JUNE 1936 VOLUME XIX NUMBER 4 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is a state- aided corporation whose function is the cultivation and en- couragement of the historical interests of the State. To this end it invites your cooperation; membership is open to all, whether residents of Wisconsin or elsewhere. The dues of annual mem- bers are three dollars, payable in advance; of life members, thirty dollars, payable once only. Subject to certain exceptions, mem- bers 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 be- lieved, 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. tin mil iiiiiiiitllimiii iiinimmiiiitliiiiiiiiiifimiiiiiiiliMiii • mimiiiiii IIIIIIIIIMMMIIIIIIIIHIU^ THE 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 to 116 E. Main St., Evansville, Wisconsin, or the office of the State His- torical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. Entered as second-class matter, January 1, 1927, at the post office at Evans- ville, Wisconsin, under the act of August 24, 1912. VOL. XIX 1935-1936 THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCON- SIN. JOSEPH SCHAFER, Superintendent and Editor CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIX ARTICLES: PAGE FILIP A. FORSBECK, M.D.—New Upsala: The First Swedish Settlement in Wisconsin .... 3, 161, 294 ROBERT K. RICHARDSON—The Mindedness of the Early Faculty of Beloit College 32 WILLIAM F. RANEY—Pine Lumbering in Wis- consin 71 WILLIAM WRIGLEY WINTERBOTHAM—Memoirs of a Civil War Sleuth 131, 276 W. A. TITUS—The Westward Trail 259, 404 WILLIAM F. RANEY—The Building of Wiscon- sin Railroads 387 DOCUMENTS: Turner's Autobiographic Letter 91 Excerpts from a Whaler's Diary 103, 227, 342 Memoirs of a Sauk Swiss 182 Hawley's Diary of His Trip Across the Plains in 1860 319 Letters of Richard Emerson Ela . 431 EDITORIAL COMMENT: The Wisconsin Phalanx 454 COMMUNICATIONS: First Wisconsin Hop Grower 107 Naming of Fort Kearny 475 BOOK NOTES 108, 242, 356, 476 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE 110, 245, 357, 479 PROCEEDINGS OF THE EIGHTY-SEC- OND AND EIGHTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETINGS 120, 367 VOL. XIX, No. 4 June, 1936 THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCON- SIN. JOSEPH SCHAFER, Superintendent and Editor CONTENTS BUILDING OF WISCONSIN RAILROADS William F. Raney 387 THE WESTWARD TRAIL W. A. Titus 404 DOCUMENTS: Letters of Richard Emerson Ela 431 EDITORIAL COMMENT: The Wisconsin Phalanx 454 COMMUNICATION 475 BOOK NOTES 476 THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE . Louise Phelps Kellogg 479 The Society as a body is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in the following pages by contributors. COPYRIGHT, 1936, BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 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. THE BUILDING OF WISCONSIN RAILROADS WILLIAM F. RANEY URING most of Wisconsin's history as a state the rail- D roads have been the chief means of internal communi- cation. They have formed an integral and a very important part of the economic structure of the community. Their operation was the first 'big business' of the state, unless one includes the fur trade; and the fur trade scarcely touched the lives of the Anglo-Saxon settlers. The men who pro- moted railroads thought in terms of millions of dollars and showed a tendency to consolidate while logging and lumber- ing were in comparison still small and scattered enterprises. In 1837, while George Wallace Jones was territorial delegate, he presented to congress a petition from Sinipee, a village in Grant county, for the survey of a railroad route from Milwaukee through Sinipee and Dubuque to San Francisco, California. The petition 'produced a great laugh and, hurrah in the house.' In the following year, however, Jones did get an appropriation of $2,000 for a survey from Milwaukee to the Mississippi river at Dubuque, the idea be- ing that such a road would serve the lead region.1 For a time Wisconsin public opinion divided its favor between rail- roads and canals. The first railroad company actually to build was chartered in 1847, changed its name soon after- wards to the Milwaukee and Mississippi, and began train service between Milwaukee and Waukesha in 1851. From these beginnings until nearly the close of the sixties, progress in railroad construction was not rapid. By 1 John C. Parish, George Wallace Jones (Iowa City, 1912), 171. 388 William F. Raney [June the end of I860, there were 891 miles of railway in opera- tion in Wisconsin.2 The Civil war naturally made labor scarce, and a depreciated currency caused wages and the prices of materials to rise. Milwaukee capitalists, moreover, who might have been expected to build railroads in this state, took a longer view and preferred to extend their en- terprises into regions farther west. Consequently, by 1867 the total had risen to only 1,030 miles.3 Then came six years during which railroads in Wisconsin were doubled.4 The panic of 1873 caused a temporary cessation of building, but between 1875 and 1890 the mileage doubled again, reaching 5,583 in the latter year. The last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth each saw the building of about 950 miles of primary track. After 1910 additions were small. A peak, probably for all time, of 7,693 miles was reached in 1916; and since that time there have been small decreases almost every year, until at present just about 7,000 miles of railroad are operated in Wisconsin.5 FACTORS IN EARLY FINANCING OF RAILROADS In the early days of Wisconsin railroad building, much of the state was still in the frontier stage. The new communi- ties needed the railways desperately to get their surplus products to market. At the same time the frontier was poor; The constitution forbade the state to lend money or credit 2 F. L. Paxson, 'The Railroads of the "Old Northwest" before the Civil War,5 in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters Transactions (Madison, 1914), vol. xvii, part i, pp. 269-274. 3 Frederick Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin during the Civil War Decade (Madison, 1916), 277. Chapters ix-xiii are devoted to matters connected with railroads. 4 First Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of . Wisconsin, 1874 (Madison, 1874), 38. This reports 2,360 miles in operation on December 31, 1873. 'Interstate Commerce Commission, Forty-Seventh Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States for . 1933 (Washington, 1935). December 31, 1933, there were 7,063 miles in operation. Figures from 1890 on- wards are taken from these annual summaries. RAILROAD MAP OF SCALE OF MILES RAILROAD COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN 1929 (BY PlRMiS'iCM Of THE Pl>eLIC 'jlRViCt COMM1&SION.) 1936] Building of Wisconsin Railroads 389 for internal improvements, whereby Wisconsin was spared some of the woes experienced by Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota. But if the state might not help, there were still local agencies on the one hand and the federal government on the other. There was no prohibition nor effective limita- tion resting on counties and towns, villages and cities. When a railroad was projected, the localities along the route were expected to borrow to pay for it; and for the most part they did so, readily and rather recklessly. For example, when, in the winter of 1860-61, the Northwestern extended its line from Oshkosh to Appleton, a distance of some twenty miles, the 'company issued $184,000 of Appleton Extension first mortgage seven per cent bonds and $30,000 in common stock in exchange at par for city bonds of Appleton and Neenah.'* Eastern capitalists were often interested in Wisconsin roads, but regarded them as highly speculative, and until after 1870 they never carried more than a small part of the investment; the localities and individuals served by the road paid for it. Besides the municipalities the railroad companies ex- ploited private citizens, especially the farmers who so much desired their facilities. Between 1850 and 1857 some 6,000 Wisconsin farmers mortgaged their farms for a total of nearly $5,000,000. The agents of the companies gave stock certificates to the farmers in exchange for the mortgages which they immediately sold to investors in the eastern states. Then in the panic of 1857 every railroad in the state went into bankruptcy, and the farmers were left with a lot of worthless paper. Compromise and legislation did something to remedy this situation during the decade of the Civil war, but it has remained one of the most painful episodes in the history of Wisconsin railroad finance.7 6 Richard L. Canuteson, M.A.