COMMUNICATIONS
MORE LIGHT ON THE ORIGINATOR OF “WINNEQUAH”
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.
A HISTORY OF OUR STATE FLAG
I have just received the first copy of the new Wisconsin Magazine of History, and think it a splendid idea. Of course, I have not had time to examine it carefully, but I did run across the short article with reference to the state flag, which seems rather to carry the idea that Wisconsin had no state flag at any time prior to 1913.
I call your attention to a letter written by me to H. W. Rood, Custodian of Memorial Hall, under date of January 5, 1911, in which I said:
In response to your verbal request of a few days since, I have investigated the matter of the state flag of Wisconsin.