http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/images/common/logo.gif http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ The Wisconsin Historical Society presents Odd Wisconsin, to amuse, surprise, perplex, disgust, astonish, and otherwise engage you with the past. Michael Edmonds (mailto:miedmonds@whs.wisc.edu) Wisconsin Historical Society <webmaster@wisconsinhistory.org> en-us 2013-05-16T12:47:54-06:00 http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/005082.asp "Accordingly, on the 17th day of May, 1673," Fr. Jacques Marquette wrote in his diary, "we started from the mission of St. Ignace at Michilimakinac, where I then was. The joy that we felt at being selected for this expedition animated our courage, and rendered the labor of paddling from morning to night agreeable to us... we joyfully plied our... 5082@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Odd Lives 2013-05-16T12:47:54-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/005076.asp In 1828, the Ho-Chunk Chief Dandy was passing through Galena with some companions. White settlers had only recently started moving into the lead region of southwestern Wisconsin, and the Indians were interested in the strange newcomers and their customs. This was before the widespread occupation of Indian lands that would produce the Black Hawk War four years later. "While strolling... 5076@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ 2013-05-08T18:53:07-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002133.asp No, not the UW&#39;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 in 1863 he erected a medieval castle on E. Gorham... 2133@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Madison 2013-05-01T05:42:16-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001297.asp That was how commissioner of fisheries Brayton O. Webster put it, at the height of Wisconsin's Progressive Era. But presumably he didn't consult the fish. The 1887 institution that gave its name to Madison's Fish Hatchery Road, shown here in a somewhat romanticized lithograph, was among the first fish hatcheries in the nation. Read about a visit to it in... 1297@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Animals 2013-04-25T01:09:24-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002873.asp 2873@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-04-16T01:47:36-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/005059.asp This week public television aired the first episode of a new British series dramatizing the life of Wisconsin native Harry Gordon Selfridge. The producers call him, "the flamboyant entrepreneur and showman seeking to provide London's shoppers with the ultimate merchandise and the ultimate thrill." That may be hyperbole, but in fact much of the consumer culture that surrounds us began,... 5059@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Odd Lives 2013-03-31T17:19:11-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001240.asp According to local legend, fur trader Michel Brisbois (1759-1837) had himself interred high on a bluff over Prairie du Chien so he could look down on his rivals forever. A Fierce Competition Brisbois was a fur trader who arrived in Wisconsin in 1781 and thumbed his nose at the rich and powerful for the next four decades. He undercut more... 1240@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Strange Deaths 2013-03-28T01:01:37-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002689.asp Back in 1950, the irate owner of a Wisconsin summer resort "accosted the executive secretary of the Governor's Commission on Human Rights, shook his finger in her face, and demanded to know the names of the legislators who were responsible for the state's civil rights act." He was angry that he couldn't decide for himself who to serve or not... 2689@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-03-20T01:23:26-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002035.asp "In my boyhood days" recalled Augustin Grignon* in the summer of 1857, "there was an aged Chippewa woman named 0-cha-own. She was a great huntress, and spent each winter with her dogs in the woods the same as any Indian hunter, and was quite as successful in killing bear, raccoon and other game. Beside a gun,which I presume she used,... 2035@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Odd Lives 2013-03-14T09:43:52-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002057.asp Here's a story for Women's History Month about a Wisconsin woman who was once well-known but is now all-but-forgotten. She embodied New Age spirituality a century before that term was invented. Here are her own words describing how it all began. "I was crossing the kitchen with a basin of water when, suddenly, some unknown Force pressed me down upon... 2057@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Odd Lives 2013-03-07T05:47:55-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001101.asp March is Women's History Month, so for the next few weeks Odd Wisconsin will occasionally focus on the lives of Wisconsin women. American Indian women, of course, have been making history here for thousands of years. Passing references to them occur throughout the 17th-century Jesuit Relations, but one of the earliest detailed accounts occurs in this 1702 letter by outraged... 1101@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-02-28T05:40:10-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/005041.asp Every year for several decades, students have approached the Society's staff to learn about the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin. Slavery itself can be an awkward topic, especially for younger students. White kids often wonder how their ancestors could have owned other people as slaves and feel guilty or embarrassed, and black kids wonder how their ancestors could have put up... 5041@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-02-21T16:01:28-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/003693.asp Born into bondage in North Carolina on Jan. 1, 1829, Mrs. Hattie Pierce, of 1442 Williamson St. in Madison, personally experienced the dramatic social upheavals that most of her neighbors only learned about in schoolbooks. By the time she passed away, slavery had become just a distant memory and horse-drawn wagons had given way to jet airplanes. 'Gone with the... 3693@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Odd Lives 2013-02-14T14:12:51-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/003677.asp Here's a pop quiz for anyone who thinks they know Wisconsin history. The record of African-American life in our state begins in the year: a. 1967, with Milwaukee's fair housing marches; b. 1866, when Ezekiel Gillespie won the right to vote; c. 1792, when Black fur traders settled at Marinette; d. 1724, when an African-American slave was killed by the... 3677@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-02-01T20:02:30-06:00 Michael Edmonds http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001978.asp In Germany they speak German; in China, Chinese. So how come, here in the center of No. America, we speak English? When the French and Indian War (1755-1763) broke out, the French controlled the interior of North America and the English the Atlantic seaboard. Here are a French map from 1757 and an English one from 1754 showing what they... 1978@http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/ Curiosities 2013-02-01T01:34:59-06:00 Michael Edmonds