As a medieval Madisonian, I protest against your summary termination
of the activities of “Cap” Barnes at “1873 or 1874, perhaps
later.”[127] He was positively an institution in and of Madison, and I
positively remember him and his steamboat line at least as late as
1889. His steamboats, the _Scutenaubequon_ and the _Waubishnepawau_,
lent new terrors to the aboriginal tongues. His later divergence to
_Silenzioso_ bore witness to the liveliness, if not the expertness, of
his linguistic imagination. No Madisonian of the Victorian age, so to
speak, will recall “Angleworm Station” without a warming of the heart
to the memory of “Cap” Barnes. His midwinter straw hat and his
irrepressible gaiety are intimately associated with our tenderest
Madison memories. Picnics? Madison was the home of them, and “Cap”
Barnes and his steamboat, in combination, were preëssential to them.
It was “Cap” Barnes who hit upon the first discovered practical use of
the abortive capitol park driven well: “Pull it up, saw it into
lengths, and sell it to the farmers for post holes.”
Statesmen, prophets, and nabobs, Mr. Editor, may pass into
oblivion--but touch reverently on the memory of “Cap” Barnes. Madison
would never have been the Madison of its golden age without him.
CHARLES M. MORRIS.
Milwaukee, January 7, 1918.