Dane County WI Archives History - Books .....Chapter V State Historical Society 1877
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Book Title: Madison, Dane County And Surrounding Towns...

CHAPTER V. 
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

  THE state library dates from the earliest days of our existence as a
territorial government, the first purchase of books having been made in 1837,
since which time the collection has been largely increased. The State Historical
Society was organized on the 30th of January, 1849, and its treasures now
comprise by far the best collection of materials for northwestern history that
can be found anywhere in this western country. There was at one time a superior
collection in Chicago, but the great fire unfortunately destroyed that, among
other priceless treasures. The organization of the society was suggested in the
Mineral Point Democrat of October 22, 1845, by Chauncy C. Britt, but
notwithstanding the support given to the project by the whole of the press, it
was not found possible to carry it into effect until the date mentioned, more
than three years later. Even then it was not a vigorous existence, upon which
the association entered. Events called off the attention of some, sickness and
misfortune impeded others, and the act of incorporation was not procured until
March, 1853, when there were not fifty volumes in the library. In the month of
January following, a complete reorganization having been effected, a vote of
$500 per annum was subsequently procured from the legislature to assist in
attaining the objects aimed at by the promoters; and the first annual report for
the year 1854 showed very considerable progress. There were already more than
one thousand volumes in the library and promises of assistance and cooperation
had been received from numerous societies on this continent and in Europe, as
well as from American authors whose names are to-day more honorable to the
nation than our material riches. Collections of autographs, portraits, and life
sized pictures had already been commenced, including mementoes of our worthiest
men, and those lines of effort have been persevered in with great success to the
present time, until the gallery of the Historical Society has become singularly
complete. With the report for 1854: were presented many valuable and interesting
documents forming parts of the contemporary and more remote history of the
northwest, in a striking way illustrating the importance of the society. One
paper was a translation from the French, setting forth the policy which the
soldiery of that nation should pursue toward the Chippewas and Foxes; another an
English record of the days when the British forces had taken possession of Green
Bay and other frontier posts, soon after the reduction of Canada by the English,
and a very interesting appendix consisted of Jas. "W. Biddle's recollections of
Green Bay in 1816-17, about the time that this country really passed under
American rule. The discriminating reader is of course aware that although the
British should have surrendered this country in 1783, there were excuses made
for the retention of Detroit and other posts until Jay's treaty was made, and
that even after that date it was not until the end of the war of 1812 that the
English authorities abandoned their manipulations with the Indians in this
territory. The conduct of the Chippewas in hoisting the English flag at Sault
Ste Marie in 1820, and defying Gov. Cass, was an event of still later
occurrence, and the courage with which the old General tore down the insolent
bunting, in the face of the Indians, won for him honest admiration. James Duane
Doty, who was then traveling in the suite of Gov. Cass, assisted in hoisting the
Union colors, and thereby increased his favor with the governor of Michigan. The
drain on the material resources of England, caused by long continued wars
against Napoleon, ended by the banishment of that ruler to St. Helena in
1815-16, made it inexpedient for the nation to continue its system of annuities
to Tomah and the Menomonees, as well as to other Indian allies. The change was
announced in 1817, and Mr. Biddle's recollections embrace that period and event,
as well as much other matter that deserves recapitulation. The customs of Green
Bay as to limited marriages, and transfers of marital engagements, among the
voyageurs, fur traders and their semi Indian squaws, read like the records of
South Sea Island life, with a few business like variations. There had not been a
priest in Green Bay for some time, and Judge Reaume, whose commission was said
to have been given by Gen. Harrison, or earlier by the British, was for many
years the only justice. Nobody could say when his authority first claimed
recognition, but on the other hand nobody presumed to question its potency. "The
Judge's old jack knife," sent by the constable, was a sufficient summons for any
real or assumed offender, and the judgment of the bench could be influenced by a
present, so that in one respect he resembled Lord Chancellor Bacon; but like the
more celebrated man last mentioned, he was not without many excellent points,
and his usefulness was beyond question. Gov. Cass recognized the substantial
worth of Judge Reaume and gave him an appointment as associate justice, toward
the end of his career, after the organization of the territory of Michigan.

  The state will not readily comprehend how much is due to the labors of the
Historical Society, and to its corresponding secretary, Lyman C. Draper, in the
procurement and preservation of the treasures amassed by the society; but the
Union and the reading world will some day recognize their worth, and this city
cannot fail to reap honor in having been the birthplace of the institution.

  Col. Whittlesey's "Tour Through "Wisconsin in 1832," written in 1838, gives a
vivid and life-like description of the Black Hawk "War, but our space will not
allow of such extracts as might be desired, and it is to be hoped that some
person favored by the society, will embody in a few volumes the choicer matter
in its priceless collection. For the present it is impossible even to enumerate
the contributions that lie before us, and it is necessary to confine ourselves
to a bare mention of only a few of the chief items of interest. Major H. A.
Tenney, whose services to the community in many ways have been beyond praise,
has given an admirable precis of "Early Times in Wisconsin," written in this
city in 1849, after he had succeeded in buttonholing Col. Brigham, and had
collated the information thus obtained, with knowledge from innumerable other
sources. The first settler in Dane county was not inclined to write his
recollections, but in his manly and genial way he was induced to talk of his
early experiences, and currente calamo, Major Tenney converted his veracious
words into history, which must always be the foundation of Wisconsin's records.

  The second annual report showed that the Historical Society had increased its
store by 1,065 volumes during the year 1855, and that in every other respect it
was growing in usefulness, with experience. The picture gallery then consisted
of twenty-five paintings, besides which the likenesses of numbers of local and
national celebrities had been promised as additions to the collection. No less
than forty-seven portraits, chiefly of pioneers and friends of Wisconsin, had
then been engaged, nearly all of which were afterwards supplied. We are almost
entirely at a loss in general history, when we attempt to recall the features of
thousands of men and women with whose deeds the world may be said to be
familiar, yet "the counterfeit presentment" is often the best commentary upon
the actual career of a person. Could we only be sure as to which of the several
pictures, busts and casts, said to have been made at various times and places,
of the player and poet, William Shakspere, was really taken from his features,
in life or in death, it would be much easier to pronounce upon the question
whether the wool-comber's son, who married Anne Hathaway, was truly the writer
of the plays and sonnets that bear his name, or only the stalking horse of a
still greater personage, the founder of our modern system of investigation. The
pictures then in the gallery of the society were particularized, and where
possible and necessary, as in the case of Black Hawk, the prophet, and in other
such, certified to by the then librarian, Prof. S. H. Carpenter, in an excellent
report on his particular branch of the society's possessions. The library has
gone on increasing in every feature with accelerating rapidity every year, so
that in 1857 the volumes aggregated 3,122, exclusive of pamphlets and unbound
newspapers; in the year following, 4,146; in 1862 there were 14,400 volumes; in
1866, when the change was made from the basement of the Baptist Church to the
suite of rooms in the capitol now occupied, there were 21,000 volumes and
documents; in 1868, the Tank Library donation added 4,812 volumes, and the
number of books, bound and unbound, had increased to 31,505, which in 1872, when
the last publication appeared, showed a total of 50,530. The supplementary
catalogue, in August, 1875, showed a further expansion to 65,000, and the
gratifying increment goes on with continuous energy.

  There are now in the galleries more than one hundred oil paintings of
noteworthy men, a feature of surpassing value. The cabinet of pre-historic
relics contains nearly ten thousand specimens of the tools, ornaments and
weapons of the stone age, in many respects second to none in the world. The
copper era is illustrated by even a still more valuable collection, which has
latterly been transferred to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, an
assemblage of celts, spearheads and knives, in unalloyed copper, such as all
Europe cannot equal. The maps and other valuables which are preserved in this
institution would alone repay all the outlay that the state has incurred in
supporting the invaluable movement, with which it is an honor to have been
associated, as even the humblest pains-taking assistant.

  The Tank collection above mentioned deserves more detailed notice. One of the
earliest pioneers in Wisconsin was Otto Tank, whose widow, the daughter of a
clergyman in Zeist, in Holland, inherited from her father his exceedingly choice
collection of works, amounting to more than 5,000, inclusive of pamphlets, and
this great treasure was by Mrs. Tank freely given to the State Historical
Society, the cost of removal from Holland to this country being covered by a
legislative appropriation. In the next year a full set of Patent Office Reports,
which cost the donors no less than $12,500 gold, and which covers the whole
range of invention since the year 1617, the year following the deaths of
Shakspere and Cervantes, were presented to the Historical Society by the British
government, through the intervention of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, late
minister to the court of St. James. The favor thus conferred does not end with
the donation named, as the society will continue to receive the series of
publications from the Patent Office in London, at the rate of about one hundred
volumes per year, and thus the inventive genius of this state will continue to
be stimulated by the opportunity at all times to inspect what has been
accomplished an$ attempted, and what is still within the range of tentative
effort among our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic. Like donations may
be expected from every other European government, when the purposes of the
institution are made known in the proper quarters.

  To continue such an enumeration would prove tedious to the average reader, and
in consequence, we refer our friends for more complete details to the reports
and catalogues of the society, and the rooms in the state capitol, which already
are too small to do justice to an always increasing literary, archaic and
artistic treasure. Mr. Draper has proved himself, in an exceptional degree, "the
right man in the right place," one of those whose deeds will live after them,
and to him more than to any other individual, the state and this city owe the
wonderful growth which we have utterly failed to chronicle according to its
merits. Those who have been associated with him best know his peculiar fitness
for the task to which his life has been devoted, and none of them will grudge
the patient and modest worker the credit to which he is honestly entitled. His
name has been the open sesame to numerous collections, and to innumerable
pockets, from which the resources of the society have been enriched, and his
zeal has contributed to induce the legislature to assist the movement by
appropriations which, without great economy, must still have been wholly
inadequate, while his example has induced hundreds to become willing laborers in
the good cause.

  Before us, on the desk, lie the volumes of Halliwell's Shakspere, a costly and
rare luxury, originally published at $800 per copy, beyond our reach in any
other way. The Historical Society enables us to see all that is known about the
man with whom the greatest treasure of poetry on this earth is associated. Here
are fac similes of his writing, and of his father's mark. The deeds and
acquittances, and unhappily, also the writs, which tell of the poverty that fell
upon the poet's home. Here are figured, as though in very fact, the original
documents as they were presented to his eyes, letters and memoranda in which
Shakspere and his immediate surroundings moved, in their daily lives.

  The state library has been already named, as its chronological right demanded,
seeing that it came into being before the capitol was planned. Apart from that
feature, it is of great merit as a law library, hardly second to any in the
west, and the completeness of the collection long since suggested to the
managers the transfer of all its miscellaneous works to the shelves of the
Historical Society. The courtesy of the librarian, the perfect order prevailing
in the department, and the extensive as well as excellent assortment of works,
combine to render the state library, in every sense, an honor to its promoters
and to this city. The location occupied by this department in the capitol,
adjoining the supreme court and the chambers of the legislature, renders it easy
of access to all who are concerned in its advantages.

  The city library, in City Hall, and the library at the University, deserve
more lengthened notice than our space will permit, seeing that the witchery of
books would infallibly cause an overrunning of our limits, "contrary to the
statute thereunto made and provided." Before ending this chapter, it becomes our
imperative, as well as our pleasant duty, to acknowledge the manifold kindnesses
of Librarian D. S. Durrie, whose own labors as a writer have made him apt to
render aid to every one toiling with pen or pencil. His merits need no eulogy,
but this word of recognition is due to ourselves.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

History of Madison Section

MADISON, DANE COUNTY AND SURROUNDING TOWNS;
BEING A HISTORY AND GUIDE
TO PLACES OF SCENIC BEAUTY AND HISTORICAL NOTE FOUND IN THE TOWNS OF DANE COUNTY
AND SURROUNDINGS, INCLUDING THE ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNS, AND EARLY INTERCOURSE
OF THE SETTLERS WITH THE INDIANS, THEIR CAMPS, TRAILS, MOUNDS, ETC.

WITH A COMPLETE LIST OF
COUNTY SUPERVISORS AND OFFICERS,
AND
LEGISLATIVE MEMBEES, MADISON VILLAGE AND CITY COUNCIL.

ILLUSTRATED,
MADISON, WIS.:
PUBLISHED BY WM. J. PARK & CO.,

BOOKSELLERS, STATIONERS AND BINDERS, 11 KING STREET.
1877.

COPYRIGHT.
WM. J. PARK & CO. 1877.

DAVID ATWOOD, STEREOTYPER AND PRINTER, MADISON, WIS.


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