St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church at Prairie du Chien celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary June 10-12. Bishop Schweback was the guest of honor. To this church undoubtedly belongs the honor of being the oldest parish in the state, since the records preserved show that baptisms and marriages were performed, and a cemetery consecrated in the spring of 1817 by Father Joseph Dunand, a Trappist monk from the Illinois monastery opposite St. Louis.
The eightieth birthday of the Milwaukee Sentinel was celebrated June 27. This famous paper, whose editors have enjoyed national reputations, was first issued in the second year of Wisconsin’s territorial career, having been founded by Solomon Juneau to herald the fame of the east-side town whose interests he was promoting. The present publishers issued a memorial edition of the paper on June 24, giving a historical résumé of the Sentinel’s past.
Nashotah House, the mother seminary of the Episcopal Church in the Northwest, celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary at the
commencement in May. The historical address was delivered by Rev. T. M. McLean of Duluth. This seminary was the outgrowth of the efforts of Bishop Jackson Kemper, whose extensive private papers, fully illustrating his missionary career, are included in the State Historical Society’s manuscript collections.
The seventy-first anniversary of the inauguration of Solomon Juneau as first mayor of Milwaukee was noticed by the city press, which published an illustration of the First Spring Street Methodist Episcopal Church, within whose walls the ceremony occurred.
The fiftieth anniversary of Milton College was celebrated June 16-20. Six college presidents of the state and the dean of the University of Wisconsin participated in the exercises.
The Dania Society of Racine, one of the largest Danish-American organizations in the United States, commemorated its fiftieth anniversary on May 19.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of February 25 printed an interview with Edwin U. Judd, now living in his ninety-first year at Anacortes, Washington. Mr. Judd was a resident of Waupun during the fifties of the last century and was the chairman of the Free Soil party for his district when the Republican party was born in 1854 at Ripon. He is probably the last survivor of those who signed the call for a mass convention at Madison in July of that year. His recollections of Alvin A. Bovay and the motives for the caucus at Ripon, February 12, 1854, are interesting material for the historian of political parties.
Mrs. Louisa Sawin Brayton, first school teacher of Madison, died at her home in that city May 30, aged one hundred and one years. Mrs. Brayton came to Madison in 1838. She was a prophet not without honor in her home city; for many years her neighbors had delighted to celebrate her birthday and the Brayton public school is named for her.
Prof. Frederick J. Turner, in recent years of Harvard University, but Wisconsin born and bred, is a member of the National Board for Historical Service, recently organized at Washington to mobilize the historical scholarship of the country to serve it in its time of need. Prof. Carl R. Fish of the history department of the University of Wisconsin is also a member of this board.