Wisconsin Magazine of History
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(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 68, No. 3 * Spring, 1985 ^^^fe^KKjjs THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN RICHARD A. ERNEY, Director Officers WILLIAM C. KIDD, President WILSON B. I'HIEDE, Treasurer NEWELL G. MEYER, First Vice-President RICHARD A. ERNEY, Secretart MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIEIV 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 coiitiinious public fimding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. Ihe Society serves as the archive ol the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as w ell as a statewide system ol historic sites, school services, area research centers, and afliliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Annual membership is |15, or $12.50 for persons over 65 or members ot affiliated societies. Family membership is S20, or |15 for persons over 65 or members ol affiliated societies. Contributing membership is $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200—500; patron, $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board oKairators which includes, ex officio, the Governor (or his designee) and three citizens appointed by the Governor with the approval ol the Senate; the Speaker of the Assembly and the President of the Senate, or a member from the majority party and a member from tfie minority party from each house designated by them; the President of the University of Wisconsin, the President of the Friends of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the (Chairman of the Administrative (Committee of the Wisconsin (Council for Local History. Fhe other twenty-four members of the Board of Gurators are elected by the membership. A complete listing of the (airators appears inside the back cover. NOTE: The Board of (Curators will be reduced from thirty-six to twenty-four members on or before the annual meeting in 1986. 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 Gode 608) follows: General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 General information 262-3271 Maps 262-.5867 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Membership 262-9613 Archives reading room 262-3338 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Museum tours 262-2704 Editorial offices 262-9603 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Film collections 262-0.58.'i Picture and sound collections 262-9581 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . .262-9.590 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 262-9606 ON THE COVER: Increase Lapham examining a meteorite found in Trenton, Wisconsin (Washington County) in 1868. From a stereo negative by H. Brioch in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1869. An article about Lapliam's career as a mapnmker begins on page 163. [WHi(X22) 11] Volume 68, Number 3 / Spring, 1985 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Increase A. Lapham and the Mapping of Wisconsin 163 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Distributed Michael Edmonds to members as part of their dues. (Annual membership, $15, or $12.50 for those over 6.5 or members of affiliated The Anglo-CathoHc Movement in Wisconsin 188 societies; family membership, $20, or $ 15 for those over 65 or Thomas C. Reeves members of affiliated societies; contributing, $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-$5t)0; patron, $500 or more.) Single Wisconsin's Rhetorical HIistorian, numbers from Volume 57 Frederick Jackson Turner: forward are $2. Microfilmed A Review Essay 199 copies available through University Microfilms, 300 Ronald H. Carpenter North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 The fiolocaust in History: through 56 are available from Eyewitnesses to Terror 204 Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New Sara Leuchter York 10546. Clommunications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements Reading America 210 made by contributors. Mary Lou M. Schultz Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin .Magazine Book Reviews 214 of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1985 by Book Review Index 233 the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Wisconsin History Checklist 234 The Wisconsin Magazine of Accessions 236 History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes Contributors 239 are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History Editor andLife, Historical Abstracts, Index lo Literature on the American PAUL H. HASS Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index to Journals in Associate Editors Histoiy, 1838-1974. WILLIAM C. MARTEN JOHN O. HOLZHUETER WHi(X3) 17916 Increase A. Lapham, who, along with his other accomplishments, was president of the State Historical Society from 1862 to 1871. This oil portrait by Samuel Marsden Brookes from 1856 was commissioned by the Society and is in its collections. Increase A. Lapham and the Mapping of Wisconsin By Michael Edmonds N the twilight of a late summer eve excavating in the Ohio River Valley in the I ning in 1875, the naturalist In 1820's also sparked his interest in the natural crease A. Lapham was found adrift in his row- sciences, and it was there that Lapham "ac boat on Oconomowoc Lake, dead from a heart quired my hrst lessons in Mineralogy & Geol attack at the age of sixty-hve. It was somehow ogy, not from books but from observation."'' htting that his death, like so much of his life, During the 1830's Lapham rose from a la took place outdoors: by the time he died borer to an engineer and surveyor, and in his Lapham had spent half a century observing, free time read all the scientific books he could describing, and transforming the Wisconsin get his hands on. He became skilled at laying landscape. routes, designing machines, drafting sketches, Increase Allen Lapham was born in upstate and marshalling work crews. At the same time, New York in 1811. His Quaker parents were he published articles on the geology of the Old too poor to educate their children, so he began Northwest, sent specimens of plants and min work at an early age as a laborer on canal con erals to naturalists in the East, and joined struction crews. Although Lapham never re learned societies as a corresponding member. ceived any formal education, he displayed a In the spring of 1830 he performed part of the talent for topographical sketching when quite surveying on the Ohio Canal, and in the sum young. When he was fourteen, assisting his fa mer of 1835 was appointed deputy surveyor ther and brother on canal work, he carried on of Franklin County, Ohio. Before he left that "quite a lucrative business" by "preparing state for Wisconsin in 1836, Lapham and some plans of the 'Combined & Doufjle Locks' of his associates had lobbied the Ohio legisla which were sold to passing strangers."' Young ture for a thorough geological survey at public Lapham's aptitude for drafting views and expense.* plans is demonstrated by the many sketches of Early in 1836 Lapham was invited by his locks, gates, bridges, canal routes, and geolog former employer Byron Kilbourn to come to ical sections scattered among his early papers. Milwaukee. Ten years earlier Kilbourn had He was so proficient at it that in 1828, at the been in charge of the engineering crew on the age of seventeen, he performed virtually all Miami Canal and was undoubtedly acquainted the drafting for the canal at Shippingsport, with Lapham's qualifications. Kilbourn had Kentucky, on the Ohio River.^ Surveying and recently begun speculating in Wisconsin lands and wanted Lapham as a kind of general fac- 'Increase A. Lapham Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW), 1:1. ^Graham P. Hawks, "I. A. Lapham, Wisconsin's First 'Lapham Papers (SHSW), 1:1. Scientist" (doctoral dissertation. University of Wisconsin, ^Lapham Papers (SHSW), box 1; Hawks, "L A. 1960), 7-8. Lapham," 16, 27. Copyright © 1985 by The State Historical Society of Wcsconsin 163 All rights oj reproduction in any form resemed WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1985 totum. Though initially reluctant to give up tor, he needed accurate cadastral maps, and as his position in Ohio since it "afforded me more a traveler over the largely unsettled territory leisure to be devoted to scientific inquiries and he needed basic topographic maps. He plotted pursuits," Lapham ultimately accepted Kil- a wide variety of scientific findings to produce bourn's offer and arrived in Milwaukee on geological, archaeological, and climatological July 1, 1836.5 maps. He also recognized the need for de Lapham kept accounts for Kilbourn, con pendable maps for the growing population of ducted business deals, and speculated in land the young state. for himself on the side. Soon after arriving, he In the mid-1840's Lapham acquired two was appointed a deputy surveyor of Wisconsin additional skills that undoubtedly improved Territory and was employed by Kilbourn "to his mapmaking.