Mr. C. E. Freeman, of Menomonie, Wisconsin, has presented to the Society an interesting document pertaining to the railroad farm-mortgage projects of the fifties in Wisconsin. Readers of Mr. Merk’s Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade, published by the Society last year, need not be told how important was the rôle played by the railroad farm mortgage in the economic and political annals of early Wisconsin. The document presented by Mr. Freeman is a contract between the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad and a farmer, whereby the railroad company agrees to cancel the interest on the individual’s farm mortgage in return for the relinquishment by the latter of his prospective dividends on his railroad stock. This was a central feature of the farm mortgage scheme, yet at the time of writing his Economic History, Mr. Merk was unable to uncover any direct documentary evidence concerning it. This hiatus in the Society’s collection of historical material pertaining to the subject of railroad farm mortgages is now filled by the gift of Mr. Freeman.
A fine bronze bas relief of Mary Elizabeth Mears, better known, perhaps, by her pen name, Nellie Wildwood, has been received by the Society from her daughter in New York. The bas relief is the work of another daughter of Mrs. Mears, Helen Farnsworth Mears, who was for many years prior to her death in 1916 one of Wisconsin’s most notable artists. The “Recollections” of Mrs. Mears were published in the Proceedings of the Society for 1916. The Madison Art Association has secured for hanging in the State Historical Museum a copy of Miss Mears’s Augustus St. Gaudens.
Colonel Michael Frank, “father of the free public school system of Wisconsin,” was born in New York in 1804 and died in Kenosha in 1895. He came to Southport (now Kenosha) to reside in October, 1839. Three months later, on January 1, 1840, he began keeping a diary. Upon its conclusion, December 31, 1890, this work had continued half a century and filled thirty-nine bound manuscript volumes. Throughout this half-century Colonel Frank figured as one of the prominently useful citizens of the territory and state. His voluminous diary has now come to the State Historical Society from its possessor, Mr. F. H. Lyman, of Kenosha, an old neighbor and friend of Colonel Frank. The diary is well preserved and written in an excellent hand. Although only a cursory examination has as yet been made of its contents, it seems evident that the work will
prove a valuable aid to students interested in this period of Wisconsin’s history.
MARY ELIZABETH MEARS
From a bas relief owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society
A collection of papers of Governor Nelson Dewey, consisting principally of a business account book and several annual volumes of his diary, has been presented to the Society by Mr. R. A. Watkins of Lancaster. The diary of Governor Dewey seems to have been widely scattered. Some volumes of it have long been in the Historical Library, and several more are in the possession of a resident of Cassville.
Several interesting additions of noncurrent newspaper files were made to the Library during the quarter ending December 31, 1917. Most interesting locally, perhaps, is a file of Lucifer, 1884-98, in fifteen bound volumes. Publication of Lucifer was begun at Madison in 1882; later it was continued at Milwaukee until the demise of the paper in 1898. Published in German, it was the organ of the Turner societies, and manifested a liberal and anti-Catholic viewpoint. To the Society’s slowly-growing file of photostatic copies of the Boston News Letter all known existing issues for the years 1726-29, inclusive, were acquired during the quarter. Other files of Massachusetts papers acquired are the Newburyport Evening Union (daily), January 1-September 18, 1851, and Russell’s Gazette (Boston, semi-weekly), January-July, 1800. Finally, two Ohio papers were added: the Cleveland Recorder, 1896-97, and July-December, 1899, in four volumes, and the Cincinnati Graphic, August, 1885-November, 1886, in two volumes.
From Captain George Jackson of Chicago the Society has received a rare volume possessed of much sentimental interest. It is “Dr. Mort. Luther’s Lesser Catechism,” published in New York in 1842. But one other copy of the book is known to be in existence and this is in private hands. The Lesser Catechism was the first book in the Norwegian language to be printed in America.