VOLUME 42 NUMBER I PUBLISHED BY THE S AUTUMN. 1958 ^ When John Edmunds built this gristmill in 1866 New England was still the home of poets, the Middle West still a frontier in transition. Yet it was pioneers like Edmunds who, determining the place-names, left ON THE COVER a legacy of verbal music that endures. Charter Oak mill, on a creek called Squaw, near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. In the very names one hears the millstone turn, the grist being ground, the cold dark water flowing. The WISCONSIN MAOAZINI; OF HISTORY is published by the State Historical Society of Wis­ consin, 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distrll)iited to inembers as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $5.00; Contributing, $10; Business and Professional, $25; Life, $100; Sustaining, $100 or more annually; Patron, $1,000 or more annually). Yearly subscription, $5.00; single numbers. $1.25. As of July 1, 1955, introductory offer for NEW members: annual dues $1.00; such new members may subscribe to the Magazine for an additional $4.00. Com­ munications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Copyright 1958 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part l)y the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and Ijy the George B. Burrows Fund. PERMISSION: Wisconsin newspapers may reprint any article appearing in the Wisconsin Magazine of History provided the story carries the following credit line: Reprinted from the State Historical Society's Wisconsin Magazine of History for [insert the season and year which appear on the Magazine]. COVER PICTURE: From the C. S. Van Schaick file of original negatives in the State Historical Society's Iconographic Collections. Van Schaick, for many years over the turn of the century the town photographer of Black River Falls, left more than 50,000 photographic plates, a selection of which is permanently preserved as a historical record. VOLUME 42 NUMBER I PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN • AUTUMN, 1958 Editor: WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD CONTENTS A Farmer Halts the Hangman: The Story of Marvin Bovee ELWOOD R. MCINTYRE 3 The Problem at Peshtigo WILLIAM F. STEUBER, JR. 13 The Wisconsin Idea and Social Security ARTHUR J. ALTMEYER 19 Twenty-two Against the Plague: The Founding of the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association HAROLD HOLAND 29 Children Make History: The Wisconsin Junior Historian Program DORIS H. PLATT 35 Green Bay and the Mormons of Beaver Island CHARLES 0. BuRGESS 39 The Western Hero in Fact and Fancy: A Review . .HARRY E. LIGHTER 52 FEATURES Meet the Authors 2 Compleat Historian 35 Smoke Rings 16 Sincerely Yours 50 Circuit Rider 26 Readers' Choice 52 Accessions 74 MEET HAROLD HOLAND, born in Ephraim, Wiscon­ DORIS PLATT, editor since 1955 of sin, is director of publications and social Badger History and author of a vol­ research for the Wisconsin Anti-Tubercu­ ume of poetry. Green Among Gold, losis Association and managing editor of its was introduced to literature at an monthly journal, The Crusader. A staff early age. Born in Oak Park, Illi­ member of the WATA since 1930, his per­ nois, she enjoys the distinction of sonal interest in tuberculosis control goes having been baby-sat by Ernest Hem- back three years earlier, when, as a junior . ; ingway—at that time one of her at the University of Wisconsin, he had his father's pupils in the local high first bout with pulmonary tuberculosis. school. Her academic degrees—B.A. from Beloit Col­ Many years later he won his B. Ph. degree at Mar­ lege, M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wiscon­ quette University. He is the author of one published sin—have all been in the field of literature. .loining book, Rehabilitation at Lake Toma­ the Society's staff in 1948, Miss Platt launched the hawk State Camp (New York, 1945), first state-wide convention of Junior Historians. She editor of another, A Mirror for Cure- is a consultant for the WHA Wisconsin School of Takers (Milwaukee, 1946), and has the Air TV show "Pioneer Wisconsin," and in October a third scheduled for publication this began her own program, "Pioneer Wisconsin." fall—House of Open Doors, a history of the first fifty years of the WATA's campaign for tuberculosis control. CHARLES 0. BURGESS, born in Port­ Mr. Holand's wife, Mary William­ land, Oregon, is a candidate for the son Holand, a former tuberculosis worker in New Ph.D. in American history at the York, is executive director of the Milwaukee County University of Wisconsin. Before com­ Association for Mental Health. mencing his college education, Mr. Burgess completed a four-year en­ listment in the United States Air Force (1950-1954), serving as an liBrjfl.'iB.^'' -'^"'•H'-'K J- ALTMEYER is probably instructor of logistics and supply BFlf ^l'"'"' best known for his work in connec­ procedures. In 1954 he enrolled at the University of tion with the development of the Oregon, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts three _ Social Security Act and its adminis- years later. He received the degree of master of sci­ _^?t,j^^ tration from its enactment in 1935 ence in history at the University of Wisconsin in ^^••^djk until his resignation as Commissioner ^^^K^Hft of Social Security in 1953. A native June, 1958, under the direction of Dr. Merle Curti. HH^ Hi of De Pere, he holds the A.B., M.A., Ph.D., and I^L.D. degrees from the WILLIAM F. STEUBER, JR. was born University of Wisconsin, and prior to entering gov­ in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, in the ernment service in 1933 was a school principal and decade that saw the last of Wiscon­ later Secretary of the Wisconsin Industrial Commis­ sin's big cuts of timber and the first sion. In 1934 President Roosevelt appointed him As­ licensing of automobiles. These seem­ sistant Secretary of Labor, and he was also named ingly unrelated items patterned his chairman of the technical board of the Cabinet Com­ career. Growing numbers of autos mittee on Economic Security whose report to the demanded highways. Highways de­ President blueprinted the Social Security Act passed manded engineers. The State High­ by Congress. way Commission employed him after his graduation Now a resident of Madison, Mr. Altmeyer is a lec­ from the University of Wisconsin in 1930, and cur­ turer at the University and serves as an advisor on rently he is the Commission's Chief of Public Infor­ social security problems to various labor and em­ mation. When he isn't writing about highways, he ployer organizations. Recently he has spent consider­ uses his free time to write historical novels. His The able time in Iran, Turkey, and Peru as an advisor Landlooker (reviewed in the Wisconsin Magazine of in the development of the social welfare programs of History, Spring, 1958) goes back to the days when those countries. pine in Wisconsin was as oil today is to Texas. It was while doing research for this novel that Mr. Steuber came onto the disheartening condition of the ELWOOD R. MCINTYRE, born in New Peshtigo Fire Cemetery, of which he writes with London, Wisconsin, grew up in Por­ grace and feeling in this issue. tage and began his journalistic career on the Portage Daily Register and the Wisconsin State Journal of Madi­ HARRY E. LIGHTER, originally of Mil- son. In 1913 he joined the agricul­ ""^ waukee and a graduate of the Uni- tural journalism department of the University of Wisconsin, and from 1918 through 1945 was on the edi­ torial staff of The Wisconsin Farmer which in 1929 merged with the Wisconsin Agriculturist of Racine. During the decade I945-I955 he was in charge of farm magazine relations in the U. S. Department of J ^ versity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is, Agriculture in Washington and also edited USDA, •'"'^ > in number of years served, the senior the Department's employee news bulletin. A returned k iS% member of the staff of the Society's Madisonian, he now does special writing assignments I flim Museum. Now its Curator of CoUec- while continuing the series of informal essays, which J ^^!^ tions, he came to the Museum in for the past thirty years under the pen name of "Jeff • ET-' 1942. Following service in the U.S. McDermid," he has written for the technical soils Army, he returned to the Society in magazine Better Crops. 1946. Besides his museum work he has taught in the department of art education of the University of Wis­ consin and has been a designer and maker of jewelry, textiles, and furniture. Among his many and varied interests are the history of the West, particularly the history of frontier weapons, and the restoration of paintings, antique weapons, and obfets d'art. A Farmer Halts the Hangman: He served in the 25th Congress, and when the second session opened in 1836, Speaker Polk The Story of Marvin Bovee put him on the Committee of the Whole on Expenditures of the War Department.^ To his mother Marvin gave credit for a happy child­ by Elwood R. McIntyre hood in which she "taught me to hate nothing but injustice and cruelty."^ Marvin's youthful plans to enter Union Col­ lege at Schenectady, New York, were aban­ doned when the family of eleven persons moved to Wisconsin Territory in 1843. They settled on a farm in Eagle township, Waukesha County, where Matthias acquired over a thou­ sand acres of land, some of which he turned over to his children.* The Eagle township cen­ sus of seven years later shows Marvin and his five brothers and three sisters living with their parents on a prosperous forty-acre farm valued at $6,000, having machinery worth $250, two teams of horses, a yoke of oxen, a dozen milch "From the newspaper accounts of every exe­ cows, forty hogs, and a flock of sheep.