methodist Church, 1873-1948 (12 pp.). The Society and the State I. THE SOCIETY

NEW MEMBERS*

URING the three months ending December 10, the continuing D Centennial Membership Drive has brought the Society 4 life members (of which 2 changed from annual memberships), and 183 new annual members. In the same period, 16 members were lost by death (and 93 were dropped by request or for non-payment of dues). The total membership on December 10 was 3,417. This total includes 144 exchanges, 43 local societies, and 3,230 members (of these 2,890 were Wisconsin members, 340 were out of State members). The STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is still the second largest historical society in the country. The new members are C. W. Aeppler, Oconomowoc; Harris G. Allen, Madison; R. Wayne Allison, Nashotah; A. G. Anderson, Wausau; Gilbert L. Anderson, Reedsburg; Gordon F. Anderson, Kenosha; Grace B. Anderson, Racine; Mrs. F. E. Bachhuber, Wau- sau; Mrs. Leland H. Barker, Wisconsin Rapids; Arlyn C. Bartz, West Allis; Stephanie C. Bayer, Wauwatosa; Walter W. Beckard, Mil- waukee; L. Verona Bekkedal, Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Charles H. Berndt, Lake Geneva; Harry M. Bishop, Neenah; Mrs. Rose Blazei, Kewaunee; the Rev. H. A. Block, Berlin; L. Ernest Boehler, Mil- waukee; Willard A. Bowman, Milwaukee; F. W. Braun, Wausau; Mrs. Sophia Brewer, Madison; Fred E. Brigham, Janesville; Walter C. Brill, Oostburg; H. C. Brockel, Milwaukee; Raymond E. Brooks, Milwaukee; Merlin W. Brose, West Allis; George G. Brumder, Hartland; Marjorie J. Burdick, Milton; Bertha A. Burkhardt, Hudson; Howard W. Cameron, Rice Lake; Mrs. William F. Casselman, Mil- waukee; Fay B. Coon, Milton; Dr. G. E. Crosley, Milton; G. B. Cum- ming, Milwaukee; Darien Consolidated Schools, Darien; Lillian Davis, West Allis; Karl Dettman, Random Lake; Mrs. Mable A. De Witt, Sayner; E. F. Dietz, Madison; Mrs. Dorothe Disrude, Edgerton; Charles B. Dunn, Evanston, Illinois; James Durfee, Antigo; Siewert Dymbe, Milwaukee; Mrs. R. J. Ellsworth, Cincinnati, Ohio; T. B. Engelking, Kohler; Dorothy J. Ernst, Wauwatosa; Stella Evraets, Green Bay; Robert L. Feind, Milwaukee; Albert H. Fenner, Wau- watosa; Herman J. Fink, Milwaukee; Fond du Lac Vocational School, Fond du Lac; E. T. Foote, Milwaukee; Mrs. Morris F. Fox, Milwau- kee; Frederic High School, Frederic; Henry C. Friend, Milwaukee;

* An asterisk after a person's name indicates joint membership with a local society and the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 361 362 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

Lillian M. Froggatt, Menomonie; Edward Fromm, Hamburg; Han- nah I. Gardner, Milwaukee; Lyle M. Garnett, Milwaukee; Henry G. Gergen, Jr., Beaver Dam; Dr. E. C. Glenn, Wisconsin Rapids; Verna B. Graham, Racine; Green Bay Extension Center, Green Bay; Dr. William E. Ground, Superior; Eleanor A. Grunwald, Milwaukee; William R. Gwinn, Bristol; George Hall, Madison (Life); Julian E. Harris, Madison; Ross W. Harris, Madison; Walter Harris, Ash- land; Winifred R. Harvey, Amherst; Oscar C. Hay ward, Winnetka, Illinois; Mrs. John B. Heath, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Herman Heinzelman, Monroe; Myron T. Herreid, Edwardsville, Illinois; Mrs. Henry W. Hincks, Bridgeport, Connecticut; Mrs. Marcus Hobart, Evanston, Illinois; Mrs. Henry Hoffman, Burlington; Mrs. Harold Illing, Waukesha; Burleigh E. Jacobs, Wauwatosa; Mrs. J. Clifford Janes, St. Paul, Minnesota; J. Clifford Janes, St. Paul, Minnesota; William R. Jen- sen, Friendship; Harry G. John, Jr., Wauwatosa; L. O. Johnson, Sr., Neenah; Wilma Johnson, Blanchardville (Life); H. W. Jones, Milwau- kee; Mildred M. Kaeding, Madison; Mrs. Margaret Kenehan, Milwau- kee; Mrs. Arthur Knudson, Milwaukee; Violet I. Knutson, Waukesha; G. H. Koenig,* Waukesha; Bertha Kohl, Waupun; Dr. J. H. Kolter, Wausau; Bernard G. Korn, Milwaukee; Frank Kozmeyer, Hatley; Richard A. Kremers, Milwaukee; Donald Lahr, Franksville; Ella A. Larsen, Milwaukee; Stella Leverson, Deerfield; Ada B. Lothe, Milwau- kee; F. Winston Luck, Milwaukee; Ed. E. Lyon, Hixton; Helen G. Mclntyre, Racine; Lester J. Maitland, Madison; Mrs. Robert A. Mane- gold, Wauwatosa; the Rev. F. J. Mehigan, Evansville; Jerome Mehr- inger, Butler; Joseph Mercedes, Rhinelander; Merrill School, Beloit; Mrs. Alfred J. Meyer, Milwaukee; Alfred J. Meyer, Milwaukee; Walter H. Meyer, Menominee Falls; Central Michigan College Library, Mount Pleasant, Michigan; University of Michigan General Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Glenn Midthun, Wauwatosa; the Rev. Charles Neu, •New Holstein; Nicholson Avenue School, Cudahy; Serials Division, University of Notre Dame Library, Notre Dame, Indiana; Mrs. Haskell Noyes, Milwaukee; Mrs. Ethel Olson, South Wayne; Kenneth F. Olson, Milwaukee; Mrs. D. H. Otis, Madison; Mrs. Charlotte B. Owen,* Hartland; Dorothy Park, Madison; Elgin Paskey, Poynette; Eleanor L. Peterson, Madison; Maurice J. Peterson, Merrill; Doris Platt, Madison; the Rev. Alphonse S. Popek, Milwaukee; Mrs. W. H. Prahl, Schofield; Jay H. Price, Wauwatosa; Richard Radcliff, Madison; Arthur F. Radde, Winnebago; George W. Rapps, Milwaukee; P. C. Read, Elm Grove; Margaret Reynolds, Milwaukee; Festa G. Rieck, East Troy; A. Nettie Romanowski, Cudahy; Stanley J. Rosiak, Milwaukee; Silvan K. Sal- beck, Milwaukee; Mrs. John L. Sammis, Madison; Mrs. Tessie Lou Sargeant, Milwaukee; Hugo A. Schlick, Jr., Milwaukee; Charles Schlom, Madison; Elmer Schreiber, Thiensville; Mrs. Alfred R. Schultz, Hud- son; Arthur Schwebs, De Forest; Erwin A. Seidel, Milwaukee; Mrs. Elston E. Shaw, Milton; Mrs. Joseph Silverness, Mondovi; Mrs. Adean 1949} THE SOCIETY 363

Smith, Darlington; Bernard Smith, La Farge; H. T. Smith, Hixton; Mrs. Flora Belle Spaid, Lac du Flambeau; Monica Staedtler, Madison; L. R. Stark, Wauwatosa; Leroy O. Steller, Milwaukee; Bertram Steven- son, Milwaukee; Mrs. Veronica Stixrood, South Wayne; James L. Stone, Ripon; Dr. William H., Studley, Milwaukee; Ronald Terrell, Oshkosh; Clarence Thomas, Milwaukee; Mrs. Harry Tolkan, Merril- lan; Edward G. Trueblood, Washington, D.C.; Ralph A. Uihlein, Mil- waukee; Frank W. Van Kirk, Sr., Janesville; Ervin Viegut, Athens; Mrs. Alice N. Waring, Hughes, Arkansas; Wausau Extension Center, Wausau; Wausau Junior High School Library, Wausau; Mrs. Andrew J. Weaver, Madison; Armand C. Weiss, Milwaukee; Dr. John M. Welsch, Beaver Dam; Viola Wendt,* Waukesha; Edwin N. West, Appleton; Marvin H. Wexler, Janesville; Ada White, Madison; William Winkler, Milwaukee; Peter H. Wittrock, Madison; Charlotte R. Wood, Madison; Anthony Wuchterl, Wauwatosa; Charles Zadok, Milwaukee. The following members have changed their status from annual to life memberships: Dorothy Enderis, Milwaukee, and Vine Miller, Eau Claire.

NECROLOGY The following members of the Society have died recently: Dr. George V. Brown, Milwaukee, April 2, 1948; the Rev. Carl H. Buenger, Kenosha, October 21, 1948; Roy R. Cramer, Milwaukee, March 11, 1948; Dr. Otho A. Fiedler, Sheboygan, June 22, 1948; Irving A. Fish, Milwaukee, April 22, 1948; Bessie G. Frank, Chicago, July 2, 1948; Emma J. Gardner, Milwaukee, October 18, 1948; Karl F. McMurry, Madison, March 2, 1948; Daniel W. Mead, Madison, October 13, 1948; Cora F. Nau, Green Bay, October 27, 1948; Karl S. Reynolds, Sturgeon Bay, December 5, 1948; Judson G. Rosebush, Appleton, July 31, 1948; Lougee Stedman, Sturgeon Bay, Decem- ber 5, 1948.

JUNIOR HISTORIANS CHAPTERS In this quarter, October 11 through December 10, 1948, 362 chapters have been formed in 56 counties, with a total membership of 5,467. The total for the year beginning September 10 and running through December 10, 1948, is 9,741. The list of these additional chapters is as follows: Adams County—Easton Grade School, Route 2 (Grand Marsh), 10. Ashland County—High School (Ashland), 25. Ban on County—Walt Whitman School, Route 3 (Rice Lake), 10; Horseshoe Lake School (Turtle Lake), 10. Brown County—Chappell School, Grades 4-5 (Green Bay), 21; Elmore School, Grades 5-6 (Green Bay), 34; Fort Howard School, Grade 5 (Green Bay), 27; Jackson School (Green Bay), 39; Lincoln School (Green Bay), 30; Nicolet School (Green Bay), 13; Nicolet 364 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

School (Green Bay), 23; Oneida Mission School, Grades 5-8 (Oneida),6. Buffalo County—Buffalo County Normal School (Alma), 10. Chippewa County—Stillson School, Route 4 (Chippewa Falls), 13. Clark County—Public School, Grade 8 (Neillsville), 16. Columbia County—Rosedale School (Cambria), 3; Slab School (Cambria), 15; Columbia County Normal School (Columbus), 13; Otsego Village School (Columbus), 10; Sutton School (Columbus), 7; Bellefountain School (Dalton), 8; Bennett School (Fall River), 8; Brace School (Fall River), 9; Englewood School (Fall River), 12; State Graded School (Friesland), 25; Lake Okee School (Okee), 14; Blaisdell School (Pardeeville), 6; Silicaville School, Route 2 (Pardee- ville), 5; Dog Hollow School (Portage), 5; Forrest School (Portage), 7; Leo A. Devine School (Portage), 15; Menominee School, Route 3 (Portage), 7; Oak Grove School, Route 3 (Portage), 7; Stauden- mayer School (Portage), 4; Inch School (Poynette), 6; Jefferson School (Poynette), 8; Langlade School, Route 2 (Poynette), 8; Lin- coln (Poynette), 13; Smoky Hollow School (Poynette), 6; Fern Dell School (Wisconsin Dells), 10; Levee School (Wisconsin Dells), 7; ^ofson School (Wisconsin Dells), 5. Crawford County—Public School (Prairie du Chien), 31; Porter School (Wauzeka), 8. Dane County—S. W. Oakland School (Cambridge), 10; Graded School, Grade 6 (De Forest), 21; Albian State Graded School, Route 2 (Edgerton), 18; Blessed Sacrament School, Grade 7B (Madison), 9; Blessed Sacrament School, Grade 7A (Madison), 19; Children of American Revolution, Route 3 (Madison), 9; Silver Springs School, Route 3 (Madison), 20; Dunlap Hollow School, Grades 7-8 (Mazo- manie), 11; Leeds Center School (Morrisonville), 6; South Leeds School (Morrisonville), 7; Public School (Mount Horeb), 36; Fitch- burg Center School (Oregon), 10; Central Grade School (Stoughton), 14; Central School (Stoughton), 28; Goff School, Route 3 (Stoughton), 8; Junior High School (Stoughton), 45; Star School, Route 3 (Stough- ton), 5; Middleton Miracle Makers 4-H Club, Route 1 (Verona), 16. Dodge County—High School (Beaver Dam), 31; High School (Beaver Dam), 27. Door County—Hainesville School, Route 4 (Sturgeon Bay), 6; Stokes School, Route 6 (West Sturgeon Bay), 13. Eau Claire County—Junior High School (Augusta), 44; Russell Corners School (Augusta), 10; Bowman School (Eau Claire), 10; Mount Hope School, Route 5 (Eau Claire), 11; Second Ward School (Eau Claire), 22; Seventh Ward School, Grade 5 (Eau Claire), 12; Public School (Fairchild), 28; Pine View School, Route 3 (Fall Creek), 10. Florence County—Public School, Grade 8 (Florence), 16. Fond du Lac County—Grant School (Brandon), 7; Round Prairie School, Route 1 (Brandon), 4; Dodd School (Eldorado), 10; Bragg 1949) THE SOCIETY 365

School, Grade 4 (Fond du Lac), 27; Bragg School, Grade 4 (Fond du Lac), 11; Jefferson School, Grade 5 (Fond du Lac), 15; Camp Ground School, Route 2 (Oakfield), 5; Coles Corner School, Route 1 (Rosen- dale), 6; Alto Village School, Route 1 (Waupun), 10. Grant County—State Graded School (Beetown), 22; North Hol- low School (Cuba City), 5; Muscallonge School (Glen Haven), 6; Public School (Glen Haven), 10; Hurricane School (Lancaster), 9; Pigeon Valley 4-H Club (Lancaster), 9; Greenwood School (Living- ston), 13; Rock School (Livingston), 11; Arthur School (Platteville), 18; Big Patch School (Platteville), 10; Casper School (Platteville), 10; Franklin School (Platteville), 7; High School, Grade 7 (Platte- ville), 15; Lone School (Platteville), 10; Public School (Platteville), 6; Public School (Platteville), 2; Rock School, Route 4 (Platteville), 4; Willow Creek School, Grades 7-8 (Potosi), 5. Green County—Public School (Brodhead), 20; Blaine School, Route 3 (Monroe), 9. Green Lake County—Davenport School, Star Route (Berlin), 3; Spoor School, Route 1 (Berlin), 11; Marcellon Stone School (Dalton), 10. Iowa County—High School (Highland), 12; Pleasant View School, Route 2 (Mineral Point), 5. Jackson County—Wrightville School (Alma Center), 9; Disco School (Black River Falls), 15; Papoose Creek School (Black River Falls), 11; Pleasant View School (Black River Falls), 44; Public School (City Point), 10; Schermerhorn School (Hixton), 12; Shady Glen School, Route 2 (Hixton), 9; Highland School (Melrose), 5; Pleasant Valley School (Melrose), 10; West Indies School (Melrose), 4; Requa School (Osseo), 12; Graded School (Taylor), 29. Jefferson County—Black Hawk School, Route 3 (Fort Atkinson), 6; High School (Watertown), 33; Junior High School (Watertown), 39; Pipersville School, Route 3 (Watertown), 10; River Road School, Route 4 (Watertown), 14. Juneau County—Wafle School No. 9 (Mauston), 9; Juneau County Normal School (New Lisbon), 25; Fox School, Route 2 (Wonewoc), 14; Hill View School (Wonewoc), 12; Valton School (Wonewoc), 10. Kenosha County—Bassett School (Bassett), 6; Bain School, Grade 6 (Kenosha), 31; Hillcrest School, Route 3 (Kenosha), 47; Pleasant Prairie School, Route 2 (Kenosha), 31; Victory School (Kenosha), 12; Liberty Corners School, Grade 6 (Salem), 10. Kewaunee County—Door-Kewaunee Normal School (Algoma), 24; Lincoln Graded School (Forestville), 17; High School (Kewaunee), 16; Wayside School, Route 1 (Kewaunee), 11; Graded School (Rio Creek), 24. La Crosse County—Franklin School, Grade 6 (La Crosse), 15; Franklin School, Grade 6 (La Crosse), 4; Franklin School, Grade 5 (La Crosse), 11; Franklin School, Grade 5 (La Crosse), 11; Hogan 366 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

School, Grade 6 (La Crosse), 36; Jefferson School, Grade 6 (La Crosse), 19; Jefferson School, Grade 6 (La Crosse), 21; Jefferson School, Grade 5 (La Crosse), 15; Lincoln Junior High School (La Crosse), 25; Lower French Island School, Mounted Route 42 (La Crosse), 18. Lafayette County—Zion School (P.O. Warren, Illinois), 5. Langlade County—St. John School (Antigo), 6; Public School (White Lake), 16; Public School, Grade 7 (White Lake), 20. Lincoln County—High School Building, Grades 5-6 (Tomahawk), 27. Manitowoc County—Elder Grove School (Kiel), 5; Maple Corner School, Route 2 (Kiel), 10; Graded School (Maribel), 11; Grade School (Mishicot), 25; Twin Elder School, Route 1 (Two Rivers), 10. Marathon County—Dewey School, Route 1 (Ringle), 15; Grove- side School (Spencer), 10. Marinette County—State Graded School (Beaver), 24. Marquette County—Grade School (Montello), 16; Public School (Neshkoro), 8; Grade School, Grades 7-8 (Westfield), 25. Milwaukee County—Kosciusko School, Grade 8 (Cudahy), 15; Public School (Cudahy), 13; Thompson School, Grades 4-5 (Cudahy), 21; Benjamin Franklin School (Milwaukee), 62; Blaine School, Grade 6 (Milwaukee), 35; Blaine School, Grade 5 (Milwaukee), 26; Brown Deer School, Grade 8 (Milwaukee), 9; Custer High School, Grades 7-8 (Milwaukee), 83; Emanuel L. Philipp School (Milwaukee), 41; Eugene Field School (Milwaukee), 18; Green Bay Avenue School (Milwaukee), 111; Hi Mount Blvd. School (Milwaukee), 34; Hick- ory Grove School, Route 2 (Milwaukee), 18; Messmer High School (Milwaukee), 54; Milwaukee Country Day School (Milwaukee), 19; North Thirty-Sixth Street School, Grade 6 (Milwaukee), 40; Peck- ham Junior High School (Milwaukee), 79; Riverview School (Mil- waukee), 31; St. John Cathedral High School (Milwaukee), 25; St. Joseph Catholic School (Milwaukee), 30; Thirty-First Street School (Milwaukee), 11; Thirty-First Street School (Milwaukee), 16; Walker Junior High School (Milwaukee), 34; Wisconsin Avenue School (Milwaukee), 32; Wisconsin Avenue School (Milwaukee), 23; Wisconsin Avenue School (Milwaukee), 19; Wisconsin Avenue School (Milwaukee), 28; High School (Shorewood), 23; Fisher School, Grades 4-5 (Wauwatosa), 25; Jefferson School (Wauwatosa), 12; Milwaukee County Home for Dependent Children (Wauwatosa), 50; Washington School (Wauwatosa), 26; Washington School, Grades 5-6 (Wauwatosa), 28; Wilson School (Wauwatosa), 12; General Douglas MacArthur School, Grades 5-6 (West Allis), 27; Hillcrest School (West Allis), 14; La Follette School (West Allis), 36; La Fol- lette School (West Allis), 18; Lane School (West Allis), 33. Oneida County—Arbor Vitae-Woodruff School, Grade 7 (Wood- ruff), 20. 1949] THE SOCIETY 367

Outagamie County—Public School (Combined Locks), 11. Pepin County—Lima Consolidated State Graded School, Route 1 (Durand),10. Pierce County—Public School, Grade 8 (Prescott), 12; Public School (Prescott), 19. Polk County—Public School (Dresser), 21; Graded School, Grade 7 (Frederic), 29; Lincoln School (Luck), 8. Portage County—High School (Amherst), 38. Racine County—Drought School, Route 2 (Caledonia), 12; Public School (Honey Creek), 6; Jefferson School (Racine), 7; N. D. Fratt School, Grade 6 (Racine), 31; School Sisters of St. Francis (Racine), 14; Stephen Bull School, Grade 3 (Racine), 16. Richland County—Little Bear School, Route 1 (Lone Rock), 8. Rock County—Summerville School, Route 3 (Clinton), 12; Tullar School, Route 3 (Evansville), 10; Crall School (Footville), 13; Austin School, Route 4 (Janesville), 13; Junior High School, Grades 8-9 (Janesville), 41; Mouat School, Route 1 (Janesville), . 13; Public School, Grade 5 (Janesville), 28; Roosevelt School, Grade 5 (Janes- ville), 32; Wilson School, Grade 5 (Janesville), 36; Wilson School (Janesville), 25; Wilson School, Grade 5 (Janesville), 35; Crandall School, Route 1 (Milton), 7. St. Croix County—Riverside School (Baldwin), 12; Pine Heights School (Glenwood City), 10; Burkhardt School (Hudson), 10; Wagon Landing School (Star Prairie), 4; Public School, Grades 7-8 (Wood- ville),20. Souk County—Public School (Badger), 34; City View School, Route 1 (Baraboo), 9; Lower Narrows School, Route 2 (Baraboo), 5; Lower Webster Prairie School, Route 3 (Baraboo), 8; Man Mound School, Route 2 (Baraboo), 10; Pewitts' Nest School (Baraboo), 14; Shady Lawn School, Route 4 (Baraboo), 6; Sunshine Valley School (Baraboo), 8; Sunny Hill School, Route 2 (Baraboo), 5; Hickory Grove School (Hillpoint), 6; Bethel School (La Valle), 10; Litz School (La, Valle), 5; State Graded School (La Valle), 19; Grade School (Lime Ridge), 6; Elder Ridge School (Loganville), 19; Honey Creek Ridge School (Loganville), 11; Leland School (Loganville), 15; Dur- ward's Glen School (Merrimac), 8; Diamond Hill School (North Freedom), 10; King's Corner School, Route 2 (North Freedom), 6; Hilldrop School (Plain), 11; Little Prairie School (Plain), 5; Sunny- side School (Plain), 7; Hillside School, Route 1 (Prairie du Sac), 6; Valley School, Route 1 (Prairie du Sac), 8; Excelsior No. 6 School (Reedsburg), 11; Oakland School, Route 3 (Reedsburg), 11; Green Valley School (Rock Springs), 8; Fair Valley School, Route 1 (Sauk City), 5; Pine Grove School, Route 1 (Sauk City), 8; Badger Valley School (Spring Green), 3; Hayes School (Spring Green), 4; Pleasant View School (Spring Green), 4. Sheboygan County—Silver Creek School, Route 1 (Random Lake), 15; Sheridan School, Grades 7-8 (Sheboygan), 13; Washington School 368 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

(Sheboygan), 23; High School, Grades 6-7-8 (Waldo), 30. Taylor County—4-H Club (Stetsonville), 1. Trempealeau County—Beach School (Ettrick), 14; Hegg State Graded School (Ettrick), 10; State Graded School, Grades 6-7-8 (Ettrick), 24; Wayside School (Ettrick), 5; Public School, Grade 5 (Galesville), 10; Church View School (Osseo), 4; Eimon School (Osseo), 9; State Graded School (Pigeon Falls), 17. Vernon County—Battle Hollow School (De Soto), 11; Champion Valley School (Hillsboro), 6; Lyster School (Readstown), 7; Public School (Victory), 11; Colonel May School (Viroqua), 7; Ole Torger School (Viroqua), 8. Wdworth County—Public School, Grades 5-8 (Honey Creek), 27; Central School, Grade 6 (Lake Geneva), 17; Troy Lake School, Grade 5 (Mukwonago), 4; Spring Brook School, Route 3 (Whitewater), 10. Washburn County—Tadpole School (Trego), 10. Washington County—High School (West Bend), 11; McLane School, Grade 8 (West Bend), 34; McLane School, Grades 7-8 (West Bend), 19; McLane School, Grade 7 (West Bend), 33; McLane School, Grade 6 (West Bend), 17; McLane School, Grade 5 (West Bend), 28; McLane School, Grade 4 (West Bend), 8. Waukesha County—Eagleville School (Eagle), 21; Genesee State Graded School, Route 1 (Mukwonago), 12; Jericho School (Muk- wonago), 13; Stone School (Mukwonago), 7; State Graded School (North Prairie), 18; Lakeside School, Grade 6, Route 3 (Pewaukee), 10; Graded School, Grade 7, Route 3 (Pewaukee), 23; State Graded School (Sussex), 49; State Graded School (Wales), 20; Junior High School (Waukesha), 494. Waupaca County—Copenhagen School (Fremont), 7; Northport State Graded School, Route 3 (New London), 16; 4-H Farmington Club, Route 4 (Waupaca), 14. Waushara County—Tustin School, Route 2 (Fremont), 8; Guernsey Dale School, Route 1 (Wautoma), 10; Progressive School (Wau- toma), 10; Spring Lake School, Route 2 (Wautoma), 8. Winnebago County—Grand View School, Route 1 (Larsen), 12; Jefferson School, Grades 5-6 (Menasha), 32; Kimberly School, Grade 6 (Neenah), 22; Kimberly School, Grade 6 (Neenah), 19; Kimberly School, Grade 5 (Neenah), 24; Kimberly School, Grade 5 (Neenah), 28; Lincoln School, Grade 5 (Neenah), 26; Lincoln School, Grade 4 (Neenah), 21; McKinley School, Grade 5 (Neenah), 28; McKinley School, Grade 4 (Neenah), 22; Roosevelt School, Grade 6 (Neenah), 30; Roosevelt School, Grade 5 (Neenah), 20; Roosevelt School, Grade 4 (Neenah), 25; Royer School, Route 2 (Neenah), 12; Tullar School, Route 1 (Neenah), 13; Valley Brook School, Route 2 (Nee- nah), 13; Washington School, Grade 4 (Neenah), 26; Heffron School, Route 2 (Omro), 9; High School, Grade 9 (Omro), 58; Hill School, Route 2 (Omro), 8; Public School (Omro), 9; Public School, Grade 6 (Omro), 12; Public School, Grade 5 (Omro), 28; Allenville School, 1949] THE SOCIETY 369

Route 5 (Oshkosh), 14; Boyd School, Route 2 (Oshkosh), 17; Butte des Morts School, Route 4 (Oshkosh), 10; Golden Rod School, Route 2 (Oshkosh), 15; High School (Oshkosh), 87; Mikesville School, Route 5 (Oshkosh), 9; Rose C. Swart Training School (Osh- kosh), 29; Waukau School (Waukau), 15; White School (Winne- conne), 12. Wood County—Riverview School, Route 1 (Marshfield), 12; Graded School (Pittsville), 40; Pleasant View School, Route 4 (Wis- consin Rapids), 6; Ross School, Route 2 (Wisconsin Rapids), 8.

MANUSCRIPT ACCESSIONS During his life, Albert O. Barton, historian, journalist, and political figure, was widely known for his varied interests and activities. A native of Primrose in Dane County, he grew up on a farm near the one belonging to the La Follette family. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1896, he remained for a year of addi- tional study in history and English, and then traveled to the British Isles. Upon his return to the United States, he became a newspaper reporter, first in Madison, later in Denver and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Between 1910 and 1912, he served as senate clerk for Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and for many years was an enthusiastic participant in the Progressive Party movement in Wisconsin. During World War I he was director of the State War History Commission. From 1920 to 1929 he was associate editor of the Wisconsin Farmer, a farm weekly widely circulated in the Midwest, and for a period was also chief deputy in the State Oil Inspection department. After twelve years of service on the Dane County Board, he was elected register of deeds in 1935, a position he held until his death. In addition to writ- ing numerous periodical and newspaper articles, usually on some aspect of Wisconsin history, he published in 1922 La Vollette's Win- ning of Wisconsin, 1894-1904, and collaborated in the preparation of several other Wisconsin volumes. The collection of his papers, which he bequeathed to the Society, reflects the many colorful facets of his career. Comprising a large portion of the manuscripts are his files of correspondence, covering mainly the years from 1916 to 1947, and including not only incoming letters but also carbon copies or drafts of those which he himself wrote. The topics varied—discussion of many aspects of local and State history, Norwegian settlement in the United States after 1825, contemporary literature, and politics. Many of his correspondents were persons of little or no public fame, some desiring him to publish their poems or stories, some asking for political or financial favors, some furnishing him with recollections or information on early com- munities in Wisconsin, particularly those in Dane County. Others were persons of literary note—M. M. Quaife, Joseph Schafer, Theodore Blegen, H. R. Holand, Zona Gale, Carl Russell Fish, August Derleth, 370 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

Philip La Follette, and John J. Blaine. Political topics were frequently discussed in the letters exchanged among the editors of the Wisconsin Farmer and in the correspondence among the members of the staff of the Oil Inspection department. A larger portion of the collection includes Barton's drafts of articles and his notes, which have been left largely in his own arrangement and organization of topics. Among the most interesting and valuable material is that which he gathered on the life of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and on the La Follette family history. Some he had collected for use by Mrs. La Follette in her proposed biography of her husband, and some Barton had hoped to use in another volume of his own. These papers include records of interviews, copies of scarce documents, and correspondence with members of the family. There are, however, few manuscripts by the elder La Follette himself: only an occasional letter, and penciled notes for two speeches in Congress about 1910. Similar in type and organization but smaller in amount were the notes which Barton collected on other figures: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, John F. Appleby, Ole Bull, Hans C. Heg, and Marcus Thrane. Other groups of notes include interesting and little known information on early Madison and Dane County, a subject on which Barton became a particularly noted authority. There are also data on soldiers of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Wisconsin, copies of old cemetery inscriptions, and material on Scandinavian settlement in the State. These loose papers are supplemented by a number of notebooks containing additional records and interviews. Included also in the papers are a few small groups of contemporary manuscripts: scattered papers of B. W. Suckow, early Madison printer and bookbinder, and the correspondence during the 1860's of Ole C. Johnson of Stoughton, who became lieutenant colonel of the Fifteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. Typewritten drafts of Barton's contributions to the pages of the Wisconsin Farmer and of many of his other compositions for publi- cation or for delivery as radio addresses, copies of original stories, poems, and a play are all found in his papers. Scrapbooks in which he filed chiefly copies of his newspaper column, " Old Days," complete the collection. A notable addition to the Society's manuscripts, the Albert O. Barton Papers will yield light on many questions, particularly to researchers interested in almost forgotten bits of local history, or in La Follette and the Progressives in Wisconsin. A small collection of papers concerning rural planning and coloni- zation in northern Wisconsin has been presented by Mrs. Benjamin F. Faast of Eau Claire. The papers were collected by her late hus- band, who was president of the Wisconsin Colonization Company of southern Sawyer County and was interested in other promotional projects, including the establishment of a children's home at Lake Hallie by the Brotherhood of American Yeomen. 1949} THE SOCIETY 371

The papers cover the period from 1916 to 1938, and consist of letters to stockholders and directors of the Wisconsin Colonization Company, correspondence with settlers, sales letters, notices, and other business papers. One portion deals with the development of the village of Ojibwa, and includes townsite and community center names suggested, estimates and reports on public utilities, restrictions and protections necessary to make the place an ideal community in which to live, work, and play. Maps and photographs illustrate this inter- esting project. Mr. Faast also collected historical data on the upper Chippewa River region. At his request articles on the Lac Court Oreilles Indian reservation and early transportation among the Indians and lumber- men of northern Wisconsin were written by various people, some of which are included. A short history of southern Sawyer County very entertainingly depicts the story of the Sioux and Ojibway warriors, relates the history of the fur trade and lumbering industry, and con- tains biographical notes on some of the early settlers.

A description of the joyful celebration of Lee's surrender to Grant, held by a group of Union soldiers who received the news in a Virginia hospital, is contained in one of the Civil War letters written by a Wis- consin soldier, Lieutenant William Henry Church. The correspondence, addressed mainly to his wife, Ellen Durkee Church of Leeds, during the closing months of the war, is part of a small group of manuscripts relating to Lieutenant Church's participation in the conflict. Enlisting as a corporal in the Second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry in 1861, he was gradually promoted in rank, was transferred to the Sixth Wis- consin Volunteer Infantry in 1864, and was wounded in three battles. His papers were given to the Society by Henry I. Church of New Braunfels, Texas.

Several manuscripts of interest for the early medical history of Wisconsin have been added to the Society's collections. A book of prescriptions used in the 1880's has been the gift of Dr. John J. Looze of Wisconsin Rapids. Dr. Jesse Mecum, pioneer physician of Bagley, has contributed his autobiographical reminiscences and a daybook kept from 1898 to 1901. Dr. James S. Reeve of Appleton has pre- sented through the State Medical Society a small group of papers of his father, Dr. James T. Reeve, who practiced at times in De Pere, Green Bay, and Appleton, served as surgeon with the Tenth and Twenty-first Regiments of Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, and later was one of the organizers of the State Board of Health. Dr. Reeve's papers include a diary and memoranda book with entries from November, 1863, to August, 1864, his daybooks for 1873 and 1889, and a biographical sketch. 372 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

The story of the founding of the First Presbyterian Church of Holland in 1848 by a group of Dutch pioneers and of its subsequent development into the First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Grove was related by Walter C. Brill and Jennie S. Brill of Oostburg in a brief history written to commemorate the Centennial of the congregation. A typewritten copy has been thoughtfully presented to the Society.

One of the Wisconsin citizens who sought his fortune in the Cali- fornia gold rush was Andrew Orvis, who left Lake Maria in Marquette County in March, 1849. From the Yale University Library the Society has purchased microfilm of his journal. Vividly he described the dis- couragement and difficulties met in crossing the plains, mountains, and desert regions on his westward trip which took almost five months. After reaching the California " diggings," he hired out as a miner, but out of the $112 he earned in a month he could save only $15 because of the high cost of living. With this remainder he bought a pan, pick, and provisions, went prospecting for himself, and gradually began to accumulate savings. During the rainy winter season he visited Sacramento, then a town of " rags[,] houses and tents," with flourishing gambling establishments, muddy streets, and dead cattle lying uncared for—conditions which impelled him to write that " of all the places I ever saw this is the worst." Yet a letter, written there to his wife, indicated that he had caught the spirit of optimism, and wished to stay another season. At the end of the journal are accounts, recipes, medicinal prescriptions, and miscellaneous entries probably made after Orvis returned to Wisconsin.

Other manuscript accessions include: six volumes of miscellaneous records of Troop A, First Cavalry of the Wisconsin National Guard from 1891 to 1917, including cash books, muster rolls, and a letter book kept by Captain R. W. Mueller, presented by the Light Horse Squadron Association through John P. Carey of Milwaukee; a land certificate dated December 10, 1840, to be added to the John Fox Potter Papers, presented by Margaret, Frieda, and Harriet Reynolds; a typewritten account of early excavations in 1887 and 1888 on the site of the old French fort near Trempealeau by Benjamin F. Hueston, one of the participants, presented by Mrs. Burr W. Jones of Madison, who obtained it from Myron Hueston of Seattle, grandson of the author.

MUSEUM ACCESSIONS Most noteworthy of the Museum's accessions during the centennial year was the collection of costumes received from The Committee on Wisconsin Women through Mrs. Herbert V. Kohler, Chairman of the Committee. This collection consisting of two hundred and fifteen items included seventy-five complete dresses or suits, and several 1949] THE SOCIETY 373 undergarments, nightgowns, negligees, blouses and waists, wraps, shawls, hats, muffs, shoes, aprons, bathing suits, and an assortment of accessories such as fans, parasols, gloves and handkerchieves. Mis- cellaneous items included a Civil War canteen, an American flag with thirty-four stars, a lumber rule, parlor stove from about 1875, two music books, a woman's side saddle, rolling pin, Christmas card from 1880, a watch, a rocking chair, a lace making stand, an office desk and chair from about 1880 or 1890, two framed groups of manuscripts, one a framed collection of Sheppard and Tank correspondence, and some Paul Bunyan drawings. The gift from The Committee on Wisconsin Women was of special interest not only because of its scope and size, but for the inclusion of forty-one of the mannequins which had been designed for the exhibi- tion of the costumes in the Women's Building at the Centennial Exposition. These mannequins and the remainder of the collection were installed in two of the Museum's galleries for the presentation ceremony on November 12 and where they are to remain on exhibition until summer. The seventy-five individual donors of the materials in this excellent collection are listed below: Mrs. John E. Alexander, Port Edwards; Mrs. Henry Baldwin, Wis- consin Rapids; Mr. and Mrs. George Banta, Menasha; Mrs. Edgar C. Barnes, Ripon; family of Walter E. Bartholomew, Lodi; Mrs. Fred H. Baume, La Crosse; Carola Berry, Milwaukee; Mrs. Wayne D. Bird, Madison; Mrs. Gustavus E. Buchanan, Appleton; Mrs. George Cerny, West Bend; Mrs. Lester W. Conger, Kohler; Mrs. R. C. Crain, Port Edwards; Mrs. Herbert Curtis, Milwaukee; Mrs. E. W. Ellis, Wisconsin Rapids; Mrs. Ruth Falvey, Menasha; Mrs. Grant Fitch, Milwaukee; Mrs. Martin Fladoes, Milwaukee; Mrs. Charles I. Foster, Mukwonago; Mrs. Walter L. Fraser, Milwaukee; Mrs. Stanley Hauxhurst, Milwaukee; Mrs. William Huffman, Wisconsin Rapids; Mrs. Reginald H. Jackson, Madison; Mrs. John F. Johnston, Milwaukee; Mrs. Daniel Kimberly, Neenah; Mrs. Joseph Koffend, Jr., Appleton; Mrs. Herbert V. Kohler, Kohler; Mrs. G. W. Kuechenmeister, West Bend; Martha Kuechen- meister, West Bend; Lodi Parent-Teacher Association, Lodi; Mrs. William R. McCaul, Tomah; Mrs. F. Gordon McGeoch, Thiensville; Ethel MacKinnon, Menasha; Mrs. William Marshall, Milwaukee; Mrs. William S. Middleton, Madison; Mrs. George P. Miller, Milwaukee; Mrs. Wallace Mitton, Shawano; Mrs. Dudley Montgomery, Madison; Mrs. Thompson Montgomery, Milwaukee; Carrie E. Morgan, Appleton; Mrs. H. L. Moseley, Madison; Mrs. George D. Naser, Kewaunee; Mrs. Lawrence E. Nash, Wisconsin Rapids; Mrs. Thomas O'Meara, West Bend; Mrs. Frederick Pabst, Oconomowoc; Mrs. Merle C. Palmer, Madi- son; Mrs. A. G. Perschbacher, West Bend; Thecla Pick, West Bend; Sally E. Pleasants, Menasha; Mrs. John H. Puelicher, Milwaukee; Mrs. Clara Quigg, Tomah; Mrs. E. L. Rasey, Beloit; Amelia Richie, Los 374 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

Angeles, California; Mrs. F. W. Rittler, Mukwonago; Mrs. L. W. Roberts, Wauwatosa; Clara Rolfs, West Bend; Mary E. Rusk, Los Angeles, California; Ellen Sabin, Madison; Frances Sackerson, "West Bend; Mrs. Phillip Schwartz, Sufiield, Connecticut; Mrs. John Sensen- brenner, Menasha; Mrs. Tessie L. Sergeant, Milwaukee; Mrs. Gertrude T. Slaughter, Madison; Amelia F. Stevens, Madison; Mrs. Regina Strover, Appleton; Mrs. Helen K. Stuart, Neenah; Mrs. William Z. Stuart, Neenah; Mrs. Mabel R. Sutliff, Downing; Frances L. Swain, La Crosse; Mrs. John L. Todd, Kenosha; George D. Van Dyke, Mil- waukee; Mrs. M. A. Wertheimer, Kaukauna; Mrs. G. M. Wiley, Gales- ville; Mrs. Ellen L. Wilson, De Pere; Mrs. R. K. Wolter, Appleton, and Mrs. Floyd Yeomans, Janesville. A great many important additions were made to the Museum's collections by other exhibitors at the Centennial Exposition. The majority of these came from Wisconsin manufacturers, through the Wisconsin Manufacturers' Association, and many of the gifts will help to illustrate both industrial and agricultural developments in Wisconsin. Plans are in progress for including these new accessions in the Wisconsin exhibits as they are to be installed in the Museum's galleries. A fine collection of antique honey-making implements were re- ceived from Walter Diehnelt, Menomonee Falls, and several items of dairy equipment were received from Edward Damreau, Fond du Lac, the Creamery Package Manufacturing Company, Fort Atkinson, Henry F. Bohne, Newton, and Tom Stewart, Mukwonago. The farm machinery manufacturers gave a set of translite panels depicting various types of historical farm machinery, models of the Van Brunt seeder, and the Daniel Massey mower. The Allis-Chalrners Company gave a replica of their first tractor and the first production model using pneumatic tires. The Paper, Pulp and Allied Industries Committe of the Wisconsin Centennial Committee donated several large photo-murals of paper and pulp making and a 16 mm. sound film which describes the pro- cesses of paper making. Other photo-murals were received from the Light Metal Fabricators, and the Red Star Yeast and Products Company. The Wisconsin State Brewers' Association gave a series of dioramas depicting the history of brewing, and Schuster's Inc. of Milwaukee gave a series of amusing dioramas contrasting the old and new in a century of fashions. The Motor Transport Carriers' Association presented a series of lithographs illustrating road transportation. The Highway Commission contributed painted murals and the plywood panels used as back- grounds for its display. These panels are to be used for exhibition construction in the Museum. 1949] THE SOCIETY 375

Other centennial accessions included are an 1896 kitchen range from the Malleable Iron Range Company of Beaver Dam; a model of Bell's first telephone, a Reed-type receiver, an Army field telephone, and a photo mural of a Milwaukee central switchboard of about 1890 from the Wisconsin Telephone Company; a stuffed badger from L. H. Topp, Madison; and a log sleigh from the State Conservation De- partment. Additional gifts are yet to be received from the Cleaver-Brooks Company, Milwaukee, from the aluminum and ship-building industries and the electric utilities, while many of the accessions received from individual donors are the result of their having become familiar with our program and needs through the Centennial Exposition.

In addition to the above, the Museum received the following accessions: Dairy equipment included an 1895-1900 Babcock milk tester from Mrs. L. Patrick, Grand Marsh; a Swiss cowbell from Elmer Peters, Hay ward; and a curd mill and whey siphon from Carl Klug, Morrison.

Norwegian items consisted of a large copper beer kettle from Mrs. John L. Grinde, Madison; a tooled leather letter holder and a distaff with the carved initials of an owner and the date 1449 from Dr. A. Egdahl, Rockford, Illinois; and a krumkake iron from Mrs. Arthur Mockrud, Westby.

The University Department of Physics, through Professor Julian Mack, presented a series of nine slides from an early experiment in colored photography by Emeritus Professor John R. Roebuck. These picture the University of Wisconsin agricultural buildings, two views of Eagle Hill, two views taken from Sunset Point, one of the Yahara River, one of the University of Wisconsin Dairy Building, and two views of Lake Mendota.

Costume materials were received from Helen L. Allen, Mrs. Harold C. Donahue, Madison; Mrs. William N. Fitzgerald, Jr., Milwaukee; Margaret Gleason, Madison; Lillian B. Luddington, Evansville; Mrs. Clinton W. Nuzum, Viroqua; Mrs. Joel C. Welty, Beloit. Other items received from some of the above donors included an 1896 railroad map of Wisconsin from Miss Luddington, and photographs, draperies, a doll, and several costume accessories from Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Mrs. May L. Luchsinger, Monroe, gave a United States coin collection to help fill in some of the gaps and provide duplicates of others in the Museum's collection. 376 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

A collection of early handmade tools and implements, a blacksmith's bench and two chairs made from hollowed-out logs were given by Howard Greene, Christiana, Delaware.

Other valued donations were received from Mr. and Mrs. Myron Backus; Charles and Donald Brace, Lone Rock; Mrs. Benjamin F. Faast, Eau Claire; Evan Glover, Mrs. Harold E. Hanson, Madison; Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Hevener, St. Paul; Mrs. Burr Jones, William T. Kelsey, Harry E. Lichter, Madison; Dr. J. J. Looze, Wisconsin Rapids; Anne March, Montfort; Forrest Middleton, Madison; Marion Ogden, Milwau- kee; Mrs. Bernice Polk, Madison; Dr. James S. Reeve, Appleton; Mrs. Paul Rehfeld, Madison; Margaret, Frieda, and Harriet Reynolds, Mil- waukee; Robert K. Richardson, Beloit; Joseph T. Shaw, Kingston; Mrs. Roger Sward, Madison; F. S. Vedder, Marshfield; Mrs. Minnie Wallace, Beloit; Merle D. Wheeler, Madison.

II. THE STATE Madison, Wisconsin, has taken on added stature since its "bi- ography " appeared in Life magazine with the arresting title, " The Good Life in Madison, Wisconsin." Even though countless readers immediately disagreed, they nevertheless read the entire account while carrying high their hometown torches and exclaiming, " What has Madison got that our towns haven't got?" After putting aside the September 6, 1948, issue, those who are a part of this " Good Life " city, no doubt found the trees greener, the skies fairer, and the lakes more gemlike than they had ever known. Their pride reached greater dimensions after Life reporters had extolled to them the virtues of their State capital in a nine-page story, exquisitely illustrated with colored photographs. The story emphasizes the natural beauty of the city: enhanced by beautiful trees, ten beaches, thirty miles of scenic drives, and 805 acres of parks. Its intelligent citizenry (literacy rate 99-8 per cent), its State radio station with good music and lectures coming from the University classrooms, its University theater, seven libraries, various cultural groups, its nationally acclaimed school system, and stable economy, all contribute to the making of this " Good Life," the maga- zine writers have found. In utter frankness the account of the unsavory side of this life— not completely good—is depicted. The city struggles with polluted lakes, traffic congestion, and railroad-crossing problems; cost of living, even though well above the national average, is taken in stride for the prosperous city's environs is the rich dairy county of Dane. Wisconsin residents are happy that Life magazine has become articulate over the charms of Madison, and accept with gratitude the splendid compliment paid to their capital city. 1949] THE STATE 377

LOCAL HISTORICAL SOCIETIES AND MUSEUMS At the invitation of the WALWORTH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY the first regional conference for southern Wisconsin societies was held at Whitewater Wednesday evening, October 27, when representatives attended from the Rock, Waukesha, and Jefferson County societies. Some 200 persons listened to activity reports given by members of the several organizations. The following State Society staff members participated in the program: John Jenkins and Floyd La Fayette, of the Museum, and W. H. Glover, field representative. A panel dis- cussion on museums was a feature of the program.

A month later there was a stimulating regional meeting at La Crosse for the local societies in that vicinity, at which time Mr. Glover gave an account of the activities of the State Society. Appearing in an early-day costume, Mrs. Harry Johnson of De Soto presented a mono- logue, "A Welcome to Newcomers in De Soto in 1850." A. P. Jones, Black River Falls, well-versed in Indian lore, gave a talk on the life of the Winnebago. The exchange of ideas and discussion of problems at these sectional meetings tend to bring new enthusiasm and energy to the local organizations. The excellent attendance bespeaks the necessity for continuing such conferences.

The " Pioneer" engine which reached Beloit in 1848 was pre- sented to the BELOIT HISTORICAL SOCIETY in miniature by the North Western Railway Company in conjunction with the railway cen- tennial. The twelve-inch model was constructed of small blocks which were assembled by Lester R. Fenne of Beloit. Five applications of black enamel coated the engine with an elegant gloss, and the head- light and bell were made bright with gilt. It is now on display in Beloit's Historical Museum.

Many of its priceless museum pieces were displayed by the BURLING- TON HISTORICAL SOCIETY during the winter to give special emphasis to its twenty years of progress—its birthday occurring on January 25. In the display, of course, was the charter of the society and the deed for the townsite of Burlington. The deed covers 140 acres of land which comprises the downtown area of the city. The late Herbert C. Duckett's name appears on the charter; he is recalled by many of the State Society's staff for his industry in collecting historical facts during library visits and presenting papers before his own group.

The DOUGLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY used as its final ex- hibit for the centennial year the traveling historical panels, depicting the history of Wisconsin, which were prepared by the Museum staff. 378 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

Because of limitation of space, the local museum exhibited the history panels which brought the story of Wisconsin up to the attainment of statehood; the remainder of the pictures, maps, and drawings were displayed at the Superior State Teachers College.

A turkey dinner " with all the trimmings" was enjoyed by the members of the KENOSHA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY at the Methodist Church at Salem, November 18. Some hundred mem- bers attended the dinner, and a large audience was present when about sixty farm certificates were presented to the occupants of century farms. Family certificates were received by about 250 individuals. Miss Olive Hope gave an account of early families and activities in the Salem community. Just to keep the readers up to date on the progress of the member- ship drive conducted by the Kenosha County Historical Society mem- bers: their bulletin for December reported 124 new members. Re- member, the September magazine noted 72. Congratulations again!

The former secretary of the LA CROSSE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, H. J. Hirshheimer, spoke to the West Salem Study Club in the late autumn. He told them of the settlement of La Crosse County with its ninety-eight coulees and fifteen valleys. Because of easy access to water, the valleys were settled first; the first coulee settlement was known as "Mormon Coulee," others were named for German and Scandinavian pioneers.

The LAKE MILLS-AZTALAN SOCIETY is a beehive of activity. Mrs. W. L. Thompson gave the last of the talks on nationalities at the October meeting. She spoke on the contribution of Norwegians to Wisconsin, and the lovely historic spot near Mount Horeb known as "Little, Norway" or "Valley of the Elves." On display were Nor- wegian needlework and handicraft. At the November meeting Albert Kracht was reelected curator of the Aztalan museum. As treasurer he reported a balance of $673.65 in the treasury after making con- siderable improvements on the property; more than $100 was received from museum admissions. The number of visitors to the building exceeded 1,000. The pageant presented during the summer, with an audience of about 800, will become an annual event.

Professor D. N. Inglis of the romance language department of Milton College was elected the new president of the MILTON HISTOR- ICAL SOCIETY at its annual meeting in November. Cecil Crandall reported on the annual meeting of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, and Dora Drews of the State Society staff spoke on " Wisconsin's Buried Treasure." 1949] THE STATE 379

A newspaper room on the second floor of the MILWAUKEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM, the former Falk home, was dedicated at the society's annual meeting, October 6. Frederic Heath, presi- dent, and Frederick Olson, vice-president of the local society, ac- cepted from the Milwaukee Journal framed portraits of the late Lucius W. Nieman, founder, and Harry J. Grant, chairman of the board. The presentation was made by Dale Wilson of the Journal staff. Annual open house was held at the society's museum on the seventh floor of the courthouse in late November. Professor Frank Klement of Marquette University spoke on the Civil War draft riots in Wisconsin.

During the month of December a selection from the T. B. Walker Collection of Indian Portraits was exhibited at the OsHKOSH PUBLIC MUSEUM on loan from the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. These war- riors were painted by H. H. Cross who spent much of his life among the Indians of the West and Southwest. " Buffalo Bill," acquainted with many of them, wrote that they were " not only good but striking likenesses." The motif of the display was further carried out by the use of colorful Indian blankets and buffalo rugs.

The Danish Old People's Home, once the home of the late M. M. Secor, Racine, was the meeting place of the RACINE COUNTY HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY in October. The residents of the home, the society's guests, listened to the life story of Mr. Secor who was a prominent Racine pioneer manufacturer. He set up a small trunk shop with borrowed capital of $100, and at the end of his life his company employed 125 workers. He owned a two and one-half acre estate, beautiful gardens, and a menagerie. Frederick Nelson was elected president at the annual meeting.

The new ROCK COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY is showing excellent progress. In its December bulletin the membership is reported as 541 members. It has temporary headquarters over the Red Cross Drug Store at Janesville, where collections are being stored until a permanent place is available.

The ST. CROIX COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY arranged a,meeting participated in by the Parent Teachers Association and the Hudson Woman's Club on November 15, at Hudson. Director Lord spoke on the work of the State and local historical societies. The county was well represented at the society's earlier meeting at Glenwood City on October 28. Mrs. R. C. Wall of that city gave an illustrated talk on the beginnings of settlement when lumbering operations brought persons into the community. 380 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March

Mrs. Dorothy Allison was reelected president at the SAUK COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY meeting at Baraboo in mid-December. A recent gift to the local museum is a pair of beaded moccasins which were made by the wife of Chief Yellow Thunder. The donor's mother knew the chief when she was a little girl at Baraboo. They are on exhibit in the museum's Indian room.

At the November 17 meeting of the WALWORTH COUNTY HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY, Elkhorn, co-sponsored by the County Centennial Committee, some 150 county residents were presented Century Farm and Century Family certificates. Dr. O. R. Rice, Delavan, was elected a director of the local society.

The WATERTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY presented to the State So- ciety a large historical pictorial map of its city, printed with brown ink on cream paper with a border of handblocked figures in aqua. Its dimensions provide space for easy readability and uncrowded illus- trations; the history presented is excellent. The Methodist Church, Brookfield, was the meeting place of the WAUKESHA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY in mid-October. A luncheon, a display of antiques, a business meeting, and finally the presentation of a skit, " Brookfield on Review," depicting the history of the church which was celebrating its hundredth birthday, made up the afternoon's program.

CENTENNIALS A century of operations was observed by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, Milwaukee, with a three-day birthday party in January. The company which once produced one and one-half barrels of lager beer per day now brews 4,000,000 barrels per year. Erwin C. Uihlein is president. It was 100 years ago that the late Gilbert Smith began fishing operations on Lake Michigan. He is the grandfather of the Smith brothers who own the Smith Brothers Company, a commercial fishing concern. Since 1896 it has been located at Port Washington. The Smith family celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the company in late summer with a picnic near Cedar Grove on the lakeshore, and a buffet supper and dance at their popular restau- rant at Port Washington. Oliver H. Smith heads the company. Known as the Wisconsin Farmer and the North Western Cultivator the first general farm magazine was published in Wisconsin on a rickety flatbed press on January 1, 1848, by Mark Miller. This period- ical over the century has experienced changes, as do all forward-looking 1949] THE STATE 381 publications, and now it is published under the name of The Wisconsin Agriculturist and Farmer with Cyril L. Moffit its editor. Its associate editor is Frank B. Swingle. With headquarters at Racine, this widely- read farm paper keeps abreast with agricultural improvements, and its freshly written and excellently illustrated pages are read by a vast number of rural folks as well as other agriculturally minded individuals. A birthday "cake"—a beautiful Wisconsin cheese—was the gift of Governor Rennebohm and Milton H. Button, director of the Wis- consin Department of Agriculture, in recognition of its century of publishing. The Lachmund Lumber and Coal Company of Sauk City was es- tablished 102 years ago by Charles Halasz. A great grandson of the founder, Carl Lachmund, is the present manager of the firm, four generations of the family having operated the firm since its founding. Young Gary, the son of the manager, will no doubt carry on the family tradition, for it is difficult to imagine Sauk City without the Lach- mund Company. Further company history is contained in Our Little Neivspaper, the Wisconsin Lumbermen's Association publication of July 15, 1948.

OTHER HISTORICAL NOTES A pair of horseshoes unearthed at Arcadia, when excavations were made for the erection of a new building, recalled to Albert Hess, Arcadia, horse-racing days at the turn of the century. Fine trotting and pacing horses were seen on the Arcadia fairgrounds, and from twenty to thirty horses were in training there during the spring and summer seasons. Harness racing was not only a summer sport in those days. During the winter, when the Mississippi River was covered with ice the owners would take their horses to Alma, where ice racing became a popular pastime as well as at Winona, Minnesota, farther south. The horse-racing sport terminated with the closing of the Arcadia fair in 1904. The late Dr. Edwin Roedder, formerly on the faculty of the German department, University of Wisconsin, and later on the staff of the College of the City of New York, was remembered some months ago by his home community in the Black Forest area of Baden, Germany. A monument was unveiled to his memory with the inscription, " To the educator and researcher, Professor Dr. Edwin Roedder; the grateful home community, OberschefHenz." Professor Roedder's quiet humor is still recalled by his former students, as for instance when he put a small china dog on his desk to do the proctoring during his students' examinations; or again, when he was amused by their efforts in speaking the German language, and remarked, " Hier spricht man 382 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE [March nicht Milwaukee Deutsch" (One does not speak Milwaukee German here).

The First National Bank of Madison last October observed the ninety-fourth anniversary of its founding. During this stretch of years the resources of the bank have grown from $50,000 to $69,000,000; its president is T. R. Hefty.

Moseley's, Inc., which retails books, office supplies, and gifts, has been in operation at Madison for ninety years. The founder of the firm was James E. Moseley who came to Madison from Janesville. His son Harry became a partner in 1888 and continued his connection with the firm until his death in 1941. When Moseley's moved into its present building in 1946, a notable expansion took place. A. C. McClurg and Company bought the store in 1945; its present manager is T. L. Graham.

Publisher Emery A. Odell issued an attractive twenty-four page golden anniversary edition of his Monroe Evening Times on October 13. Among the personages and the city and farm scenes of Monroe and Green County printed in this edition, there is also reproduced a fac- simile of the front page of the first edition of the Evening Times. Interesting and unusual is this page, with its appeal equally divided between advertising layouts and news stories. To Emery Odell, for- merly on the Board of Curators of the State Society, go our best wishes for a half-century of achievement.

The Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, in connection with the Wisconsin Centennial, paid homage to the first Polish settlers on Wisconsin soil. The celebration on Labor Day began with a high mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Polonia, which was settled 93 years ago. The mass was celebrated by the Rev. John Nowak of Knowlton. After the mass the gathering proceeded to the site where a bronze plaque, contributed by the Executive Committee of the P.R.C.U., was dedicated to the first settlers who are buried in the parish cemetery. There followed a Homecoming for Polonians, many coming from a great distance.

SUPPLY GONE! The supply of the December, 1948, Wisconsin Magazine of History is exhausted. If you plan to discard this number, please donate your copy to the Society—very soon. Thanks for helping! Address: STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 816 State Street, Madison 6. 1949] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 383

CHATS [Continued from page 2621 local cooperation in this field too. We would like to hear from you as to what we could be doing to increase the effectiveness of our mutual work in the county or local area. We would like to know more often just what we could be doing to help you. Some state historical agencies have stopped fostering the creation and development of local historical societies in a mood resembling frustration at the seeming multiplicity of the problems involved. The exact opposite is the case, in Wisconsin. We feel that these seeming difficulties are almost entirely figments of the imagination. Through our fieldman we have actively sponsored the formation of new societies where none previously existed. Our staff has stood ready at all times to help the societies which did exist with services available without cost to the local group. Through our regional historical conferences of the past year and a half, we have tried to arouse more regional historical interest, to establish a com- munity of feeling between the historically minded folk of a given area, and to lay the groundwork for area studies in which one or more local societies could participate. We are convinced that the more numerous and the stronger the local societies, the greater will be the interest in and appreciation of grass-roots history, the wider the understanding of the workings of American democracy both political and economic, the deeper the basic loyalty to the elements which have made our system succeed. In other words, we feel that the more and the healthier the local societies, the more effective will be the work in which the State society is inter- ested. It is also true that the more active the program of the local society, the more support it will attract. Because we want strong local societies, we would like to see more of them embarked on strong programs. In Wisconsin, at least, there is plenty for all hands to do. Again let me emphasize that this list of areas of potential co- operation is not meant to be definitive. It is merely a means of getting the discussion going. Clearly, all the things suggested can- 384 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR

not be undertaken immediately even if all agree on their merits. This is a long-range proposal, to be thought out, worked out, threshed out point by point, with such additions as may be sug- gested in the course of the discussions. Clearly too on some points we of forty-four different organi- zations may agree to disagree. But the benefits of such over-all cooperation could be great, and the area of automatic agreement with which we start seems large indeed. The Board of Curators of the State society recently established a special committee, headed by Miss Carrie Cropley, longtime secre- tary of the Kenosha County Historical Society, to explore this field beginning with the question of inter-museum cooperation on a state-wide extension service. Either a special summer session of representatives of the various societies or a part of the program of the next annual meeting could be devoted to a general discus- sion of the problem. In the meantime, think it over. Talk with Mr. Glover or me when we are next in your area. Write us your reactions. Let's begin to see what we can do and how we can do it. The Story of Wisconsin Told for Children

IT HAPPENED HERE By Margaret G. Henderson, Ethel D. Speerschneider and Helen L. Ferslev. Illustrated by Loraine Dury

FOR MANY YEARS teachers and parents have been begging for more and better history material for children of intermediate-grade age. To meet that need this beautifully illustrated book has been prepared under the auspices of the State Historical Society. More than a hundred tales are chronologically arranged under such headings as Frenchmen's Landing, Life in the New Country, From Wilderness to State, How Wisconsin Led the Way, etc. Together they give the child of fourth-grade age or older a rounded picture of Wis- consin's development during the three centuries since the white man first set foot on its soil. There are stories and lively two-color illustrations of the military forts built by the French, the English, and the Americans; of im- migrant groups and their contributions to our culture; of early farm- ing, lumbering and the life of the lumberjack, and the beginnings of manufacturing; of great inventions and their inventors; of social conditions and domestic life. The authors, all experienced teachers, have used the type of mate- rial that appeals to the child and have illuminated their tales with the specific detail that a child so loves. The narrative style and vocabulary, too, have been expertly adapted to his reading capacity. At the close of the book are a pronouncing list of proper names and a full index. The illustrated jacket is printed in two colors on a warm yellow paper.

xiv + 266 pages. $2.00

If not available from your bookseller order from

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin