Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

I wish to thank you very much for the information you gave
me in your letter of October 30, 1916. I would have answered
sooner than this but as you requested me to give you a list
of my grandfather’s descendants I wanted first to find some
one who knew how many children and grandchildren my
grandfather, Osh-ka-he-nah-niew, had. I have not been able
to get this information from the old members of the tribe,
but as soon as I get it I will write you again and let you
know.

The name Osh-ka-he-nah-niew in the Menominee Indian language
means “young man.”

I received a letter from Mr. J. L. Baity, auditor of the
Treasury Department, Washington, D. C., dated November 25,
1916, in which he says:

“With return of the letter from the Superintendent of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, dated October 30,
1916, addressed to Mr. Mitchell Oshkenaniew, you are advised
that the information set forth in said letter is too meager
for the War Department to establish the service of
‘Oshkenaniew’ Menominee Indian Warrior Black Hawk War 1832,
and until sufficient information can be furnished setting
forth the organization in which service was rendered
together with the period of service and the names of some
commanding officer, no further action will be taken on the
claim.”

MITCHELL OSHKENANIEW,
_Neopit, Wisconsin_.

Col. George Boyd was Indian agent at Green Bay in the summer of 1832; he replaced Col. Samuel C. Stambaugh early in June. Stambaugh, although superseded, did not immediately leave Green Bay and was very popular with the Menominee tribe. During the course of the war, when all trace of the whereabouts of the Sauk band had been lost, Gen. Henry Atkinson, encamped on Whitewater River in Wisconsin, sent Col. William S. Hamilton (son of Alexander Hamilton) to Colonel Boyd at Green Bay. Atkinson feared that Black Hawk and the Sauk hostiles would attempt to escape to the British at Malden, and he therefore ordered Boyd to enlist and equip as large a body of Menominee Indians as possible to try to intercept them. Boyd at once called the Menominee together. They were willing to go to war against the Sauk if they might have officers of their own choosing. Col. S. C. Stambaugh was thereupon made commander-in-chief. The second place was offered to Col. W. S. Hamilton, but he declined the honor. The Menominee turned out about three hundred warriors, who were organized into two companies commanded by the following officers: 1st Company; Augustin Grignon, captain, Charles A. Grignon Jr., first lieutenant; 2d Company; George Johnston, captain, James M. Boyd, first lieutenant, William Powell, second lieutenant and interpreter. Alexander J. Irwin was charged with the commissariat with rank of first lieutenant.

There is every reason to suppose that Osh-ka-he-nah-niew was a member of the first company. Augustin Grignon told Doctor Draper that this Indian was in the war, and in all probability he named members of his own command. Robert Grignon of this company received a wound in action, and was in receipt of a pension until his death.

The documentary material in the Wisconsin Historical Library includes the official papers of Col. George Boyd, Indian agent. Those relating to the Menominee contingent under Stambaugh in the Black Hawk War are published in _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XII, 270-98. It will be noticed that August 12, 1832, Boyd wrote that Stambaugh had informed him that he had arrived at Fort Winnebago with his command, three hundred Menominees, and was on his way to report to General Scott. September 2, 1832, Boyd wrote to G. B. Porter, governor of Michigan territory, enclosing Stambaugh’s report of the expedition and the Muster Rolls of the Menominee. These should be in the War Department at Washington.

The well-known fact that Osh-ka-he-nah-niew took part in the Black Hawk War, that he was part of Stambaugh’s band, probably under Capt. Augustin Grignon, seems to us established by the historical evidence. His name on a muster roll must be sought in the documentary material at Washington.

SURVEY OF HISTORICAL ACTIVITIES

THE SOCIETY AND THE STATE

Since the sixty-fourth meeting in October, 1916, four life and twenty-four annual members have been enrolled in the State Historical Society. The new life members are: R. C. Ballard-Thruston of Louisville, Kentucky, John Strange of Neenah, Chester Lloyd Jones of Madison, and Harry W. Bolens of Port Washington. The annual members are Dr. James S. Reeve and Henry L. Tinker of Appleton; John T. Durward of Baraboo; John J. Wood of Berlin; Leland S. Kemnitz of Detroit, Michigan; Amasa J. Edminster and R. C. Rodecker of Holcombe; Oscar G. Boisseau of Holden, Missouri; Walter M. Atwood, William H. Faust, Clarence B. Lester, Edwin C. Mason, Mary Oakley, Frederic A. Ogg, and Mrs. Jessie Russell Skinner of Madison; Clarence R. Falk and Arthur G. Santer of Milwaukee; Ruth Thompson of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mrs. L. T. Hill of Sparta; Katherine A. Rood of Stevens Point; John S. Roeseler of Superior; Arthur T. Leith of Washington, D. C.; E. P. Winkelman of Waterloo; and Philip B. Gordon of White Earth, Minnesota.

In the same period the Society has lost by death five of its members: David J. Ryan of Appleton; William N. Merriam of Duluth, Minnesota; Hon. John A. Aylward, Gen. Benjamin F. Cram, and Justice William H. Timlin of Madison. Probably the list should include names of other members, of whose deaths the administration of the Society has not yet been apprised.

By the will of Hon. George B. Burrows of Madison, who died in 1909, his entire estate was bequeathed, subject to certain contingencies, to the State Historical Society. Through the death in October, 1916, of the testator’s only son and heir the estate at length comes to the Society. At the time of Mr. Burrows’ death in 1909 its appraised value was fixed at $219,000. It is the belief of those best informed in the premises that its present value is considerably in excess of that sum. The property will be available for the Society’s use when the usual court procedure shall have been gone through with.

By the death of Miss Genevieve Mills of Madison at the close of 1916 another important bequest to the Society became public knowledge. Miss Mills made a will by the terms of which the Society is ultimately to receive her half-interest in the old Mills homestead at the corner of Monona Avenue and Wilson Street, Madison. The will states that the property is given “as a tribute to the loyalty of my mother Maria L. Mills and my father Simeon Mills toward the State and the State Historical Society they loved and helped to found.” The sum realized from the property is to constitute a perpetual fund, named in honor of the giver’s parents the “Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund”; the proceeds of the fund thus established are to be devoted to the editing of materials for middle-western history, preferably that of Wisconsin itself. The present value of this wise gift is supposed to be in the neighborhood of $25,000. How soon it will become available to the Society is still uncertain.

The last few months have witnessed an unusually large number of changes in the staff of the Wisconsin Historical Library. In September, 1916, Mr. Frederick Merk, for five years research assistant on the Society’s staff, began an indefinite leave of absence, with a view to prosecuting his graduate studies at Harvard University, where he had received a teaching-fellowship appointment. In January Miss Lydia Brauer of the editorial staff was compelled by illness to relinquish her position. In February Miss Alice Whitney, assistant in the museum, withdrew to accept a much better position in the Emporia Normal School. The close of the fiscal year in June witnessed several resignations of long-time members of the staff. Miss Eleanore Lothrop, for several years the superintendent’s secretary, withdrew in order to accept a position in the East. Mr. Lyell Deaner of the newspaper division answered the call of his country by enlisting in the army. Others whose resignations went into effect in June were Miss Pauline Buell of the reference division, and Miss Ora Smith of the order department.

To fill these and other gaps in the ranks of the Library staff the following appointments have been made: In September, 1916, Miss Ruth Hayward, for several years cataloguer in the Cincinnati Public Library, became a member of our cataloguing staff. In February, Miss Genevieve Deming and Miss Ruth Roberts, recent graduates of the University of Wisconsin, began work as assistants in the order department and museum, respectively. Mr. Gaige Roberts of Madison filled the vacant position in the newspaper division. In July Miss Marguerite Jenison of Fond du Lac, a recent graduate of the state university, began work as assistant to the superintendent and calendarer of the Draper manuscripts. Mr. Theodore Blegen, teacher of history in the Riverside High School, Milwaukee, spent the summer months as research worker on the Society’s staff. Finally, Dr. John W. Oliver, of the Indiana State Library, began work in September on an appointment as research assistant.

The current year of the Society (October, 1916-October, 1917) has been one of unusual activity in the field of research and publication. In the nine months ending July 1, 1917 three substantial volumes and two bulletins were issued, in addition to certain minor items. The volumes were: _Frontier Advance on the Upper Ohio_ (_Collections_ of the Society, Vol. XXIII), edited by Louise P. Kellogg; _An Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade_ (_Studies_ of the Society, Vol. I), by Frederick Merk, and the _Proceedings_ of the Society for 1916. Each of these volumes will receive fuller notice elsewhere. The two bulletins were a _List of Portraits and Paintings in the Wisconsin Historical Museum_ and a checklist of _Periodicals and Newspapers_ currently received by the library.

A new publication feature, begun in February, 1917, is a monthly _Checklist of Wisconsin Public Documents_. Each issue, appearing about the tenth of the month, lists the documents of the state issued during the preceding month. Of this publication the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ for June, 1917 says: “This is a unique undertaking for a state historical agency. The value to historians, librarians, and state officials, of such a series of bulletins makes it a welcome bibliographical addition.” It may be added that, so far as the Society’s administration is aware, the undertaking is unique not simply for a “state historical agency,” but for any agency whatever. The Library of Congress attempts to do for the entire country what the Wisconsin _Checklist_ does for our state alone. Useful as the Library of Congress list is, however, it cannot possibly cover the various states with the promptness and comprehensiveness which attaches to our own list for Wisconsin. The credit for the conception of this publication enterprise of the Society and for its execution belongs to Mrs. Anna W. Evans, chief of the public-documents division of the library.

Of research enterprises under way but not yet completed, or if completed not yet issued from the press, the following may be noted. A valuable account, as it is believed, of the public-documents division of the library, prepared by Mrs. Evans, has been long in the hands of the state printer. Material for a succeeding volume of the Draper Series (to be published as Vol. XXIV of the Society’s _Collections_, with the title _Frontier Retreat on the Upper Ohio, 1779-1781_) should, with reasonable promptness on the state printer’s part, be distributed to our members about the time they receive this magazine. Copy for Volume XXV of the _Collections_ was given to the printer in the spring, and in the usual order of things it may be expected to be ready for distribution near the close of 1917. It consists of the letters of Edwin Bottomley, a pioneer Racine County farmer, written to his father in England in the years 1842-50. At the time of writing (July) the preparation for the printer of a second volume of the Draper Calendar Series, is approaching completion, and its publication may be expected to follow the usual interval of time required by the state printer. Dr. Edward Kremers of the University of Wisconsin has been engaged for many months in the editing of what will become the initial volume of the Society’s Hollister Pharmaceutical Series. More definite announcement concerning it may well be postponed for the present. It is believed, however, that the Society’s constituency may anticipate with pleasure the appearance of this initial volume of what will constitute a new and unique undertaking among American historical societies. Another, but minor, research enterprise under way is the preparation by Mr. Blegen of a comprehensive report on the Wisconsin archives situation--a subject, it may be noted, concerning which there is crying need of public enlightenment. To conclude this summary catalogue, in the _Wisconsin Magazine of History_ the reader has before him the initial installment of the Society’s most recent publication enterprise.

A sum of money has been placed at the disposal of the National Board for Historical Service whereby it is enabled to announce a prize essay contest open to public school teachers in each of the several states of the Union on the subject “Why the United States is at War.” To teachers in the public high schools of Wisconsin five prizes ranging from $75 down to $10 are offered; for elementary public school teachers, three prizes ($75, $25, and $10) will be awarded. Essays must not exceed 3,000 words and must be in the hands of Waldo G. Leland, 1133 Woodward Building, Washington, D. C., not later than six o’clock p. m., November 15, 1917. The awards will be made by boards of Wisconsin judges appointed by the State Historical Society. The essays will not be signed and the committees of award will not be informed concerning the author’s names until after their decision shall have been rendered. In announcing the contest the National Board states that it is intended to lay stress, in making the awards, on intelligent use made of such materials as may be accessible to the competitor living in small communities with no large library at hand. It is to be hoped that a large number of Wisconsin teachers will enter this contest. Every participant in it will be a winner; this regardless of whether he gains one of the prizes awarded, since the intellectual and patriotic stimulus he will experience will in themselves more than repay the labor involved. For full particulars concerning the contest apply at your nearest normal school or college, or directly to the National Board for Historical Service, 1133 Woodward Bldg., Washington, D. C.

Dr. E. D. Pierce of Trempealeau, one of the Society’s curators, has been engaged the past year in editing a history of Trempealeau County, to be published shortly by the Cooper Company of Chicago and Winona. In this connection, the editor has been given the use of a short history of Wisconsin to 1848, prepared by Miss Kellogg for publication by the State Historical Society. Probably this narrative will appear shortly in this magazine. It was prepared with a view to placing it freely at the disposal of county historians and any others who may find it useful; this in the belief that since the subscription county history is often the only book of a historical character which comes into the homes of our citizens, the Society is acting in line with its ideal of serving the public as fully as possible by doing what it may to improve the quality of these volumes.

Another Wisconsin local history approaching completion at the hands of a curator of the Society is the history of Door County by Mr. Hjalmar R. Holand of Ephraim. It is understood that this is to be published by the Lewis Company of Chicago.

The eleventh annual meeting of the Waukesha County Historical Society was held at the Congregational Church in Waukesha on May 5, 1917. Aside from business reports and luncheon and other social features, the principal part of the program was devoted to two addresses: one by Judge C. E. Armin on “The Early Bar of Waukesha County”; the other by M. M. Quaife on Increase Allen Lapham. The Society voted at this meeting to send its secretary, Miss Julia A. Lapham of Oconomowoc, as a delegate to the annual meeting of the State Historical Society in October. This is an act which it is hoped will be widely imitated by the other local societies of the state, since mutual encouragement and profit will undoubtedly result from a greater participation by them in the affairs of the parent organization.

On June 16, 1917 under the auspices of the Waukesha County Historical Society, a bronze tablet in memory of Increase A. Lapham was unveiled on Lapham Peak. Lapham Peak, until recently known as Government Hill, is the highest point in Waukesha County. From an observation tower which formerly stood within a few feet of the tablet it is said that one could see, on a clear day, Lake Michigan on the east and as far as Madison on the west. No more appropriate spot for a memorial to Wisconsin’s first great naturalist could have been chosen than this, with its far-sweeping view of the beautiful lakes and valleys and hills of southern Wisconsin. The tablet was unveiled by Julia A. Lapham, daughter of Dr. Lapham. Present also were two sons and a granddaughter of the scholar in whose honor the assemblage had convened. Addresses were given by M. M. Quaife of the State Historical Society and John G. Gregory, editor of the Milwaukee _Evening Wisconsin_. The tablet, affixed to a large gray boulder, bears this inscription:

LAPHAM PEAK
Elevation 1233 Feet
Named by the U. S. Geographic Board
In Honor of

INCREASE A. LAPHAM
_Eminent Scientist and Useful Citizen_
MDCCCXI--MDCCCLXXV

Tribute of
The Waukesha County Historical
Society
1916

Mr. W. W. Bartlett of Eau Claire, an enthusiastic cultivator of the local historical field, has been running for many months a series of lumbering articles and reminiscences dealing particularly with the Chippewa Valley. He has recently given a lecture, illustrated with lantern slides, on the subject of logging in the Chippewa to an audience of Norwegian-Americans, most of whom were familiar with the industry before coming to America. Mr. Bartlett is chairman of the history section of the Eau Claire County Defense Council.

The Agricultural College of the University of Wisconsin has prepared a moving-picture film depicting the historical stages in the invention of the Babcock test. Fortunately it was possible to have as principal actors in the scenario the two men who played the principal rôles in the original discovery, Professor Babcock and Professor Henry.

The Wisconsin Archeological Society, which holds monthly meetings during the year in the Milwaukee Library-Museum, has been giving during the past year a series of lectures on American anthropology and archeology, the subjects ranging from descriptions of the Eskimo to the antiquities of Brazil. For the coming year President Barrett proposes a series of lectures which will constitute a course of study in American anthropology, with its relations to geology, zoölogy, ethnobotany, folk lore, and the fur trade.

The Milwaukee Museum is planning to install a replica of Solomon Juneau’s fur-trade post, in anticipation of next year’s centenary of Juneau’s first appearance on the site of Milwaukee.

On February 22 the Milwaukee Old Settlers’ Club, organized in 1869, held its annual banquet at the Pfister Hotel. During the year thirty-two of its members had been claimed by death. On May 17 many members of the club joined in celebrating the ninetieth birthday of Frederick Layton, the Milwaukee philanthropist.

The old settlers of Pierce and St. Croix counties held a “homecoming” at Ellsworth on June 20. The qualification for membership in the organization is forty years’ residence in the St. Croix Valley.

On January 17 the old settlers of De Pere met at the Presbyterian Church. Speeches relating to the early history of the Fox River Valley were delivered.

In connection with the summer session of the University of Wisconsin an archeological and local historical excursion was given July 7. This is the fourth time that Curator Charles E. Brown, assisted by local historians, has coöperated with the university in arranging such a field day. The number of excursionists is limited to one hundred, and admission to the privilege is eagerly sought by students from distant parts of the United States, who desire to learn of the first things in Madison’s environment.

Pageantry is proving one of the most attractive means of popularizing and visualizing history. At Milton College’s semi-centennial its history was vivified by a pageant written by the faculty and produced by the literary societies. West Allis, under the joint auspices of the schools and the library, enjoyed a pageant in the early summer, written by W. E. Jillson, city librarian.

At Monroe on June 7 the commencement exercises of the high school took the form of a historical pageant. The Mitchell Park Sane Fourth Committee provided a pageant for Milwaukee southsiders on our national holiday. A number of other pageants that had been planned have been postponed because of war conditions.

St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church at Prairie du Chien celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary June 10-12. Bishop Schweback was the guest of honor. To this church undoubtedly belongs the honor of being the oldest parish in the state, since the records preserved show that baptisms and marriages were performed, and a cemetery consecrated in the spring of 1817 by Father Joseph Dunand, a Trappist monk from the Illinois monastery opposite St. Louis.

The eightieth birthday of the Milwaukee _Sentinel_ was celebrated June 27. This famous paper, whose editors have enjoyed national reputations, was first issued in the second year of Wisconsin’s territorial career, having been founded by Solomon Juneau to herald the fame of the east-side town whose interests he was promoting. The present publishers issued a memorial edition of the paper on June 24, giving a historical résumé of the _Sentinel’s_ past.

Nashotah House, the mother seminary of the Episcopal Church in the Northwest, celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary at the commencement in May. The historical address was delivered by Rev. T. M. McLean of Duluth. This seminary was the outgrowth of the efforts of Bishop Jackson Kemper, whose extensive private papers, fully illustrating his missionary career, are included in the State Historical Society’s manuscript collections.

The seventy-first anniversary of the inauguration of Solomon Juneau as first mayor of Milwaukee was noticed by the city press, which published an illustration of the First Spring Street Methodist Episcopal Church, within whose walls the ceremony occurred.

The fiftieth anniversary of Milton College was celebrated June 16-20. Six college presidents of the state and the dean of the University of Wisconsin participated in the exercises.

The Dania Society of Racine, one of the largest Danish-American organizations in the United States, commemorated its fiftieth anniversary on May 19.

The Seattle _Post-Intelligencer_ of February 25 printed an interview with Edwin U. Judd, now living in his ninety-first year at Anacortes, Washington. Mr. Judd was a resident of Waupun during the fifties of the last century and was the chairman of the Free Soil party for his district when the Republican party was born in 1854 at Ripon. He is probably the last survivor of those who signed the call for a mass convention at Madison in July of that year. His recollections of Alvin A. Bovay and the motives for the caucus at Ripon, February 12, 1854, are interesting material for the historian of political parties.

Mrs. Louisa Sawin Brayton, first school teacher of Madison, died at her home in that city May 30, aged one hundred and one years. Mrs. Brayton came to Madison in 1838. She was a prophet not without honor in her home city; for many years her neighbors had delighted to celebrate her birthday and the Brayton public school is named for her.

Prof. Frederick J. Turner, in recent years of Harvard University, but Wisconsin born and bred, is a member of the National Board for Historical Service, recently organized at Washington to mobilize the historical scholarship of the country to serve it in its time of need. Prof. Carl R. Fish of the history department of the University of Wisconsin is also a member of this board.

Mrs. Lois Kimball Mathews, associate professor of history and dean of women at the University of Wisconsin, was elected in April president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, the largest organization of college women in the United States.

Louis Sky, or Ossawah, of the Chippewa Bad River Reservation, was recently granted a pension for his services during the Civil War. This recalls the fact that numbers of Chippewa, Menominee, and Winnebago braves went from our state to serve their country in 1861-65. Their descendants are now offering themselves in considerable numbers to fight for Uncle Sam on the plains of France.

Through the generosity of Mrs. John H. Davidson, the Oshkosh chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution has erected tablets on the Indian mounds at Oakwood, on the southern shore of Lake Butte des Morts.

Milwaukee’s _Eintracht Gesellschaft_ was founded June 19, 1867. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary a banquet was given on June 19 of the present year.

On May 20, St. John’s Lutheran Church at Boscobel held a commemorative service in honor of its founding fifty years ago.

Rev. T. S. Johnson of the Presbyterian Church of Beaver Dam had the rare distinction of celebrating this spring a pastorate of fifty years’ duration.

A large number of interesting and valuable objects were given to the Historical Society for the museum during the first half of 1917. A few of the more important are noted below:

The four survivors of the volunteer fire company known as the Madison Engine Company No. 2, organized in 1856, have donated to the Society all their equipment and records, including a silk flag, silver trumpets, brass lanterns, helmets, and belts. The patriotic work of the pioneer volunteer fire-fighters constitutes an interesting chapter in the history of the state.

With the coöperation of various individuals and governmental agencies hundreds of war posters and other material pertaining to the great struggle on which the nation is embarked are coming to the museum. A number of special exhibits of this material were held during the summer in the museum halls. It is expected that in a future issue of this magazine will be presented an article by Mr. Brown on the collecting and the character of this contemporary historical material.

From Mr. Thomas Wilson of Black Earth, Civil War soldier in the Twelfth Wisconsin Regiment, a collection of sixty or more tintypes of members of his company taken at Memphis, has been received. Mr. Wilson also gave to the Society an army overcoat worn by himself and an officer’s sword and sash worn by his brother, Captain Francis Wilson.

Two Spanish War mementos have been deposited in the museum by Miss A. C. Anderson of Madison. One is a Spanish flag taken from the custom house at Santiago by members of Company A, Second U. S. Cavalry, when the city was captured in 1898. The other is a Moro flag captured in the Philippines by the same company.

The class of 1897, University of Wisconsin, has given a three-inch shrapnel shell, properly cross-sectioned, of the type now in use by the Allies in the European War.

By the will of the late W. W. Warner of Madison the Society has received a collection of Indian stone and other implements, and an elaborate Swiss music box. The latter is reputed to be the finest instrument of its kind in the Northwest.

During the current year especial efforts have been devoted to developing the Society’s collection of newspapers. As a result the list of papers currently received at the library covers in a general way every section of the United States and more intensively the middle-western section more immediately tributary to the library. If this policy can be adhered to permanently, future generations of students who come to consult the library will find a much more comprehensive and logically ordered collection of newspapers than do those of the present time.

Along with this reaching out for current issues, the library continues, slowly but persistently, to add to its files of old newspapers. The more important non-current newspaper accessions in the nine months ending July 1, 1917, are as follows:

Boston _News Letter_ (photostat copies), 1719-25.
Cherokee (Kans.) _Sentinel of Liberty_, 1879-80.
Fishkill (N. Y.) _Journal_, 1865-89.
Freeport (Ill.) _Monitor_, 1874-75.
Freeport (Ill.) _Bulletin_, 1868-69.
Freeport (Ill.) _Journal_, 1856-57, 1859-60, 1866-80, 1882-1913.
La Crosse _Tribune_, 1904-06, 1908.
Lexington (Ky.) _Western Luminary_, 1826-29.
London (Eng.) _Examiner_, 1808-29.
Milwaukee _Freidenker_, 1914-16.
New York _Citizen_, 1854-55.
New York _Herald_, 1849.
New York _Man_, 1834-35.
New York _Nautical Gazette_, 1874-75.
New York _Sentinel_, 1830-32.
New York _Times_, 1898.
New York _Workingman’s Advocate_, 1834-35.
Oconomowoc _Free Press_, 1858-60.
Philadelphia _Gazette of the United States_, 1791-93.
Portsmouth (N. H.) _Journal_, 1824, 1828, 1830, 1835-55, 1864.
Richmond (Va.) _State Journal_, 1871.
Racine _Advocate_ (incomplete), 1842-48.
Rising Sun (Ind.) _Indiana Blade_, 1843-48.
Seneca Falls (N. Y.) _Millenial Harbinger and Bible Expositor_, 1860-62.
Shanghai _North China Herald_, 1910, 1912-14.
Skaneateles (N. Y.) _Democrat_, 1844-49.
St. Paul (Minn.) _Northwestern Chronicle_, 1866-72.

The annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association was held at Chicago, April 26-28, 1917. Prof. R. B. Way of Beloit was chairman of the program committee, while Prof. Frederic Logan Paxson of the University of Wisconsin, as president of the association, delivered the annual address. His subject was “The Rise of Sports, 1876-93.” Other Wisconsin men who delivered addresses during the sessions of the association were Prof. James A. James, now of Northwestern University, Theodore C. Blegen of Milwaukee, and Prof. Sherwood of La Crosse. M. M. Quaife of Madison was elected to the board of editors of the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ for a three-year term, while all the newly-elected members of the executive committee of the association were educated at Wisconsin. These were Prof. O. G. Libby of the University of North Dakota, Homer C. Hockett of Ohio State University, and Albert H. Sanford of La Crosse.

The important Bancroft Manuscript Collection at Berkeley, California has been placed in charge of Prof. Herbert E. Bolton. Mr. Bolton is a native of Wisconsin and was graduated at the university in 1895.

The annual address before the State Historical Society at the coming October meeting will be given by Prof. Frederic Logan Paxson of the University of Wisconsin. Plans are being made for a more active participation on the part of local societies in the program of the annual meeting than has been the case in the past. With a reasonable degree of interest on the part of the members of the state and local societies it is believed that a better and more profitable annual meeting can be held than any in recent years.

SOME PUBLICATIONS

Volume XXII of the Society’s _Collections_, _The Journals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and John Ordway_, distributed in the summer of 1916, has attracted much attention at the hands of historical editors and others. Of it the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_ says: “It is perhaps not too much to say that, no publication of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin possesses a wider interest than this book.” The review in the _Washington Historical Quarterly_ concludes: “Those who have collected the works of Lewis and Clark should certainly secure this book. It makes a rich supplement to any of the other editions.” In similar fashion the review of the book published in the _American Historical Review_ closes with the statement, “The Historical Society of Wisconsin is to be congratulated on the publication of this volume.”

Volume XXIII of the Society’s _Collections_ (_Frontier Advance on the Upper Ohio, 1778-79_) and Mr. Merk’s _Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade_ have been distributed too recently to have attracted much attention at the hands of the reviewers at the time of our going to press. On the part of the newspapers of Wisconsin, however, Mr. Merk’s volume has already evoked much notice and comment. The Milwaukee _Sentinel_ and other papers of the state have republished numerous extracts from the book, while the Chippewa Falls _Independent_ devoted special attention to the chapters on the history of the lumbering industry in Wisconsin. The expected comment of our historical neighbors on these two volumes will be noted in a future number of the _Magazine_.

The annual volume of _Proceedings_ of the Society for the year 1916 came from the press and was distributed to our members and exchanges in July. The volume is longer than any of its predecessors, and the workmanship of the printer is probably the best of any in the long series of annual volumes put out by the Society. Aside from the business report and other routine proceedings, the book contains eight historical papers. The most interesting and valuable of these is Captain Arthur L. Conger’s study of “President Lincoln as War Statesman,” delivered as the annual address before the Society in 1916. Unless we mistake greatly, this paper will quickly gain recognition as one of the most trenchant studies yet made of Lincoln’s career. Four studies of a biographical character are the reminiscences of Father Chrysostom Verwyst of Bayfield and of Mary Elizabeth Mears, early Wisconsin authoress; “New Light on the Career of Nathaniel Pryor,” sergeant on the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark; and an account of the military career of Major Earl, noted Wisconsin Civil War scout. A study of “The Beginnings of the Norwegian Press in America” reveals the fact, interesting to citizens of Wisconsin, that this state, rather than its western neighbor, was originally and for long the chief seat of Norwegian development in America. Hence the story of the beginnings of the Norwegian press in the United States is almost wholly a Wisconsin story. Another local study is that of the long-drawn-out “Watertown Railway Bond Fight,” one of the notable legal contests in American history. Finally, and of more general import, is “The Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy,” which recites the story of the rise and decline of the hopes of the Southern people to draw off the Northwest from the remainder of the Union and in so doing to win the struggle for its disruption.

By the will of Joseph Pulitzer, the noted New York journalist, provision is made for the establishment of an annual prize of $2,000 by the authorities of Columbia University for the best book of the year in American history. It is interesting to note that the first award, announced at the 1917 commencement of Columbia, was made, not to a professional historian but to a busy man of affairs, the French ambassador to the United States, Monsieur J. J. Jusserand, for his volume _With Americans of Past and Present Days_. The book includes four important and charming historical studies. The longest, “Rochambeau and the French in America,” presents a narrative, based largely on hitherto unused sources, of this able but neglected soldier in the war for our national independence. The other studies deal with “Washington and the French,” “Major L’Enfant in the Federal City,” and “Abraham Lincoln.” The latter paper is particularly interesting as showing the contemporary French estimate of President Lincoln and the popular sentiment in France in favor of the Union. Thoroughly scholarly and charmingly written, the volume is commended as an agreeable companion for a leisure evening.

A second annual prize established by Mr. Pulitzer is one of $1,000 awarded for the best American biography teaching patriotism and service. It was first awarded to Mrs. Laura E. Richards and Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott for their biography of their mother, Julia Ward Howe. The noble career of this talented woman should ever serve as an inspiration to her countrymen. Especially at this time of stress are we grateful for her immortal “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Like M. Jusserand’s book, the work is unreservedly commended to our readers.

One of the most important and scholarly studies in the field of western history to appear in many years is Clarence W. Alvord’s _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics: A Study of the Trade Speculation, and Experiments in Imperialism Culminating in the American Revolution_. The book is beautifully printed in two volumes by Arthur H. Clark of Cleveland. It is Professor Alvord’s contention that the seeker after the causes leading to the American Revolution will find them chiefly in connection with the policies and efforts of the British ministers to organize the imperial American domain which came to it from France in the Seven Years’ War, rather than in the incidents and events along the Atlantic seaboard to which historians have paid chief attention hitherto.

Of particular interest to Wisconsin readers is the volume, _Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699_, edited by Louise P. Kellogg of the Society’s staff for the _Original Narratives of American History_ series. In this volume have been gathered, with appropriate editing, the principal classics of northwestern exploration in the seventeenth century. Included are the narratives of (or concerning) Nicolet, Radisson, Perrot, Allouez, Dollier and Galinée, Jolliet and Marquette, La Salle, Duluth, and St. Cosme. Thus at length we have assembled in convenient form the more important sources for the earliest history of this region, so that anyone who will, may easily avail himself of them. With this volume the important series of _Original Narratives of Early American History_, sponsored by the American Historical Association and under the general editorship of Dr. J. Franklin Jameson of Washington, concludes. It is interesting to note that the series was begun and finished by Madison scholars, Prof. Julius Olson having edited (jointly with Professor Bourne) the first volume and Miss Kellogg the final one.

Mr. Lucius C. Colman of La Crosse has had reprinted by photomechanical process from the copy in the Wisconsin Historical Library the rare _Brief Sketch of La Crosse Wisc’n_ published in 1854 by Rev. Spencer Carr. The work, a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, may be regarded as a city history, directory, census, and promoting tract all in one. From it we learn that in January, 1854, La Crosse had a total population of 745. Indicative of the character of the place at this time is the further information that, among this population were 78 “single Gentlemen” and but 38 “single Ladies.” In view of the fact that less than three years earlier there were but five families in La Crosse, the author’s generally optimistic view of the town’s advantages and future prospects seems fairly justified. A further indication of the roseate future which the townsmen saw in prospect is afforded by the enumeration among the 745 persons in the community of 9 physicians and 12 lawyers.

Of Ulysses S. Grant, conqueror of the Confederacy, many biographies have been written. The recently published biography by Louis A. Coolidge is one of the best in the series, although it still remains to write an entirely satisfactory account of Grant’s career. Mr. Coolidge’s biography devotes a relatively large amount of space to Grant’s later civilian career (over three-fifths of the volume). The author believes and seeks to show that Grant was a greater statesman and more successful president than he is commonly believed to have been.

The Historical Department of Iowa has issued _Downing’s Civil War Diary_, edited by Prof. O. B. Clark of Des Moines. Alexander G. Downing was a sergeant in the Eleventh Iowa Infantry. He served from 1861 to 1865, a period during which he succeeded in participating in nearly forty battles and skirmishes. Like the _Artilleryman’s Diary_ of Jenkin Lloyd Jones, published by the Wisconsin History Commission three years ago, Downing’s diary gives a valuable first-hand picture of the war as seen from the standpoint of the soldier in the ranks. Unlike the _Artilleryman’s Diary_, however, Downing’s diary, as printed, does not reproduce the original record. Instead, it is a composite made up by the editor from the original diary plus a revised version written out by Mr. Downing in old age, together with such alterations as the editor deemed desirable. The editor’s work seems to have been done skillfully on the whole, and author, editor, and historical department are to be congratulated on the publication of the book. As with the _Artilleryman’s Diary_, not much of commendation can be accorded the physical makeup of the book. So worthy a record was deserving of a better dress.

For several years the Lakeside Press of Chicago has published an annual Christmas volume of a historical character for complimentary distribution to patrons and friends. The volume published in 1916 was a reprint of the autobiography of Black Hawk, the famous Sauk chief, and was edited by M. M. Quaife of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. So great was the demand for the book that although 3,500 copies were printed the edition was exhausted within a brief period. For the year 1917 the Indian-captivity narrative of Rev. O. M. Spencer is being edited by Mr. Quaife. The work was originally written for the _Western Christian Advocate_ of Cincinnati, from whose files the numerous reprint editions in volume form of seventy years ago were taken. For the new edition under preparation, recourse has been had to the rare file of the _Advocate_ preserved in the newspaper division of the Wisconsin Historical Library.

An elaborate report of _Perry’s Victory Centennial_ has been issued by the Perry’s Victory Centennial Commission, State of New York. As usual with politico-historical publications of this character, the physiognomies of the several members of the commission are adequately presented to public gaze in a series of full-page half-tones. The numerous historical addresses delivered in connection with the celebration constitute the more interesting portion of the contents of the volume. Included is the address of Hon. John M. Whitehead of our Society at the laying of the cornerstone of the Perry Memorial at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, July 4, 1913.

One of the most laborious, and at the same time useful, pieces of historical workmanship of recent years is being prosecuted towards its conclusion by Mr. Clarence Brigham, secretary of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts. This is the compilation of a calendar of all American newspapers published down to (and including) the year 1820. Newspapers are as the breath of life to the serious student of American history, but with no comprehensive guide to enlighten him as to what papers were published and where files of these have been preserved, the individual student has been sadly handicapped heretofore in his efforts to avail himself of this source of historical information. Aside from its value to students of American history generally, there are at least two reasons why the progress of Mr. Brigham’s enterprise should afford peculiar interest to members of this Society; first, because our Society was a pioneer in the field of publishing newspaper catalogues, the last edition of our _Annotated Catalogue_ got out by Doctor Thwaites a few years ago still standing as one of the two chief American publications of this character in print; and second, because of the creditable showing made by our Society’s collection of early American newspapers in Mr. Brigham’s calendar; this notwithstanding the fact that the major strength of our newspaper collection lies in a period more recent than that covered by Mr. Brigham.

Publication of _The Louisiana Historical Quarterly_ was begun by the Louisiana Historical Society in January, 1917. The initial number contains 119 pages of material, bearing chiefly upon the history of the state. The Georgia Historical Society issued in March the first number of the _Georgia Historical Quarterly_. These two new publications afford gratifying evidence of renewed vigor on the part of their sponsors, each of which is upwards of eighty years of age.

To the October, 1916, number of the _Missouri Historical Review_ Duane Mowry of Milwaukee contributes an interesting collection of letters of Carl Schurz, B. Gratz Brown, and other prominent Missourians, contained in the collection of papers of Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin, now in Mr. Mowry’s custody. The January, 1917, number of the _Review_ contains a further instalment of Senator Doolittle’s correspondence with leading citizens of Missouri.

The June number of the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ contains as a leading article a valuable account of the Doukhobors in Canada. Other articles worthy of note are Professor Robertson’s “Sectionalism in Kentucky from 1855 to 1865,” and the annual survey of historical activities in the Old Northwest for the preceding year. Our Wisconsin readers will be gratified by the opening sentence of the survey: “The State Historical Society of Wisconsin continues to maintain its leading position among historical agencies of this region.” To those of our readers who are as yet unacquainted with the _Review_ we are glad to commend it as the livest and best historical periodical in America, saving only the _American Historical Review_. Because it belongs to our own section of the country its contents are probably of greater interest and value to most middle-western readers than are those even of the _American Historical Review_. Membership in the association is open to all; members receive the quarterly _Review_ together with the annual volume of _Proceedings_ of the association.

The leading articles in the July number of the _American Historical Review_ possess an unusual degree of timeliness. Prof. S. B. Fay writes on “The Beginnings of the Standing Army in Prussia.” Two Civil War articles are “The Northern Railroads, April, 1861,” and “The Confederate Government and the Railroads.” The former of these is by Prof. Carl R. Fish of the University of Wisconsin. Finally, James A. Robertson, who went from Wisconsin to the librarianship of the Manila Public Library, gives an account of “The Philippines since the Inauguration of the Philippine Assembly.” Included in the book reviews are full-page notices of the two recently issued volumes of this Society’s _Collections_, No. XXII and No. XXIII.

Of military history and principles most Americans are woefully ignorant. Those who would improve their knowledge of these things can hardly do better than to become readers of _The Military Historian and Economist_ edited jointly by Capt. Arthur L. Conger, U. S. A., and Prof. R. M. Johnston of Harvard. Timely and stimulating articles in the July number of the magazine are Émile Laloy’s discussion of “French Military Theory” and an anonymous contributor’s “Estimate of the Situation.” The writer believes that the most effective military course for the United States to take is to keep at home the larger part of the army now in process of creation, and by so doing enable our navy to be sent into the Pacific to establish there a secure Anglo-American predominance. The considerations which lead to these conclusions cannot, of course, be set forth in this brief note.

VOL. I, NO. 2 DECEMBER, 1917

THE
WISCONSIN MAGAZINE
OF HISTORY

PUBLICATIONS OF THE
STATE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN.
Edited by MILO M.
QUAIFE, Superintendent

CONTENTS

Page

THE FRONTIER A WORLD PROBLEM _Carl Russell Fish_ 121

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF LAKE GENEVA (BIG FOOT LAKE),
WISCONSIN _George Manierre_ 142

DESCRIPTION OF A JOURNEY TO NORTH AMERICA
Foreword _Rasmus B. Anderson_ 149
Description of a Journey to North America
_Ole Knudsen Nattestad_ 167

EDITORIALS:
History Repeats Itself; Our Military Record; What of
the Future?; An Appreciation and a Suggestion;
Cannon Fodder 187

QUESTION BOX:
Daniel Webster’s Wisconsin Investments; Names Proposed
for a New Town; Origin of the Word “Winnequah”; The
Discovery of Lake Superior; The Potawatomi during the
Revolution; Father Allouez among the Kickapoo; The
Indian Tribes of Iowa 193

COMMUNICATIONS:
Old Copperheads and New; A Presbyterian Objects 202

SURVEY OF HISTORICAL ACTIVITIES:
The Society and the State; Some Wisconsin Public
Documents; Some Publications 206

Copyright, 1917, by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

THE FRONTIER A WORLD PROBLEM[82]

BY CARL RUSSELL FISH

Only by a study of local history can we hope really to understand the development of human society. The historian like the scientist must base his knowledge on what can be seen through a microscope. Wisconsin, from the time of its formation as a state, has realized this, and has steadily confirmed itself in the opinion. This institution, which it founded in the days of its youth and scant resources, it has supported with a liberality, public and private, growing as its wealth has grown. Of late years, a corps of local societies, city and county, have been forming about the central institution. The University has directed its students to the study of the localities from which they have come, and stores in its stacks the facts which they glean. No one of the newer states of the country knows itself so well as Wisconsin, and if, as is so often the case, acquired knowledge seems merely to reveal the knowledge still necessary for real understanding, we have carefully developed plans to extend it still more widely and intensively.

Yet how insignificant any locality seems today, when practically all are plunged into the same calamity, when the resources of all are concentrated in one struggle. Races and breeds, nationalities and castes are merged together on the same battle-field. Their similarities of plight and object dominate their differences, the protective barriers each erected to preserve that distinctiveness so dear to human nature seem leveled, and history has become world history. Men thrown thus physically into the maelstrom find themselves intellectually also torn from their safe anchorages and adrift they know not where. What does the individual count for, what the locality, what the past? What counts it to study the development of Rock County cheese-making, when its cheeses and cheese makers are tumbled promiscuously with those of all counties and nations, simply as units in a staggering sum total?

The world has changed, but that is not startling. The world is always changing. This change is greater, and for us in America more sudden and dramatic, than any which preceded, but everything has not changed. The relation of the past to the present and the future is permanent. The relations of the individual, the locality, and the whole, shift, but they are the permanent factors of which life consists. The world war has not changed these factors, but it should bring us up sharply to a realization of what they really mean. Socrates’ dictum “know thyself” was not given in any selfish spirit. He did not mean that we were to devote ourselves to ourselves, but that we could know ourselves more thoroughly than we could know others, that self-knowledge was the completest knowledge, and therefore the Archimedian lever to open up knowledge of others. Self-examination has often become an obsession excluding all else, the study of local history has often become antiquarianism. The real reason for the cultivating of both is the formation of known bases from which to calculate. The German historian, Lamprecht, became so familiar with the little city of Trêves that he could have conversed intimately with its inhabitants of any year during the Middle Ages if he might have been dropped into it, but this devotion was not for the sake of Trêves, it gave the understanding knowledge necessary for his great work on German civilization as a whole. We can know no generation unless we have delved deep into the souls of its greatest men, but such biographical studies are not for themselves alone, but to contribute to a sympathetic comprehension of their contemporaries.

Local history to justify itself must be as exact and absolute as studies dealing with human nature may be, but if no effort is made to utilize it for an understanding of national and world history, it has missed its mission. Local history is not an end in itself. Moreover, if it is written without a wide knowledge of outside conditions, conditions in other localities, and other times, it will be but a warped product, as useless to the community for which it is written as for the outside world. Such selfishness and egoism have never been profitable. The only difference today is that for the moment at least they have become impossible.

The most striking feature in the history of Wisconsin has been the transformation within a lifetime of a virgin forest into a civilized area, the drawing together of the sons and daughters of many widely differing localities and their welding into a commonwealth. This conquest of the frontier has been but a portion of that vast movement which in a period historically short has created the United States, and more particularly it has been an important and typical battle in the campaign for the Mississippi Valley, which has resulted in our sister states of the Middle West.

Different as has been the history of each, the history of the frontier movement is a whole; the study of any state contributes to an understanding of all. As the occupation of Wisconsin has been but a part of the American frontier movement, so that has not been unique, even in the nineteenth century. We have liked to think of ourselves as carrying on a special and distinct task; to its difficulties and inspiration we have attributed many of our virtues, and on them we have laid the burden of our defects. The task, however, has not been unique. The results have, indeed, had their distinctive differences, but these have come rather from the way the task has been performed than because we have had a different thing to do. We know our own frontier with scientific thoroughness, but we cannot understand it unless we contrast it with such other frontiers as Australia, Siberia, South America, and Africa.