October 2006 Odd Wisconsin
In honor of Halloween, we offer a little-known Wisconsin ghost story. John Hille came to America from Germany in 1837. Skilled in cabinet making, he made his living as a carpenter and married fellow immigrant Magdalena Jaquitard. The pair soon settled in Waukesha Co., where Hille built them a beautiful...
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Posted in Strange Deaths on October 30, 2006
At 2:30 on the morning of September 8, 1860, the sidewheel steamer Lady Elgin, carrying about 300 Milwaukeeans who'd spent the previous day in Chicago, collided with the tiny schooner Augusta about 10 miles out from Waukegan, Ill. The captain of the Augusta had been unable to see clearly in...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 28, 2006
During the last week of October 1836, Wisconsin's first elected officials took office. When Michigan became a state earlier that year, the region west of Lake Michigan became eligible to be a territory in its own right. This proposed "Wisconsin Territory" stretched west from Green Bay across the Mississippi to...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 22, 2006
No, not television. Not radio. Not even the telephone. No, the true predecessor of the Web was the telegraph, invented in 1837 by Samuel F.B. Morse. Its value was proven on May 24, 1844, when he sent the question, "What hath God wrought?" from Washington to Baltimore. The miraculous technology...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 17, 2006
When the Badgers meet the Gophers at Camp Randall on Saturday, it will be just the latest incarnation of a rivalry dating back more than a century. There are few things universities value more than tradition, and this traditional contest is a time-honored one. The first Madison game, though, was...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 12, 2006
The origins of many Wisconsin place names are recorded in our online Dictionary of Wisconsin History. The note there on the Columbia County town of Wyocena -- that the name came to the town's founder, Elbert Dickason, in a dream -- led us to investigate. Dickason (1799-1848) was born in...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 8, 2006
An unusual delegation set off from LaPointe, on Madeline Island, on April 5th, 1852. Four Ojibwe warriors paddled a canoe with a white interpreter and their two principal chiefs, Ke-Che-Waish-Ke (better known as Chief Buffalo) and O-Sho-Ga, eastward along Lake Superior. The aged Buffalo had long been the most respected...
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Posted in Curiosities on October 1, 2006
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