"For natural beauty of situation, Madison surpasses any Western town I have seen. It is built on a narrow isthmus, between the Third and Fourth Lakes. On the summit of a mound stands the State House, in the centre of a handsome square of fourteen acres, from which broad, smooth streets diverge, with a gradual descent on all sides. To the west, and about a mile distant, stands the University, on the summit of a hill, or mound, of about equal height. The Madisonians count seven hills, but I could not make them all out distinctly, nor do I think it necessary to the beauty of the place that it should have a forced resemblance to Rome. In one respect it is equal—in a soft, beautiful, cream-colored stone, which furnishes the noblest building material. Many of the business blocks and private houses display architectural taste.”

SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH.

"The settlement of Madison," observes the Hon. A. A. Bird, in his recent inaugural address as Mayor, “was commenced in April, 1837. At that period, almost all the entire territory between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river, was a wild and unsettled country, inhabited only by the Sons of the Forest.' At that time, and during a few subsequent years, there was a greater number of Indians at Madison, and in what was then termed the 'Four Lake Country,' than at any other point south of the Wisconsin river. They seemed to cling to Madison, and its beautiful lakes, with a determination not to leave until called to the 'Spirit land.' These beautiful lakes, the fisheries, and game, the splendid country bordering on the lakes, the hills, dales, and groves, had become so associated with their very being, that it was to them a paradise on earth.

1 This description of Madison is partly taken from an interesting pamphlet, compiled by Lyman C. Draper, Esq., Cor. Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and printed by order of the Common Council of the city.

"The General Government required the removal of the Indians to the country west of the Mississippi. It was found necessary to procure the aid of the army in removing them to their homes, and it was a difficult matter for the soldiers to collect them together. It was a touching scene to witness the departure of those who had spent a lifetime in a land made so beautiful by nature, from which they were now to be exiled. The different emotions exhibited by these 'Sons of the Forest,' were worthy the pencil of the painter. They were leaving the land of their fathers, the spot dearest to them on earth: passing westward, upon reaching University Hill, they took a long and last farewell of the spot endeared to them by early associations. The groves and lakes on which they had sported from childhood, where they had followed the flying deer, and impelled the light canoe, were to be seen no more."

The site of Madison attracted the attention of Hon. James H. Doty, as early as 1832. In the spring of 1836, in company with Hon. S. T. Mason, of Detroit, he purchased the tract of land occupied by the present city. The first cost of this tract was about $1500. The Territorial Legislature, which met at Belmont, Lafayette County, the next winter, passed an act locating the capital here, and John Catlin and Moses M. Strong staked out the centre of the village in February of the same winter. In the meantime, commissioners were appointed by the General Government to construct the capitol edifice. Eben Peck was sent on, with his family, to erect a house, where the men, employed in building the capitol, might board and lodge, and was the first settler at Madison. He arrived on the 14th of April, in 1837, and put up a log house, which remains standing to this day upon its original site, on block 107, Butler Street. This was, for about a year, the only public house in Madison.

On the 10th of June succeeding, A. A. Bird, the acting commissioner for constructing the capitol, accompanied by a party of thirty-six workmen, arrived. There was no road, at that time, from Milwaukee to the capital, and the party were compelled to make one for their teams and wagons as they came along.

Among the party that came with Bird, was Darwin Clark, Charles Bird, David Hyer, and John Pierce; the latter being the second settler with a family.

On the same day that this party reached Madison, Simeon Mills, now a resident of Madison, arrived from Chicago. John Catlin had been appointed postmaster, and Mr. M. acted as his deputy. He erected a block building, fifteen feet square, and in this opened the post-office, and the first store in Madison. The building is yet extant, and at present stands in the rear of a blacksmith's shop, and is used as a coal-house.

During the following month, John Catlin arrived, and was the first member of the legal profession that settled in Madison. Wm. N. Seymour came during the same season, and was the second lawyer in the place.

The workmen upon the capitol proceeded at once to procure stone and timber for that edifice, and, on the Fourth of July, the corner-stone was laid with due ceremony.

The first frame building erected was a small office for the acting commissioner; the first frame dwelling was built by A. A. Bird. The boards used in these buildings were made by hand. A steam saw-mill, to saw lumber for the capitol, was built the same season on the shore of Lake Mendota, just below the the termination of Pinkney Street. In the month of September, of the same year, John Stone arrived, being the third settler with a family. A Methodist

clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Stebbins, then Presiding Elder of the Territory, during the same month preached the first sermon delivered in Madison.

Four families, with their inmates and guests, constituted the entire population of Madison, and, with two or three families at Blue Mounds, the whole population of Dane County during the winter of 1837-8.

For a number of years the growth of the village was slow. Immediately after the location of the capital, all the lands in the vicinity were entered by speculators, and lots and land were held at a prospective value. The location being at a central point between the Mississippi and Lake Michigan, the advancing army of immigrants, on either hand, found a wide, fertile, and beautiful extent of country, at that time nearer market, and therefore holding out superior attractions to the agriculturist. They did not, consequently, care to indulge the speculators' appetites for fancy prices. This condition of affairs continued until 1848. the meantime, the fertile valley of Rock River had been. filled with settlers, and immigration began to turn into Dane County, which possesses a soil as bountiful, and a surface of country as attractive, as any county in the State, but which, before it was tapped by railroads, was too far from market to render agriculture remunerative.

In

The beginning of the real prosperity and growth of Madison commenced with the admission of the State into the Union, in 1848. The Constitutional Convention then permanently located the capital there; until that time there had been fears of its removal, and capitalists had hesitated to invest their money in the vicinity. Since that period, its progress in wealth and population has been rapid and constant.

A period of less than twenty-one years has clapsed

since Eben Peck, the first settler of Madison, arrived there with his family. The only other settlers, within the present limits of Dane County, were Ebenezer Brigham and Abel Rasdel. At the close of the next nine years, we find Madison with a population of 283, and Dane County 8289; and the following nine years swelled the population of Madison to nearly 7000, in February, 1855, and to about 12,000 at the present date. Such are the results produced in twenty years, some of which were periods utterly unfavorable to progress and settlement. Until the past three years it had no railroad facilities; produce, from its long distance from market, would scarcely recompense the toiling farmer for his labor in its production; the whole population, with scarcely an exception, were struggling in poverty against these discouraging and depressing influences—and yet, despite them all, Madison and Dane County have made astonishing advances in all the elements of wealth and greatness. These days and years of poverty, hardship, and depression, have forever passed away, and our political metropolis and empire county may now safely calculate on continued and increasing prosperity.

Dane County has an area of about 1250 square miles, or nearly 800,000 acres of land. Dating back from 1837, when Madison received its first settler, and when this county had but two families, we find that it has increased during the first seven years, up to 1844, about fifty per cent. annually, and from 1844 to 1850, when the population was 16,500, the total increase for that period was over three hundred per cent. Since 1850, the population of the county has nearly tripled, and may be safely estimated at 48,000. Let us make some moderate estimates of the population of Dane County for the next ten years, based upon the present population of 48,000: