March 1941 Volume Xxiv Published Quarterly by The

MARCH 1941 VOLUME XXIV NUMBER 3 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN ^•Hiiiiiiiiiiimmiiitmmiiimi IIIIII m nun imiii in mum THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN I E THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OK WISCONSIN is a state- aided corporation whose function is the cultivation and en- § couragement of the historical interests of the State. To this end I it invites your cooperation; membership is open to all, whether § residents of Wisconsin or elsewhere. The dues of annual members are three dollars, payable in advance; of life members, thirty i dollars, payable once only. Subject to certain exceptions, members receive the publications of the Society, the cost of producing which far exceeds the membership fee. This is rendered possible by reason of the aid accorded the Society by the State. Of the work and ideals of the Society this magazine affords, it is believed, a fair example. With limited means, much has already been accomplished; with ampler funds more might be achieved. So far as is known, not a penny entrusted to the Society has ever been lost or misapplied. Property may be willed to the Society in entire confidence that any trust it assumes will be scrupulously executed. THB WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published quarterly by the Society, at 116 E. Main St., Evansville, Wisconsin, in September, Decem- ber, March, and June, and is distributed to its members and exchanges; others who so desire may receive it for the annual subscription of three dollars, payable in advance; single numbers may be had for seventy-five cents. All correspondence concerning the magazine should be addressed »" the office of the State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. Entered as seeond-ciass matter, January 1. 1927. at tli(> p:>st office at Evans- ville. Wisconsin, undr 24, 1912. VOL. XXIV, No. 3 March, 1941 THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCON- SIN. COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN CONTENTS MEMORIAL TO JOSEPH SCHAFER .... John D. Hicks 249 WILLIAM HORLICK JR E. B. Hand 253 WALTER J. KOHLER Charles E. Broughton 256 DR. VICTOR KUTCHIN W. A. Titus 260 PRESBYTERIAN AND CONGREGATIONAL MISSIONARIES IN EARLY WISCONSIN Richard D. Leonard 263 DANIEL WHITNEY: PIONEER WISCONSIN BUSINESSMAN Alice E. Smith 283 DOCUMENTS : Zachary Taylor and the Black Hawk War Holman Hamilton 305 Letters of Charles Richard Van Hise 315 EDITORIAL COMMENT: Rodney Howard True: A Wisconsin Gift to Washington and Philadelphia 336 COMMUNICATION 357 BOOK NOTES 357 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE . 363 The Society as a body is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in the following pages by contributors. Paid for out of the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund Income Previous numbers of the Wisconsin Magazine of History are indexed in the International Index to Periodical Literature to be found in many public libraries. MEMORIAL TO JOSEPH SCHAFER PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY, FEBRUARY 3, 1941 JOSEPH Schafer was born on a farm near Muscoda, in Grant J county, Wisconsin, December 29, 1867, and died at his home in Madison, January 27, 1941. Like so many other native-born citizens of Wisconsin, he was the child of im- migrant parents. Exactly 100 years ago this spring his father, Mathias Schafer, the son of a prosperous Mosel valley vintner, left the Rhineland, partly in search of new opportunity, and partly in protest against family insistence that he should enter the priesthood. Always afterward an ardent anti-clerical, this and other strongly held opinions tended to identify him with the liberal intellectuals who played so large a part in the Revolution of 1848, and many of whom when it failed sought refuge in America. The fact that Mathias Schafer and Karl Marx were classmates during the 1830's at the old Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier (Treves) gave rise to an interesting set of family traditions, but Dr. Schafer himself recently recorded, evi- dently with some satisfaction, that Marx's views, when fully formulated, were regarded by the elder Schafer with horror. Among the farmers of the early Wisconsin frontier 'Squire' Schafer, as Mathias was generally called, seemed a pro- foundly well-educated man. He had won a prize at school in mathematics, he knew a good deal of Latin and Greek, and he spoke three languages, German, French, and English, fluently and accurately. Joseph Schafer's mother was Anna Josepha Bremmer, who came with her parents from the Rhine country in 1847, and was married to Mathias Schafer in Mineral Point about 1851. The life story of Joseph Schafer is an impressive docu- ment in American social history. The fourth of seven sons, he learned about farm work not only by doing it, as was in- 250 John D. Hicks [March evitable, but also from the twenty volumes of the American Agriculturalist that had accumulated in his father's library. Until he was fifteen years old he attended the local country school which, during the years it was taught by his father, seems to have been an excellent educational institution. But when underpaid, country girls with third grade certificates took over, young Schafer decided that his efforts might bet- ter be confined to the farm. Very soon, however, he knew that he must go away to school, and only the need of his help on the farm kept him from attending the first Short course in agriculture ever offered at the University of Wisconsin. Not until he was twenty years of age did the opportunity for further education open up. He then entered the normal school at Madison, Dakota territory, which by good chance happened to be the home of a married sister. From this time forward his career begins to follow a familiar pattern. He was graduated from the normal school in 1890, taught two years in a small Wisconsin high school, entered the Univer- sity of Wisconsin as a junior in 1892, and won his bachelor's degree in 1894 with special honors in history. Following this, he taught history and civics for four years at the State normal school in Valley City, North Dakota. In 1895 he was married to Lily Abbott of Columbia, South Dakota, a fruit- ful union that gave the world five sons and a daughter. Encouraged to do graduate work by a fellowship in history, Joseph Schaf er returned to the University of Wiscon- sin in 1898 to work under the tutelage of such notable schol- ars as Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles H. Haskins, Paul S. Reinsch, and B. H. Meyer. A child of true pioneers who had himself already followed the trail to the West, he grasped immediately the significance of Turner's frontier philosophy, and remained through a long lifetime of scholarship its most steadfast adherent. Fittingly, since he was 1941] Memorial to Joseph Schafer 251 destined to become a historian of the West, he was soon offered an instructorship at the University of Oregon, and in 1900, with a master's degree attained and a doctor's degree in the making, he accepted the call. For twenty happy years he taught and wrote in and of the Pacific Northwest. At Eugene, the seat of the university, he made his dearest friends. Here five of his six children were born; here he received in full measure what any born teacher loves most, the cordial appreciate of his students; here he rose rapidly from a humble instructorship to the headship of the depart- ment, and a position of leadership in the university. In 1906 his Ph.D. was granted by the University of Wisconsin, and years later, in 1933, the University of Oregon recorded its appreciation of his work by conferring upon him the honor- ary degree of doctor of laws. It is hard for a pioneer to take the back trail, and it was not easy for Joseph Schafer to readjust himself to the new work demanded of him when in 1920 he became superinten- dent of the State historical society of Wisconsin. He missed the contacts of the classroom and of the faculty offices. At times he found life lonely at his library desk, much as he appreciated the opportunity it gave him for writing and re- search. But with tremendous determination he settled down to the publication of the Wisconsin Domesday Book series, an intensive study of local areas within the State which he believed to be his most significant contribution to historical scholarship. 'By studying the behavior of people in small communities like townships/ he argued, 'and gaining famili- arity with enough samples of such communities, it is possible to generalize the history of states and of the nation/ But Dr. Schafer did not confine his work wholly to local history. For full two decades his 'Editorial Comments' in the Wis- consin Magazine of History followed the main currents of 252 John D. Hicks historical thought, sometimes with pungent criticism, and always with intelligent appreciation. In 1936, at the invi- tation of the University of London, he went to England to give a series of eight lectures on the 'Social History of American Agriculture.' Published immediately in book form, these essays were acclaimed by the American Historical Re- view as 'the best one volume history of American agriculture' ever written. Altogether Dr. Schafer was the editor or author of seventeen volumes, besides numerous articles and reviews in historical publications. He taught one semester and one summer at the University of Wisconsin, and twice he returned to teach summers at the University of Oregon. As a man Joseph Schafer was a veritable embodiment of the virtues that our civilization holds most dear.

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