Winnebago. There are a few rapids, but no obstacle to down navigation until the waters flow into Green Bay. The position of the two rivers point them out as one of the great avenues of communication between the lakes and the Mississippi. This has been undertaken in the shape of steam navigation, aided by a grant of lands to the Fox and Wisconsin River Improvement Company. Although the Fox and the Wisconsin run within gun-shot of each other, the latter is several feet higher than the former. Hence the Portage Canal has been dug of sufficient size to float steamboats of considerable dimensions from one river to the other. By this means a sloop might come down the Wisconsin, and, reaching the Fox, pass into the lake, and thence to the Atlantic. The City of Portage, which stands on the Fox River, opposite Fort Winnebago, is not more than fifteen years old, and has had many difficulties to contend with, but it has grown into very considerable importance. It has graded streets, several beautiful blocks built with pale brick similar to that made at Wilwaukee, and several very pretty churches. At the recent session of the Wisconsin Legislature, the Committee on Internal Improvement report that the lands already selected by said company, and confirmed by the Commissioners of the Land-office, amount to 415,959.86 acres, according to the report of the Select Committee of the Assembly of 1856. In addition to the above quantity of land, the company claim, under an act of Congress passed August 3d, 1854, and a resolution adopted March 3d, 1855, a tract of land equal in quantity to the alternate sections along the Wisconsin River, from Portage to the Mississippi, which would add about 350,000 acres more to the improvement fund. These additional lands have been selected by the company between the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, near the latitude of Green Bay; but said selections have not been confirmed to the company by the General Government, and consequently, according to the act of 1856, before referred to, there is no positive appropriation for any improvement of the Wisconsin River. The Rock River rises in the marshes about Lake Winnebago. It receives the Catfish, or outlet of four lakes, and the Pekatonika, a navigable stream from the lead region, and passes into Illinois, being navigable for steamboats to Kushkanong Lake. There are numerous other smaller streams. The lake shore affords many good harbors, of which the best is Milwaukee, which is the head of a semi-circular indenture of the shore, and is less liable to accumulation of sand than the other harbors of the lake. This territory was, in 1836, occupied by many warlike tribes of Indians, of which the Dahcotas, or confederates, were the chief, numbering 20,000, and the Winnebagos, numbering 4,500, with many others, making probably 35,000 Indians. These retreated rapidly before the advancing whites, when the stream of immigration once set in. In the winter of 1834 and 1835, a number of gentlemen in the county of Oswego, New York, conceived the plan of forming a settlement in the far West. An association was accordingly formed with the view of carrying out this object. In April, 1835, a delegation, designated for the purpose, left for the West on a tour of exploration. Wisconsin, east of Rock River, was at that time mostly an uninhabited wild; a few Indian traders comprised nearly all the white population, north of the Illinois line, between Lake Michigan and the mining country toward the Mississippi. The lands in the eastern part of Wisconsin had not yet been surveyed,

nor were they brought into market until the spring of 1839. The party before mentioned, having examined several points on the western shore of the lake, finally fixed upon Pike Creek, as a suitable location for the building of a town. Claims were accordingly made to several hundred acres of land, and the work of preparing temporary accommodation for the reception of families was immediately entered upon. During the summer of the same year a considerable number of families arrived from Oswego County and various other parts of the East, a few of which settled in the prospective village, but mostly on the prairie and adjoining country. The first house (except cabins or shanties) was built on the island between the north and south mouths of Pike Creek. It was constructed of logs, and subsequently converted into a tavern, and was, for a considerable time, the only house of public entertainment in the place. The first merchandise brought into the place for sale was also kept in the same building. The first frame building was erected in August, 1835, on the point near the south mouth of Pike Creek.

The Territory of Wisconsin was set off from Michigan, and organized under a distinct territorial government, by an act of Congress, in April, 1836. At that time, the Territory of Wisconsin included within its limits the present State of Iowa. In the same year Congress appropriated $25,000 for the building of a territorial capitol, and $5,000 for the purchase of a library, for the use of the Legislative Assembly. In 1838, Congress granted the further sum of $20,00, to be applied to the completion of the territorial capitol. Owing, however, to the wrong application of the funds, the appropriations of Congress failed to complete the capitol; it remained unfinished until the year 1844, when the county of Dane completed it, at an expense of about $2,000. The capitol was located at Madison by an act of the Legislative Assembly in 1836. Milwaukee, which has the best harbor, was settled in 1835.

The first session of the Legislature of Wisconsin was held at Belmont, in Iowa County, in 1836. At this session three banks were incorporated, besides which, sundry other corporations were created. The second session of the Legislature was held at Burlington, in the present State of Iowa; the third session was held at Madison in 1838, at which place all the subsequent sessions have been held. In June, 1838, Iowa was erected into a separate territory, comprising that portion of country west of the Mississippi River formerly included in the limits of Wisconsin.

The settlement then progressed rapidly, and in 1840 the number of inhabitants in the territory reached 30,945, and the valuation of the property was $8,077,200. The territory was admitted into the Union as a State in 1848, and at the next Federal census, taken in 1850, it numbered 305,191 souls. The progress of the land settlement, from that date to the present time, is expressed in the following table, showing the annual sales down to the close of the year 1857. Wisconsin received the usual grant of 500,000 acres from Congress on her admission into the Union as a State. Her grant for schools also comprised, as usual, every sixteenth section in each township, equal to one thirty-sixth of all the lands in the Territory, set apart by Congress for the support of common schools. Congress granted to Wisconsin 46,000 acres of land for the establishment of a university of learning.

ANNUAL SALES OF LAND IN THE TERRITORY AND STATE OF WISCONSIN.

The disposition of the whole surface of the State has been as follows:

The direct sales of lands by the Federal Government have been mostly to settlers, and have been accompanied by sales of lands by the State from the grants for schools, improvements, swamp lands, &c., also by those of military grants. The disposition of the school and swamp lands of the State has also been very satisfactory. The latter were granted to the States within which they lie by act of Congress of 1850, in order to enable the States to reclaim them. By this act the expenses of sale were first to be deducted, and 25 per cent of the balance of sales was to be applied to the expenses of drainage. The remaining 75 per cent forms part of the school fund. In the past year, 1857, there was sold of all these lands 992,374 acres, for $1,413,911, being an excess of $145,116 over the appraised values. Of the amount of sales, $355,908 was paid, and the remainder is on interest at 7 per cent. The whole amount of school and swamp lands granted is, it appears, 2,354,000 acres, and the sales already have created the school fund as follows:

The net money received from land sales in 1857 was $291,932, and this was loaned to 796 different persons, some in each county of the State. No loan is over $500, and the average is under $400. From these sources the amount of money applicable to the support of schools this year is $246,000.

The quantity of land which has thus come under the plow had reached, in round numbers, 13,000,000 acres in farms, taxed in 1857, showing that a considerable proportion of all the lands disposed of has come under

cultivation. The progress in this respect may be gathered from the following table:

Years.

1840

1850..

1855..

1857....

Lands sold,

These are the quantities of Federal lands only sold to that year. The revenues of the State have been derived mostly from a tax on the total valuation, and this has yielded the following revenue annually since the formation of the State government. It will be observed that the expenses have increased in a ratio a little faster than the revenue, large as that has been, and has resulted in a small debt. The rapid increase of banking and railroads has afforded new subjects of taxation, which have largely added to the State revenues:

The valuation of property for 1857 is as follows, bearing a tax of two

The money in the treasury of Wisconsin was composed as follows at

three periods:

The quantity of lands taxed, it appears, has exceeded, by more than three-and-a-half million acres, the quantity sold by the Federal Government, showing the quantity that has been derived from the State grants. The following table shows the manner in which these lands have come into cultivation, as expressed by the results. The leading products are by a State census for 1857, (which is incomplete,) as follows, as compared with the Federal census for 1850, and quantities for 1840:

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF WISCONSIN.

67

--1857.

Quantity.

Value.

Barley.....bush.

Quantity.

19,504

408,885

$399,178

209,692

$157,269

11,184

Buckwheat.....

7,986

118,906

70,440

78,878

47,927

10,654

Clover...

.lbs.

124,079

21,836

24,181

1,449

Corn

...bush. 285,339 5,100,790

2,485,594

1,988,979

994,489 379,359

Flax.

..lbs.

540

68,393

5,471

Hay

.tons

327,379

519,547

2,597,785

275,662

Oats

.bush.

193,609

6,312,304

2,707,800

3,414,672

1,195,135 406,514

Potatoes

22,858

2,318,694

2,112,470

1,402,956

561,270 419,608

15,050

220,580

136,669

81,253

56,877

1,965

Wheat..

521,393

8,717,756

8,101,090

4,286,131

3,87,518

6,655,696 1,069,914

3,633,250

212,116

.....

Cheese.....

443,933

48,653

400,283

Cattle

..No.

219,561 6,791,200

183,433

Swine

177,810 662,159

159,276

80,269 51,380

Cattle slaughtered

22,148 533,950

Sheep

42,701

Swine

153,746

1,654,120

Horses..

74,834

Sheep..

312,215

608,347

124,896

3,462

Wool...

.lbs.

939,806

266,630

253,963

6,777

Sugar

1,327,644

80,207

610,976

32,524 135,288

Whisky....galls.

801,512

74,950

Boots and shoes..

77,341

194,130

.....

Cottons

19,405

1,898

Wine

.galls.

1,619

.lbs.

22,706,700

571,840

15,129,350

Lead..

.....

These figures for 1857, although very imperfect, and falling far short of the truth, indicate the great advance in products which the State has undergone, giving a large surplus to send out of the State. This surplus, as well as its availability, has greatly been enhanced by the construction and operation of railroads. Of these, there are in Wisconsin, a country peculiarly adapted to their construction, ten in operation, with a length of 718 miles open, having cost $19,295,842. A considerable portion of this large sum has been spent within the State for the reward of labor and the consumption of produce. It is very clear that such an expenditure, being equal to $50 per head of the average population of the last five years, in addition to the sums brought in by immigrants, has had a powerful effect upon the fortunes of so young a State, and has tended to push railroad enterprises to an extreme. wealth has not been neglected, however. We compile the quantities and The production of natural value of grain produced in the years 1850 and 1857, as in the above table, as follows:

This return for 1857, it will be remembered, is short-seventeen counties out of fifty-one having omitted their returns. The results are, however, sufficiently striking, since in thirty-four counties the quantity raised