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.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROADS
When white men first came to our land, the Indian trails formed a network of narrow, deep-sunken paths over the face of the country, as they connected village with village, and these with the hunting and fishing resorts of the aborigines. Many of the most important trails simply followed the still earlier tracks of the buffalo, which in great herds wandered from plain to plain, in search of forage, or in hiding from man, through the dark forest and over the hills. The buffalo possessed an unerring instinct for selecting the best places for a road, high ridges overlooking the lowlands, and the easy slopes of hills. In the Far West, they first found the passes over the Rockies, just as, still earlier, they crossed the Alleghanies by the most favorable routes.
The Indian followed in the footsteps of the buffalo, both to pursue him as game, and better to penetrate the wilderness. The white man followed the well-defined Indian trail, first on foot, then on horseback; next (after straightening and widening the curving path), by freight wagon and by stagecoach; and then, many years later, the railway engineer often found his best route by the side of the developed buffalo track, especially in crossing the mountain ranges. The Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific railways are notable examples of lines which have simply followed well-worn overland roads, which were themselves but the transcontinental buffalo paths of old.
An interesting story might be written concerning the development of the principal Indian trails in Wisconsin into the wagon roads of the pioneers, and some of these into the military roads made by the federal government for the marching of troops between the frontier forts. Without fairly good roads, at least during the winter and summer months, it would have been impossible for Wisconsin to grow into a great State; for good roads are necessary to enable settlers, tools, and supplies to get into the country, and to afford an outlet for crops. For this reason, in any newly settled region, one of the first duties of the people is to make roads and bridges.