Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by

MOSES M. STRONG,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

NOTICE.

Ar the last session of the legislature an act was passed (chapter 285, laws of 1885) to provide for the purchase of certain copies of this history.

The act appointed a commission consisting of ROBERT GRAHAM, state superintendent; JAMES D. BUTLER, late professor of the University of Wisconsin; and J. W. STEARNS, professor in the University, who were authorized and requested to examine and read the manuscript of the book; and if they should be satisfied that it would when published be a work of merit and a valuable compilation of the history of the territory of Wisconsin, and of the preceding period to which it relates, they were to give notice thereof to the commissioners of public printing, who were authorized on behalf of the state to cause to be printed and suitably bound in cloth by the state printer under the existing contract for state printing, and cause to be delivered to the superintendent of public property, for the use of the state, on or before the first day of September, 1885, such number of copies of said book, not exceeding two thousand, as would enable him as far as practicable to make the distribution provided for by the act.

The commission appointed to examine and read the manuscript, made and unanimously signed on the 7th of May, 1885, the certificate contemplated by the said act.

Upon notice of said certificate given to the commissioners of public printing, they directed the book to be printed and bound by the state printer as required by said act.

The distribution of the two thousand copies, printed by the state, provided for by said act, was required to be made among the educational institutions of the state, school-districts having libraries, other libraries, the public institutions and societies of the state, public officers and to members and employés of the legislature.

The compiler has procured the state printer to stereotype the work and to print an edition for sale by subscription.

PREFACE.

IN the winter of 1870, the compiler of this book was invited to deliver the annual address before the State Historical Society, and the members of the legislature. Having accepted the invitation, he took as his theme "Territorial Legislation of Wisconsin."

The address was a brief condensation of what had occurred in the legislative halls during the territorial period of twelve years.

This mere epitome of the history of Territorial Legislation, short and fragmentary as it was from the necessities of the occasion, was received with unexpected favor. The author was urged by many who heard it, among whom were those for whose judgment he felt the utmost deference, to enlarge the work of which the address was an abridgment, and to publish a more complete history of the subject to which it related.

These flattering solicitations induced the author to make the experiment, although with great hesitation and very serious doubts as to his ability to compile a work which would not disappoint the too generous confidence of his friends. The result is the book now presented to the public.

It seemed to the compiler that some account of the preterritorial period, while the country within the present restricted boundaries of Wisconsin was under the dominion of the successive kings, states and territories, which at different epochs had jurisdiction over it, was a suitable introduction to the history of the territory proper, which

Hence the first chapter, of about twelve pages, contains the briefest possible account of the early explorations of "Florida" and "Louisiana," under which names the whole country from the Gulf of Mexico to Newfoundland was claimed successively by Spain, France and Great Britain, during a period of more than two hundred and fifty years in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. was the principal object of the work.

This naturally led to a notice of the wars in the eigh

teenth century with the Fox Indians on the Fox and Wisconsin rivers; and in immediate connection with them a sketch of the Langlade family — the first permanent settlers in Wisconsin, whose descendants have remained upon its soil.

The explorations of JONATHAN CARVER in 1766-7, are, it is thought, appropriately referred to; as well as the progress of settlements in the northwest, and the development of their social relations.

To have omitted a notice of the ancient settlements at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, and the less numerous and less important ones at Chequamegon, Portage and Milwaukee, would, it is believed, have been inexcusable.

The migration of semi-civilized Indians to Wisconsin in the third and fourth decades of this century seemed to demand notice.

The history of the settlement of the lead mines nearly fifteen years before the organization of Wisconsin Territory, and the consequent Winnebago war, followed five years later by the Black Hawk war, occupy nearly forty pages of the preliminary history. These are succeeded by nearly one hundred pages, devoted to an account of civil government, social development, legislation and cognate matters, which complete the pre-territorial history and bring the compilation down to the period when the history of Wisconsin Territory properly commences.

Although the principal design of the work is to present a history of Territorial Legislation, in the execution of which design a chapter is devoted to the events of each year in chronological order, the design has been departed from so far as to incorporate into each chapter the most important of the contemporaneous events of the period to which it relates, although they may have no direct connection with legislation.

History and story are the same word differently written. And the compiler of this book desires to say that his compilation consists almost entirely of the story of the events to which it relates, that had been told or written by others. He disclaims all pretentions to originality, which implies rather the creation than the repetition of a story. He claims credit-if it be any credit-only for the order of the compilation, and of putting the words, deeds and writings of others relating to territorial and ante-territorial