VOLUME 34 NUMBER 4 UMMER, 1951 This is a replica of one of the Rindisbacher water colors entitled, "An Indian Duck Shooting," ON THE COVER: acquired by the Society's Museum. See Museum Accessions for Rindis- bacher information. The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published by the State Historical .Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $3.50: Contributing, $10; Business and Professional, $ Life, $100: Sustaining, $100 or more annually). Yearly subscription, $3.50; single numbers, 90 cents. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison, Wisconsin, under act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1951 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by 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 appears on the Magazine], PHOTO CREDITS—Ellen C, Sabin, by Stein Studio, Milwaukee: Franklin stove used by Grant Fitch, by Milwaukee Commercial Photographers, Inc., Milwaukee: Heater and hake-oven stove, by Milwaukee County Historical Museum: Richards' stove in the Octagon House, Watertown, by Frank Westphal, Watertown. VOLUME 34 NUMBER 4 PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN • SUMMER, 1951 Editor: CLIFFORD L. LORD Managing Editor: LILLIAN KKUECER CONTENTS James Duane Doty: Mephistopheles in Wisconsin... .ALICE E. SMITH 195 Cooperation for Free Inquiry WAYNE C. GROVER 202 Eben E. Rexford, 1848-1916 WALTER A. OLEN 207 Milwaukee-Downer College Rediscovers Its Past GRACE NORTON KIECKHEFER 210 John V. Robbins, Pioneer Agriculturist CHARLES L. HILL 230 FEATURES: Readers' Choice 216 Meet the Authors 194 The Collector 233 Smoke Rings 199 Sincerely Yours 236 Pandora's Box 215 Accessions 253 ALICE E. SMITH'S interest in State and local history began when she was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, and assisted in the preparation of a four-volume History of Minnesota. Return- ing to her native Wisconsin in 1929, she became the head of the Manuscript Section of the State Historical Society. For the past four years she has held the office of Chief of Research, a position set up and sponsored jointly by the Society and the University to integrate a program financed in part by a Rockefeller Grant. Her "Mephi- stopheles in Wisconsin" was read at the Madison meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association in the spring of 1949. It is based on a book-length biography of James Duane Doty she is preparing, to be published by the Society. meet the authors After serving on the National Archives 1948. During World War II he served in staff for several years, WAYNE C. GROVKR the U.S. Army advancing from captain to was appointed assistant archivist of the lieutenant colonel, 1943-40. Dr. Grover is United States on July 31, 1947, and has the author of Records Administration Pro- been archivist since June 5, 1948. He is gram of War Department, 1948, and of consultant on Federal records management numerous magazine articles. His address, problems, Commission on Organization of at the Founders' Day Meeting of the the Executive Branch of the Government, Society, January 27, is printed in this issue. Though a native of Chicago, MRS. GRACE she has resided at Brookheld, Waukesha NORTO.N KIECKHEFER lived in Milwaukee County, and says she feels "quite rural." most of her life. In 1922 she received her "Milwaukee-Downer College Rediscovers B.A. degree at Milwaukee-Downer College, Its Past," contributed to this Magazine, is and her M.A. at Columbia University two based on the excellent centennial history of years later. Interested in social work and the college (1951) of which Mrs. Kieck- religious education, she studied at Union hefer is the author. In late May she Theological Seminary, in New York, and was initiated as an honorary member still devotes considerable of her spare time into the Milwaukee-Downer Chapter of to these interests. For twenty-one years Phi Beta Kappa. WALTER A. OLEN was born at Winneconne, active in numerous civic and historic mat- January 31, 1875, attended school at ters, among them the creation of the Rex- Winneconne, at Oshkosh Normal, and was ford Room of the Finney Public Library graduated from the Northern Indiana Law at Clintonville. Local history and folklore School in 1899. He was a country school- are pursued as hobbies. He has been a teacher for five years and practiced law at pioneer in tree planting, having enrolled Clintonville from 1900 to 1913. He helped his summer home of 280 acres under the to organize the well-known Four Wheel Forest Crop Law where he has planted Drive Auto Company and has been its 180,000 trees. Rexford's achievements were president for forty years. From 1912 to narrated at the Society's 1949 meeting, 1945 he was its general manager. He is held at Appleton. Wisconsin-born CHARLES L. HILL is asso- hundreds of calves which became the foun- ciated far and wide with the development dation of excellent herds in the states; he of purebred Guernsey herds. The fine dairy has devoted many years to managing farm, "Sarnia," on the outskirts of Rosen- Guernsey sales throughout the United dale, Fond du Lac County, has been in States, as well as judging this breed at possession of the Hill family for five genera- expositions and at National Dairy Shows tions, since 1853. from coast to coast. In 1920 the State of Charles Hill's interests are of great va- Wisconsin found in him an able commis- riety: he has made frequent trips to the sioner of agriculture, in which capacity he Island of Guernsey where he selected served until February, 1938. 194 Wisconsin's great disturber, its most ef- fective stirrer-up of business and politics, is here sketched by a master researcher. We are given tantalizing glimpses of Doty's tangled trail and hints of the de- tective work that the author is employing to bring out the complete story of a fascinating personality. James Duane Doty: Mephistopheles In Wisconsin by Alice E. Smith In June, 1865, the capital city of Utah Terri- Almost a century has passed since Doty tory staged a great celebration. Notable visi- was laid to rest in Utah, but in his home tors had arrived by stagecoach in the Mormon state of Wisconsin he is still regarded as its colony: Speaker Coif ax of the House of Rep- evil genius. Historians delight in contrasting resentatives and editors and publishers of his turbulent administration as governor with some of the country's greatest newspapers. the well-ordered one of his predecessor, Henry- Work on the long deferred Pacific railroad Dodge. Artists depict him as Mephistopheles was starting at last from the east and the west in Wisconsin, cool, crafty, calculating. Resi- ends, and Mormon joined Gentile in rejoicing dents of the State regale visitors with tales over prospects of its speedy completion. of the founding of their capital city in graft At the height of the festivities came the and corruption. And in true legendary style, news of the sudden death of Utah's territorial his stature grows with advancing years and governor, a man who had watched the prog- he has become the hero of numerous fanciful ress of transportation on four frontiers, James tales, impossible to document and yet too Duane Doty. Born in the valley of the plausible to discredit. Hudson in 1799, Doty had spent his boyhood For nearly forty years Doty made his home in the Black River region of Upper New in the region that is now Wisconsin. He came York; had been in Detroit when the first in 1823 with his bride, the former Sarah steamboat arrived; traveled thousands of Collins, to fill the newly created office of miles by Indian canoe along Wisconsin's Additional Judge of the Court of Western waterways; laid out the first road across that Michigan. From among the French Cana- territory; designed for it an elaborate system dians who for a century and a half had been of internal improvements; and pushed plans trading for furs on the Upper Great Lakes for a railroad from its Lake Superior bound- and the Mississippi, a few had remained in ary to the Pacific Ocean. Now as America's the West. By 1823 most of these traders were first transcontinental railway was approaching clustered in three villages: at Michilimackinac reality, death came to him near the shores on the Straits, and La Baye and Prairie du of the Great Salt Lake. Chien at the ends of the Fox-Wisconsin water- 195 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER. 1951 way leading from Lake Michigan to the cerning the native red men. An Indian. Doty Mississippi. French was the language spoken maintained, should not be bound by white in these primitive settlements; their social men's laws as long as he did not interfere institutions those that met the practical needs with their affairs, and the judge carried the of their isolated situation: common ownership interpretation so far as to free the confessed of pasture lands, simple rules of justice and murderer of another Indian, a Menominee court procedures based on the ancient coutume chief who declared he performed the act de Paris, and rites of the Church performed under an ancient tribal law of retribution.