So long as the fur trade remained the principal business in Wisconsin,
the French were still supreme at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien; and,
until a third of the nineteenth century had passed away, there existed
at these outposts of New France a social life which smacked of the "old
regime," bearing more traces of seventeenth-century Normandy than of
Puritan New England. With the decline of the fur trade, a new order of
things slowly grew up.
There being little legal machinery west of Lake Michigan, before
Wisconsin Territory was erected, local government was slow to establish
itself. Nothing but the good temper and stout common sense of the people
prevented anarchy, under such a condition of affairs. For many years,
the few public enterprises were undertaken at private expense. At Green
Bay, schools were thus conducted, as early as 1817. In 1821 the citizens
of that village raised a fund by popular subscription, and built a jail;
and eleven years later, they asked the legislature of Michigan Territory
to pay for it. There were some Territorial taxes levied in 1817, but the
gathering of them was not very successful. The first county to levy a
tax was Crawford, of which Prairie du Chien was the seat, but
considerable difficulty appears to have been experienced in collecting
the money.
Finally, Wisconsin Territory was organized, and the legislature
assembled (1838) in Madison, the new capital. The accommodations at that
raw little woodland village were meager, even for pioneer times. The
Territorial building of stone, and a few rude frame and log houses in
the immediate neighborhood, were all there was of the infant city. Only
fifty strangers could be decently lodged there, and a proposition to
adjourn to Milwaukee was favored. But as the lakeshore metropolis, also
a small village, could offer no better accommodations, it was decided to
stay at the capital, and brave it out on the straw and hay mattresses,
of which, however, there were not enough to supply the demand.
This was long before railroads had reached Wisconsin. Travel through the
new Territory was by boat, horseback, or a kind of snow sledge called a
"French train." There were no roads, except such as had been developed
from the old deep-worn Indian trails which interlaced the face of the
country, and traces of which can still be seen in many portions of the
State. The pioneers found that these trails, with a little
straightening, often followed the best possible routes for bridle paths
or wagon roads. It was not long before they were being used by long
lines of teams, transporting smelted lead from the mines of southwest
Wisconsin to the Milwaukee and Galena docks; on the return, they carried
supplies for the "diggings," and sawmill machinery into the interior
forests. Farmers' wagons and stagecoaches followed in due time. Bridges
were but slowly built; the unloaded wagons were ferried across rivers in
Indian "dugout" canoes, the horses swimming behind, and the freight
being brought over in relays.
In 1837 there was a financial crisis throughout the country, and this
checked Western immigration for a few years. But there was not enough
money in Wisconsin for bank failures materially to affect the people;
so, when the tide of settlement again flowed hither, the Badgers were as
strong and hopeful as ever.
People coming to Wisconsin from the East often traveled all the way in
their own wagons; or would take a lake boat at Buffalo, and then proceed
by water to Detroit, Green Bay, or Chicago, thence journeying in
caravans to the interior.
Frontier life, in those days, was of the simplest character. The
immigrants were for the most part used to hard work and plain fare.
Accordingly the privations of their new surroundings involved relatively
little hardship, although sometimes a pioneer farmer was fifty or a
hundred miles from a gristmill, a store, or a post office, and generally
his highway thither was but a blazed bridle path through the tangled
forest.
Often his only entertainments throughout the year were "bees" for
raising log houses or barns for newcomers, and on these occasions all
the settlers for scores of miles around would gather in a spirit of
helpful comradery. Occasionally the mail carrier, either afoot or on
horseback, would wish accommodation over night. Particularly fortunate
was the man who maintained a river ferry at the crossing of some
much-frequented trail; he could have frequent chats with strangers, and
collect stray shillings from mail carriers or other travelers whose
business led them through the wilderness.
Often the new settler brought considerable flour and salt pork with him,
in his journey to the West; but it was not at first easy to get a fresh
supply. Curiously enough, although in the midst of a wild abundance,
civilized man at the outset sometimes suffered for the bare necessaries
of life. As soon, however, as he could garner his first crop, and become
accustomed to the new conditions, he was usually proof against disaster
of this kind; fish and game were so abundant, in their season, that in
due time the backwoodsman was able to win a wholesome livelihood from
the storehouse of nature.
Satisfactory education for youth was a plant of comparatively small
growth. At first there was not enough money in the country to pay
competent teachers. The half-educated sons and daughters of the pioneers
taught the earliest schools, often upon a private subscription basis;
text-books were few, appliances generally wanting, and the results were,
for many years, far from satisfactory. As for spiritual instruction,
this was given by itinerant missionary preachers and priests, of various
denominations, who braved great hardships while making their rounds on
horseback or afoot, and deserve to rank among the most daring of the
pioneer class. In due time churches and schools were firmly established
throughout the Territory.
In addition to these farmer colonists, there came many young
professional and business men, chiefly from New York and New England,
seeking an opening in the new Territory for the acquisition of fame and
wealth. Many of these were men of marked ability, with high ambition and
progressive ideas, who soon took prominent part in molding public
opinion in the young Wisconsin. There are, all things considered, no
abler, more forceful men in the Wisconsin of to-day than were some of
those, now practically all passed away, who shaped her destinies in the
fourth and fifth decades of the nineteenth century.
The sessions of the legislature were the principal events of the year.
Prominent men from all over Wisconsin were each winter attracted to
Madison, as legislators, lobbyists, or visitors, crowding the primitive
little hotels and indulging in rather boisterous gayety; for humor in
those pioneer days was often uncouth. There was overmuch "horseplay,"
hard drinking, and profanity; and now and then, as the result of a warm
discussion, a tussle with fists and canes.
The newspapers were given to rude personal attacks upon their enemies;
one would suppose, to read the columns of the old journals, that editors
thought it their chief business in life to carry on a wordy, bitter
quarrel with some rival editor or politician. But this was largely on
the surface, for effect. As a matter of fact, strong attachments between
men were more frequent then than now. There was a deal of dancing and
miscellaneous merrymaking at these legislative sessions; and travelers
have left us, in their letters and journals, statements which show that
they greatly relished the experience of tarrying there on their winter
journeys across the Territory, and of being entertained by the
good-hearted villagers.
Pioneers, in their stories of those early years, are fond of calling
them the "good old times," and styling present folk and manners
degenerate. No doubt there was a certain charm in the rude simplicity of
frontier life, but there were, as well, great inconveniences and rude
discomforts, with which few pioneers of our day would wish to be
confronted, after having tasted the pleasures arising from the wealth of
conveniences of every sort which distinguishes these latter days. As far
back in time as human records go, we ever find old men bewailing
prevalent degeneracy, and sighing in vain for "the good old times" when
they were young. It is a blessing given to the old that the disagreeable
incidents of their youth should be forgotten, and only the pleasant
events remembered. As a matter of fact, we of to-day may well rejoice
that, while Wisconsin enjoyed a lusty youth, she has now, in the
fullness of time, grown into a great and ambitious commonwealth, lacking
nothing that her sisters own, in all that makes for the prosperity and
happiness of her people.