| PAGE | ||
| Increase Allen Lapham, First Scholar of Wisconsin | Milo M. Quaife | [3] |
| A Forest Fire in Northern Wisconsin | John L. Bracklin | [16] |
| Bankers’ Aid in 1861-62 | Louise P. Kellogg | [25] |
| Documents: | ||
| The Diary of Harvey Reid: Kept at Madison in theSpring of 1861 | [35] | |
| Historical Fragments: | ||
| Wisconsin’s First Versifiers; Memorandum on theSpelling of “Jolliet”; The First Edition of theZenger Trial, 1736; A Novel Transportation Device | [64] | |
| Editorials: | ||
| Introducing Ourselves; Our State Flag; TheSociety and the Legislature; Nelson Dewey Parkand the First Wisconsin Capitol; Perrot State Parkand John A. Latsch; Forest Fires, Generally and inParticular; Consolation for the Present Crisis | [75] | |
| Question Box: | ||
| The Oldest Church in Wisconsin; The First Mills inthe Fox River Valley; Colonel Ellsworth’s MadisonCareer; The Story of “Glory of the Morning”; TheOdanah Indian Reservation; First Exploration ofEastern Wisconsin; A Community Changes ItsName; How the Apostle Islands Were Named; TheServices of the Menominee in the Black Hawk War | [87] | |
| Survey of Historical Activities: | ||
| The Society and the State; Some Publications | [101] | |
Copyright, 1917, by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin
INCREASE ALLEN LAPHAM, FIRST SCHOLAR OF WISCONSIN
By Milo M. Quaife
The most characteristic and comprehensive theme in all American history is that of the westward movement. From the time of the first feeble landings at Quebec, at Plymouth, and at Jamestown, the history of our country has been characterized by a steady westward surge of the population, reaching out eagerly for new lands to conquer, and in the process carrying the banner of civilization ever westward and establishing successive new communities and states. The present generation of students of American history has not been unmindful of the importance and interest which attaches to this westward movement, and has not failed to accord it, in the main, all due recognition. With the doings and deserts of our pioneer farm, canal, railroad, and city builders, our hewers of wood and drawers of water, in a word, historians have long made us familiar. Unfortunately, however, too little attention has been given, and too little recognition accorded, the equally important service of those among our western pioneers who laid the foundations of our spiritual and intellectual civilization. That man may not live by bread alone was stated long ago on excellent authority. The hewing down of the forests and breaking of the prairies, the building of houses, highways, and cities were all essential steps in the process of transforming the wilderness into an abode of enlightened civilization. Equally essential was the establishment of institutions of learning and religion, and the development of a taste for literature and art. The blossoming of these finer fruits of civilization inevitably tended to sweeten and refine the society of the pioneers, which otherwise,
engrossed in a stern physical struggle with the wilderness, must have become hard and gross in character.
Fortunate indeed is the pioneer community which numbers among its settlers intellectual and spiritual leaders fired with enthusiasm and endowed with ability. Fortunate it was for Wisconsin when in the very year of her birth as a territory, Increase Allen Lapham cast his lot for the remainder of his life with her. The service rendered by the intellectual aristocracy of pioneer Massachusetts and the other New England colonies has long been accorded ample recognition. The valiant labors of Increase Lapham in the service of the state of his adoption have largely gone unheeded and unrewarded to the present moment. Yet it is safe to predict that when the future historian shall come to scan the record of the first half century of Wisconsin’s history as a territory and state, he will affirm that no man brought greater honor to her or performed more valuable services in her behalf than did the modest scholar, Increase Allen Lapham.
The frontier has ever been proud of its self-made men, esteeming chiefly, not who a man might be but rather what he was able to do. Lapham was a true frontiersman in this respect at least, that he was a wholly self-made scholar. He was born in March, 1811, at Palmyra, New York, “two miles west of the Macedon locks on the Erie Canal.” His father, Seneca Lapham, was an engineering contractor, the pursuit of whose profession necessitated frequent family removals. Thus, in 1818 the family was located at Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where the father was employed on the Schuylkill Canal; two years later he was back on the Erie Canal and the family was residing for a second time at Galen, New York; the next few years witnessed further removals to Rochester and Lockport in New York, and to several points in Ohio.