Wisconsin Magazine of History
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(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 64, No. 1 • Autumn, 1980 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN RICHARD A. ERNEY, Director Officers JOHN C. GEILFUSS, President WILSON B. THIEDE, Treasurer MRS. R. L. HARTZELL, First Vice-President RICHARD A. ERNEYJ Secretary ROBERT H. IRRMANN, Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and dissemi nating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Mississippi West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic ma terials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and re search facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and it publishes a wide variety of his torical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Annual membership is f 15, or $12.50 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Family membership is f20, or |15 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Contribu ting membership is $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-500; patron, $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes, ex officio, the Governor, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the President of the Uni versity of Wisconsin, and the President of the Society's Auxiliary. The other thirty-six members of the Board of Curators are elected by the membership. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 General information 262-3271 Maps 262-9558 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Membership 262-9613 Archives reading room 262-3338 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Contribution of library materials and Museum exhibits and services 262-2704 artifacts 262-0629 Museum tours 262-9567 Editorial offices 262-9603 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Film collections 262-0585 Picture and sound collections 262-9581 Genealogical and general reference Publications orders 262-9613 inquiries 262-9590 Public information office 262-9606 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Sales desk 262-3271 Historic preservation 262-1339 School services 262-9567 Historic sites 262-3271 Speakers bureau 262-2704 ON THE COVER: The voices of Wisconsin's finest jurists reverberated through the old Milwaukee courthouse when Judge Levi Hubbell presided over the second judicial circuit court. Built in 1836 and razed in 1871, the two-story frame structure was a favored site for conventions and political rallies. The bell in its cupola was the city's fire alarm for many years. [WHi (W6) 24267] ^NTEHISTo^ Volume 64, Number 1 / Autumn, 1980 IsbsS 05 0 ZJOi WISCONSIN > OF WIS'-' MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534) Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Distributed to members as part of their dues. (Annual member ship, $15, or $12.50 for those over 65 or members of affiliated societies; family membership, John Lawe, Green Bay Trader 3 $20, or $15 for those over 65 or Jeanne Kay members of affiliated societies; contributing, $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-500; patron, Judge Levi Hubbell: A Man Impeached 28 $500 or more.) Single Marilyn Grant numbers from Volume 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed copies available through William Beebe, Telephone Tinkerer 40 University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Larry Reed Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 through Reading America 42 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Mary Lou M. Schultz Millwood, New York 10546. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume Book Reviews 45 responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second- Book Review Index 60 class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, and at Wisconsin History Checklist 61 additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address Accessions 63 changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Proceedings of the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Copyright © 1981 by the State Annual Meeting o£ the State Historical Society 70 Historical Society of Wisconsin. Contributors 80 The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and Editor the Combined Retrospective PAUL H. HASS Index to Journals in History, 1838-1974. Associate Editors WILLIAM C. MARTEN JOHN O. HOLZHUETER MARILYN GRANT WHi (X3) 36501 An engraved crystal bowl, fifteen inches tall, designed by Sidney Waugh for the "United States in Crystal" series of the Steuben Glass Company. Waugh selected the fur trade to represent Wisconsin's first century of recorded history, and de picted Frenchmen and Indians trafficking in furs as well as a Jesuit missionary. John Lawe, Green Bay Trader By Jeanne Kay "HREE years before his death in who had just been cheated by a partner in a 1846, a Green Bay fur trader new sawmilling enterprise. Like many fur named John Lawe wrote in a letter the sub traders, Lawe was a competent businessman stance of an appropriate obituary. His self- within the confines of established, familiar appraisal was maudlin, extravagant, self-pity practices; but where changing methods or new ing, and self-serving. Yet it was almost entirely economic activities arose, he repeatedly failed true. and missed chances.^ For example, Lawe's "I have lived sixty years," he wrote, "thirty neighbors remembered him as a highly com one of them last years at Green Bay and petitive trader who possessed enormous in worked &: toiled for fifteen years in the Indian fluence with the Menominee tribe. Yet Country, walking &: hurrying all winter, suf through accident or poor decisions at critical fering cold and starvation, wet & dry, in the times, he missed opportunities for truly promi Large Praries Night &: Day, all winter, some nent roles in several frontier enterprises of times fifteen days at a time. I have been over historical consequence: the Astoria expedi all the Indian country in the upper &: lower tion, the War of 1812, the American Fur Com Mississippi, Rock River, Missouri, in all the pany, land speculation, and the lumber in Wisconsin. My life has often been exposed & dustry. in danger several times from the Ferocity of But John Lawe was more than just a repre the Indians 8c what little I have acquired it sentative of the large class of frontiersmen who was by the sweat of my brow 8c then came Sc did not fit the popular images of pioneer in set myself down at Green Bay carrying on the genuity and success. He lived through Wis same Indian trade 8c which is the hardest life consin's transition from an Indian- and Brit- that a man can carry on. "I am not a hypocrite. I dont go to church AUTHOR'S NOTE: The assistance and encouragement of Sc put on a long face 8c pretend to be a very John O. Holzhueter are gratefully acknowledged. religious person Sc at the same time to try Sc 'John Lawe to R. M. Eberts, December 8, 1843, in pick my neighbors pocket. I defy the world to the Green Bay and Prairie du Chien Papers, Archives say that I have ever injured my fellow crea Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 9: 127. ture. ... I am humane and charitable more Unless otherwise noted, all manuscript collections cited reside in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. To so than my means allow me Sc have been so improve readability, the editors have punctuated all my lifetime. It is true I talk sometimes Lawe's largely unpunctuated prose. with others about people but it is merely for ' For a detailed discussion of the conservative prac talk sake. I dont think any more about it."i tices of Green Bay traders, see John D. Haeger, "A Time of Change: Green Bay, I8I5-1834," in the Wis Lawe's autobiographical passage was the consin Magazine of History, 54: 285-298 (Summer, outburst of an aging and embittered man, one 1971). Copyright @ 1981 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin All rights of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AUTUMN, 1980 ish-held wilderness to a burgeoning agricul plied fur traders throughout the Atlantic sea tural territory; he was one of Wisconsin's board frontier.^ Members of both sides of the earliest settlers and most influential fur trad Franks clan also traded with or married into ers. His story surely deserves to be told more two other Jewish-American families engaged completely. in the fur trade, named Levy and Solomons.^ The records of John Lawe's parents, birth, The fur trade activities of these merchants and childhood are fragmentary and conflict ranged from the financial management of ing. More is known about his distant ances overseas shipments of goods and furs to ac tors, largely because his mother, named either tual barter within remote Indian villages. Midd or Rachel Franks, descended from one While one could hardly cite these antecedents of the oldest Jewish families in North Ameri as evidence that fur trade adventuring was in ca.