Odd Wisconsin Archives: Madison
No, not the UW's Red Gym but a real castle. In 1861, a melancholy Englishman named Benjamin Walker brought his family across the Atlantic to settle on what were then the outskirts of Madison. No one seems to know why he left home or why he chose our capital, but... :: Posted on May 4, 2006
We easily get the impression that all our pioneer ancestors were hard-working, upstanding, church-going pillars of a proud community. That's because they were the ones who took the pictures, wrote the histories, and operated the libraries and museums where such records are kept. But in reality they shared the world... :: Posted on April 27, 2006
"I shall be glad when it is all over and I am gone, too," burst out Wisconsiana Hawley to a reporter in 1917. She had been the first settlers' child born in Madison, and she was tired of hearing about it. "The papers have had a lot of stuff about... :: Posted on April 13, 2006
Richard Valentine, a telegraph operator in Janesville, went to Chicago in 1874 to see a man named Elisha Gray, who was experimenting with sending music over wires. He came back and strung a telegraph wire between his home and his brother's, stuck one of Gray's primitive devices on either end,... :: Posted on April 9, 2006
"I can vividly recall the tall clock which he made," wrote Grace Lindsley in 1935, "and which was connected with his bed in such a way that when the time came for which he had set it, the mechanism was released which tipped up the bed and threw the occupant... :: Posted on April 8, 2006
Rumors that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with a slave, Sally Hemings, started 200 years ago with this 1802 article in a Richmond, Virginia, newspaper. Recent DNA analysis persuaded many historians that Jefferson was indeed the likely father of Eston Hemings (1808-1856), who moved to Madison in 1852 with his wife... :: Posted on April 8, 2006
On February 11, 1842, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature was interrupted by the shooting of one member by another. While they were deliberating, Representative Charles C.P. Arndt implied that fellow member James R. Vineyard had lied. During a break in the proceedings, Arndt approached Vineyard's desk and the two continued their... :: Posted on April 5, 2006
Madison first hosted the legislature in February of 1838, when lawmakers gathered to consider the profound political and economic issues of the day. Unfortunately, the Capitol building wasn't finished and they found conditions unbearable: "The floors were laid with green oak boards full of ice," one of them wrote later;... :: Posted on April 4, 2006
"Bears were common," wrote H.A. Tenney of Madison in 1845, "wolves innumerable, and other wild animals in proportion... The present generation have not the faintest conception of the enormous profusion of that period." Everyone loved the ducks, geese, and fish, but they found the wolves troublesome since they ate the... :: Posted on April 3, 2006
Many observers commented on the abundance of fish and game around the Four Lakes at the time that Madison was founded. "On the first day of May in 1839," wrote the first postmaster, John Catlin, he and a friend "discovered a large catfish near the shore of the head of... :: Posted on April 3, 2006
Before Wisconsin was a state, some leading citizens of the hamlet called Milwaukee suggested a canal be dug between Lake Michigan and the Lead Region. The canal's proposed route would have passed roughly through Menomonee Falls, Pewaukee, Delafield, and Fort Atkinson, where it would have joined the Rock River. Lead... :: Posted on April 2, 2006
George Stoner arrived in Madison in the summer of 1837, a week shy of his seventh birthday. "The site upon which the city now stands," he recalled, "was then covered with a forest of giant oaks, among which were nestled two or three log cabins." Woods ringed the lakeshores, deer... :: Posted on April 2, 2006
"Pshaw, talk about the time that tried men's soul, just as if a woman had none --- " That's the way Roseline Peck remembered the first Independence Day celebration in Madison. Only a few weeks after she'd arrived on the barren isthmus, the cornerstone for the state capitol was to... :: Posted on March 31, 2006
The spring after Madison was declared the capital, Roseline and Eben Peck headed for Madison from Blue Mounds, to establish an inn for the workers who would be coming to construct the capitol. "We were well aware what our business would be when settled," she recalled, and so "we provided... :: Posted on March 31, 2006
Madison's first house is usually considered to be the Peck cabin, built near the intersection of Butler and Wilson (a little uphill from the modern Cleveland's Diner), pictured here. But in fact that was the second house constructed in the newborn town. The first one was never occupied. When he... :: Posted on March 30, 2006
|
