summer 2003 issue of the wisconsin magazine of...

Wisconsin Historical Society

SUMMER 2003

Wisconsin’s Environmental HorizonsCelebrating our Lands, Lakes, and WildlifeWisconsin’s Environmental HorizonsCelebrating our Lands, Lakes, and Wildlife

Aldo Leopold Foundation

Aldo Leopold shaped the thinking of millionsthrough the publication of A Sand CountyAlmanac, and Sketches Here and There,which came out in 1949 and is often cited

as the century’s most influential conservation book. Sib-lings Bob and Janet Silbernagel, however, who grew upin the 1960s and ’70s on a farm near the town of Rileyin southwestern Dane County, absorbed Leopold’sinfluence directly through the land itself. In their storyfor this issue, they recount the history of the RileyGame Cooperative and reveal the impact of Leopold’swork on their lives.

V O L U M E 8 6 , N U M B E R 4 / S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 1

WISCONSIN

Editors’ ChoiceLetters from Our ReadersBack Matters

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THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, publishedquarterly, is one of the many benefits of membership in theWisconsin Historical Society. Individual memberships are$37.50 per year; senior citizen individual, $27.50; family,$47.50; senior citizen family, $37.50; institutional, $55; sup-porting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500; life (one per-son), $1,000.

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The WMH has been published quarterly since 1917 bythe Wisconsin Historical Society (Phone 608-264-6400).Copyright © 2003 by the State Historical Society of Wiscon-sin. Permission to quote or otherwise reproduce portions ofthis copyrighted work may be sought in writing from the pub-lisher at the address above. Communication, inquiries, andmanuscript submissions may also be addressed [email protected]. Information about the magazine,including contributor’s guidelines, sample articles, and anindex of volume 84 can also be found at the Society’s Website by following the “Publications” link from the home page.

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MacQuarrie and LeopoldAn excerpt from Gordon MacQuarrie:The Story of an Old Duck HunterBy Keith Crowley

Tracking Aldo Leopoldthrough Riley’s FarmlandBy Bob Silbernagel and Janet Silbernagel

Uncovering the Story ofFort Blue MoundsBy Robert A. Birmingham

Expanding WatersHow Wisconsin Became the Wellspringof a New Scientific FieldBy Scott Spoolman

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On the front cover: The view from the south of the TroutLake area in northern Vilas County. (Carl Bowser photo)Top right photo: Gibralter Rock, Columbia County.(William H. Tishler photo)

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2Conservation PioneersJens Jensen and the Friends ofOur Native LandscapeBy William H. Tishler

and Erik M. Ghenoiu

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State HistorianMichael E. Stevens

EditorJ. Kent Calder

Managing EditorDiane T. Drexler

Associate EditorMargaret T. Dwyer

Production ManagerDeborah T. Johnson

Reviews EditorMasarah Van Eyck

Research and Editorial AssistantsJoel Heiman, John Nondorf

David Waskowski, John Zimm

DesignerKenneth A. Miller

WHS Archives Name File

Historians of American wilderness conservationwould do well to remember the name “Friendsof Our Native Landscape.” First established in1913, the Friends was one of the earliest pri-

vate organizations dedicated to conservation and the firstsuch significant organization active in the Midwest. TheFriends counted among their ranks some of the country’sforemost conservationists (Stephen Mather, the first directorof the National Park Service, and Aldo Leopold, father ofwildlife ecology and distinguished professor at the Universityof Wisconsin), writers (Vachel Lindsay and Wisconsin nativeHamlin Garland), and philanthropists (Henry Ford andGussie Rosenwald). The Friends were also responsible for agreat deal of direct conservation work. In Wisconsin alone,from their first major project, the Richmond Park of the Rockof Gibraltar, to their last, the Toft Point natural area in DoorCounty, they had a hand in dozens of parks, educational pro-grams, the development of rural planning, highway beautifi-cation, and forty years of environmental legislation. Perhapsthe most important of their accomplishments, however, was

that the Friends of Our Native Landscape embodied thepreservation philosophy of its founder, the visionary land-scape architect Jens Jensen. Jensen’s ideas about people’s rela-tionship to nature offered an original, highly valuable lessonof appreciation that still resonates today. His legacy hasenhanced the lives of not just Wisconsin residents, but count-less other Americans.1

Jens Jensen was born to an affluent family in southernDenmark in 1860 and emigrated to the United States in1884, apparently to escape his family’s disapproval of hisfiancée, Anne Marie Hansen. The couple settled in Chicagoin 1886, and within a few years Jensen worked his way upfrom laborer to a position of authority within the ChicagoWest Parks District, where he served as a park superintendentuntil 1900. During these first fourteen years that he workedfor the city, Jensen staked out a position for himself in the newprofession of landscape architecture, learning on the job howto transform vacant spaces into parks and gardens. He alsomade many friends among the architectural, literary, andwealthy elite of Chicago society, which helped him gain com-missions when he moved into private practice for five years.In 1905 he returned to the West Parks District as superin-tendent and landscape architect, a position he held for the

Conservation PioneersConservation PioneersJENS JENSEN AND

By William H. Tishlerand Erik M. Ghenoiu

Courtesy of the author

Left: Jens Jensen sought and embraced the drama that life andnature had to offer. Eighty-three years of an extraordinary life are

captured in this photo, taken in 1943.

W I S C O N S I N M A G A Z I N E O F H I S T O R Y

S U M M E R 2 0 0 34

next fifteen years. By 1910 Jensen had become a public figurein Chicago, a tall, dashing European loudly extolling thevirtues of outdoor excursions and the importance of the nat-ural landscape. But just as he began to enter the fray of theconservation movement, that movement was in the midst offeeling its first major crisis of self-definition. In this uncertainmoment, Jensen would establish a new and distinctive justifi-cation for the preservation of the natural environment.

In 1913 the American conservation movement was com-ing through a painful adolescence. Since the middle of thenineteenth century, people had realized that their environ-ment could no longer be taken for granted. During the indus-trial revolution, catastrophic landscape change had becomeincreasingly rapid and widespread. Nowhere was this moreapparent than in the United States, and it was here that theearliest and most important conservation efforts took place:Yellowstone National Park established in areas of Idaho,Montana, and Wyoming in 1872, and the Adirondack ForestPreserve set aside by the state of New York in 1885. Theseearly days saw the first rise of forestry and other environmen-tal disciplines that branched out of the work of naturalists like

Louis Agassiz, Charles Darwin, and John James Audubon.The indefatigable John Muir, who spent his boyhood in Wis-consin, accelerated the growth of conservation, bringingabout the foundation of Yosemite National Park in Californiain 1890 and founding the Sierra Club the following year.Subsequently, a number of governmental initiatives and ahandful of private groups arose in the midst of the progressiveenthusiasm of Theodore Roosevelt and his administration. In1908 Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, head of the NationalForest Service, organized a major conference on conservationat the White House, which was attended by Charles R. VanHise, president of the University of Wisconsin and one of theoriginators of the Wisconsin Idea. Progressive conservationwas at its peak, but a major division was about to come.

Up to this point, conservationists had been united in theirresponse to the loss of wilderness and wildlife. This reac-tionary confederacy had never formed a clear consensus onthe philosophical underpinnings of saving the wilderness. Thefamous dispute over the construction of a dam in the HetchHetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park revealed that therewere two conflicting schools of thought in the fledgling move-

The Hetch Hetchy Valley before the dam. The dispute that arose overthe building of the dam that ultimately flooded this valley in Yosemite

National Park revealed two conflicting schools of thought aboutprotecting nature: conservation and preservation.

H. B. Chaffee

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 5


ment: conservation on one side, and preservation on theother. The conservationists, led by Pinchot, favored theresponsible treatment of wilderness as an economic andrecreational resource, to be administered for the public good.The preservationists, led by Muir, regarded wilderness as asacred entity, to be left untouched. From 1908 to 1913 thedispute over Hetch Hetchy polarized these camps, creating arift in wilderness protection that has lasted to the presentday.2

This capsule version of the early history of the natureprotection movement presents a familiar dichotomyof preservation versus conservation. But there were

other ideas about people’s relation to nature and otherphilosophies about preserving wilderness during the early

twentieth century. One of the most colorful and most influ-ential, yet overlooked of these philosophies was formed byJens Jensen. He realized this vision in 1913 by founding theFriends of Our Native Landscape, the first midwestern organ-ization dedicated to protecting the natural environment.

By 1913 Jens Jensen had risen to the top of his field and wasa respected figure in Chicago society, but his greatest accom-plishments were still ahead of him. As a landscape architect,Jensen would design an impressive array of public parks and pri-vate estates in the Midwest and beyond. He had just preparedplans for Garfield and Humboldt Parks, key components ofChicago’s extensive West Park System and was working onmany commissions for the wealthy elite of Chicago. He wasstriking in appearance, six feet tall with a shock of white hair andfull white mustache. A flamboyant figure, he preferred tweeds or

Jensen’s interest in Wisconsin would lead him north after the end ofhis successful career in Chicago’s park system. One of his many public

programs, the Prairie Club, was founded in 1911, the same yearJensen submitted this landscape plan for Washington Park in Racine.

Bentley Historical Museum


S U M M E R 2 0 0 36

white suits highlighted with a colorful silk scarf around his neckfastened with a sea-wolf ring. His appearance, combined withhis strong opinions, charismatic personality, powerful oratory,and reputation for integrity, inspired passion in others and wonmany friends and adherents to his beliefs. He was often calledupon to address civic and conservation groups and take part inceremonies dedicating a variety of conservation accomplish-ments. As his fame crested ever higher, Jensen continued exper-imenting with new ideas in his landscape designs. Hisprofessional use of native plants and the major role that heplayed in the development of the Prairie School of landscapearchitecture were accompanied by a very active civic life cen-tered on promoting a greater appreciation of the region’s natu-ral landscape. Like others in the Prairie School movement,Jensen sought to combine and complement the natural environ-ment with the private and public spaces of human beings. Thisincluded dwellings, work places, and recreational places, mostnotably parks. In 1908, through his involvement in the ChicagoPlayground Association (of which he was a founder), he helpedorganize the Saturday Afternoon Walking Trips to importantnatural areas beyond the confines of the city. These walks were

so popular that in 1911 a new organization, the Prairie Club,was organized to administer them.3 Through these stages,Jensen’s attentions shifted from creating urban parks to fosteringa more personal, individual appreciation of the natural land-scape.4

In both pursuits, Jensen’s primary tenet was always that envi-ronment engenders human character, that the places where welive help determine who we are. In his autobiography, Siftings,written in 1939, Jensen made his fundamental beliefs clear:

Through generations of evolution, our native landscape becomes a

part of us, and out of this we may form fitting compositions for our

people. In this little world is found all that makes for a full life. Here

we learn tolerance and charitableness, peace and friendliness.

As Jensen explained further in this work, the landscape waseven more important to forming character than descent orgenetics:

Two brothers migrate to America from Scotland. One settles in

New England and the other one in the Carolinas. Their descen-

The Indiana Dunes, southwest of Chicago on the southern shore ofLake Michigan, was site of the first preservation battle waged by thethe Friends of Our Native Landscape after the group's founding in

Illinois in 1913.

William Tishler


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 7

dants can not be recognized as coming from the

same stock.5

Jensen’s philosophy included a strongregional focus, and in his book he describedhis belief that every type of landscape had adistinct soul and that the spirit of that soulwas imparted upon the landscape’s inhabi-tants. This deeply held conviction providedthe moral impetus for his public parkdesigns, as he described:

The human mind is not influenced by excur-sions, nor by bits of this and a little of that.We are molded into a people by the thing welive with day after day. When the city-dweller becomes contented to live in a desertof brick and mortar, then begins the realdanger.

This ideology is fundamentally differentfrom both Muir’s preservation transcenden-talism and Pinchot’s resource-use conserva-tion. All three are based on very old ideas,but where preservation and conservation intheir modern forms derive from RalphWaldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreauon the one hand and George Perkins Marshon the other, Jensen’s native landscapism is a development ofthe ideas of A. W. N. Pugin and John Ruskin, middle-nine-teenth-century contemporaries of Marsh and Thoreau. In hisContrasts, Pugin demonstrated the ways in which the replace-ment of the English medieval landscape by the modern land-scape of industry had impoverished the quality of daily life inEngland. In his many works, Ruskin established that archi-tecture and landscape are the material embodiment of histo-ry and revealed how regional landscape can give rise to acommon national identity. By 1913 newer versions of theseideas were being popularized in America by writers such asEllen Churchill Semple, whose work and ideas were discussedby Chicago’s Geographic Society, a group with which Jensenhad a longtime involvement.6

It is easy to see how Jensen’s position differs from simpleconservation, since its essential factors—economic value andresource sustainability—did not arouse his interest. It can bemore difficult to distinguish his ideas from Muir’s ethic ofpreservation. Muir thought of nature as a temple that tran-scended the ordinary existence of humans, a conduit of the

divine completely separate from worldly affairs. Jensen, too,saw God’s hand in nature, but his nature was a constant quietlesson, celebrating the ordinary. Jensen wanted to infuse peo-ple’s daily lives with their native landscape, not to keep thetwo purely distinct. In the practice of wilderness preservation,these ideologies necessarily came into conflict.

“In the spring of 1913 Mr. Jens Jensen invited a group ofmen and women to attend a luncheon on April 7th for thepurpose of discussing a conservation policy to protect tracts ofIllinois landscapes of historic and scenic value to the people ofthe state.”

So begins the first yearbook of the Friends of Our NativeLandscape. Flush with professional success and the tremen-dous popularity of his Prairie Club, Jensen was ready foraction. He invited nineteen of his closest and most influentialfriends, including the writer Hamlin Garland, the prominentecologist Henry Cowles, conservation advocate GussieRosenwald (wife of the Sears & Roebuck magnate, Julius), thegeographer J. Paul Goode, and Stephen Mather. Theyappointed a committee to write a constitution and by-laws,

The Wisconsin chapter of the Friends was formed in February of 1920,and this gathering at Holy Hill is a virtual Who’s Who of the group,

(from left to right): Wisconsin Archaeological Society Secretary Charles E.Brown; Father Bahrmeister; Friends president and Wisconsin Secretaryof State J. S. Donald; a priest; and Franz Aust, Friends secretary, UW

professor of landscape architecture, and principal founder of the group.

WHS Archives WIS Mss QF box 33 folder 1


S U M M E R 2 0 0 38

and by June 14, 1913, the group held its first annual meetingin the state’s only white pine forest near Oregon, Illinois, acommunity twenty miles southwest of Rockford.

By the time of that meeting the ranks of the Friends hadrisen to about two hundred. After luncheon they were enter-tained with a poetry reading from Vachel Lindsay (not yetcatapulted to fame by Poetry magazine, whose editor, Harri-et Monroe, was one of the five directors of the Friends) andthe performance of a masque written especially for the occa-sion by noted playwright Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, forwhom the Goodman Theater in Chicago was to be named in1925. This masque, which would become a standard atFriends’ meetings for many years, was a ripe piece of melo-drama showing the stages of landscape appreciation in the

Americas, beginning with an Indian and ending with “aFriend.”

The programmatic theatricality of the Friends’ meetingswas an innovation typical of Jensen’s zealous enthusiasm andvery much in keeping with his native landscape ideal. Thestone “council rings,” often included in Jensen’s designs, wereintended to accommodate meetings like those of the Friends.The group’s mission was to mythologize landscape, to weavetogether identity and the native landscape into what Jensenregarded as their proper relationship. In 1919 and again in1921 the Friends organized exhibitions of landscape paintingsand drawings at the Chicago Art Institute, whose Bulletindescribes the events as the following: “Their exhibition servestwo ends: to emphasize the importance and value of their

The Wisconsin Friends achieved a glorious success in conserving thenative landscape in 1927 when they dedicated Richmond Memorial

Park of the Rock of Gibraltar, and Jensen himself performed the “con-secration services.”

WHS Archives (C69)6482

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 9

work and to reveal the painter as the interpreter of the Amer-ican landscape.”7

The Friends was also an active preservation organization,and it was not long before it faced its first major battle. TheIndiana Dunes, near Chicago on the southern shore of LakeMichigan, had been the site of the first Saturday AfternoonWalking Trip and was the spiritual home of the Prairie Club.Jensen essentially saw the dunes as an extension of his Chica-go park system, a true native landscape within easy reach ofnature-starved city dwellers. Jensen could not convince theUniversity of Chicago, or his former client, automobile mogulHenry Ford, to purchase the Dunes, nor could Friends co-founder Stephen Mather, as director of the newly createdNational Park Service, convince the U.S. Congress to pur-chase it either. The Prairie Club took up the gauntlet next,

organizing a 1917 dunes pageant attendedby an estimated fifty thousand people.8 In1926 this tireless advocacy paid off, and partof the dunes were set aside as a state park.

In the meantime, the Friends had formedan advisory committee headed by Jensen tohelp develop a state park system for Illinois.In 1921 the Friends published its findings inProposed Park Areas in the State of Illinois:A Report with Recommendations. Thisextremely successful work was followedeleven years later by the less ambitious Road-side Planting and Development, also thework of a committee headed by Jensen.While working on the park report, Jensenreached the peak of his command of theChicago park system, and in a sense of thewhole native landscape of Illinois; his atten-tions were slowly drawn away from Illinois.

In 1920 the new Illinois governor,Leonard Small, abolished Jensen’s positionafter the landscape architect made clear hisdisdain for political meddling. His connec-tions to Illinois had been growing fewer, andhe was becoming increasingly involved withWisconsin. At the end of the teens, Jensenhad made the first of many pilgrimages toWisconsin’s Door Peninsula, where he beganpurchasing parcels of land that wouldbecome The Clearing, his private retreat inEllison Bay. Wisconsin would prove to befertile ground both for Jensen and for themost enduring branch of the Friends of Our

Native Landscape.

If in 1920 Chicago was the metropolis of the Midwest,Madison was its model city.9 The elite of Madison fol-lowed the example of the benevolent high society of

Boston, dedicating much of their wealth toward improvingtheir city’s civic life. The Madison Park and Pleasure DriveAssociation (MPPDA), founded by John Olin in 1894, was amajor branch of this benevolence, creating most of Madison’searly parks. With the help of Charles Van Hise, Olin succeed-ed in bringing the brilliant landscape architect and city plannerJohn Nolen to Madison. Nolen’s visit quickly bore two fruits:the 1910 plan for Madison—only a year after Daniel Burn-ham’s famous plan of Chicago—and the 1909 report, StateParks for Wisconsin, which anticipated the Friends’ report for


In this undated letter, Jens Jensen writes from The Clearing, his homein Door County, to Franz Aust, commenting on both the Illinois andWisconsin chapters of the Friends. As Jensen’s influence on the group

began to wane in the 1930s, his criticism of the Friends beganto grow.

WHS Archives M93-152 box 1 folder 3


S U M M E R 2 0 0 310

Illinois by more than a decade.Although a city of fewer than25,000 inhabitants, Madisonwas a hotbed for planning ideas.It was a natural magnet forJensen because its progressiveideals led to important commis-sions for several prominentlandscape architects.

Since the early teens Jensenhad tried to convince Van Hiseto institute a program in land-scape architecture at the Uni-versity of Wisconsin. In 1915such a professorship went toFranz Aust, a friend of Jensen’sand a member of the PrairieClub.10 Aust quickly made pow-erful friends in Madison society.On February 21, 1920, directlyafter a fiery address by Jensen tomembers of the Wisconsin stateassembly, Aust collected agroup of people in the senateparlors of the capitol to organizea new chapter of the Friends ofOur Native Landscape. Thegroup included Jensen andeighteen of his disciples, muchlike the group that founded theoriginal chapter. Thus, the Wis-consin chapter was born.

Aust became the organization’s secretary, a post that heheld until his retirement from the university in 1942. The pres-ident of the new group was John S. Donald, Wisconsin’s Sec-retary of State, who remained Friends president until his deathin 1933. The organization’s initial board of directors was com-posed of Wisconsin’s leading citizens of 1920: Governor JohnJ. Blaine; Michael Olbrich, president of the MPPDA; CharlesE. Brown, secretary of the State Archaeological Society; and E.A. Birge, president of the University of Wisconsin. With suchaugust credentials, the Wisconsin Friends were ready to springinto action.

A report entitled “Activities of the Society during the Year1921” lists many accomplishments for the fledgling group,such as sending two delegates to the National Parks Congress,meetings with the Illinois chapter, and sponsoring four bills inthe state assembly. These bills were to preserve eight thousand

acres of woodland, including thenorth fork of the FlambeauRiver, to preserve and restorethe Dells, to appropriate fundsfor the development of staterural planning, and to preservethe Aztalan historic site. TheWisconsin Friends maintainedthis breakneck pace for a num-ber of years, instituting many

advances in Wisconsin’s park and preservation policy. By 1923the Friends had 102 paid family memberships representing atotal of about 240 members, according to that year’s annualreport by Aust.

The group complemented its legislative activism with athorough public awareness campaign. Friends always publi-cized their meetings, which were often held at prospectiveparks and endangered places. These outings, with their picnicluncheons and informative lectures, garnered considerablelocal interest and often resulted in necessary conservationaction and more sensitive landscape management activities.This was an idea they adapted from the Illinois chapter, and itgenerated considerable public interest in their projects andnativism. A 1923 meeting of the two states’ chapters in Ore-gon, Illinois, was attended by nearly two thousand people, farmore than the combined membership of the two groups. The

J. S. Donald served as Presidentof the Wisconsin Friends from itsformation in 1921 until his deathin 1933. As Wisconsin secretary

of state, Donald had the ability tohelp the group achieve significant

political success during theearly years.

WHS Archives WIS Mss QF box 34 folder 1

The Friends insisted that the food at their annual celebrations bejust as “native” as possible, so this menu from an annual dinner

announces “Wisconsin Products Only.”

WIS MSS QF box 33 folder 3


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 11

Friends also maintained the Illinois chapter’s tradition ofinvolving respected cultural figures by giving an honorarymembership to Jensen’s old friend and collaborator FrankLloyd Wright. Wright’s sister, Jane Porter, eventually becameone of the group’s directors (1940–1949), and the Friends oftenmet at her home at Taliesin as well as at Jensen’s home, TheClearing, in Door County.

Several other ideas were original to the Wisconsin group.One of these was Aust’s publication, Our Native Landscape,which became the newsletter of the whole organization in itsfifth volume.11 The first issue had short articles by Jensen, Aust,Genevieve Gillette (founder of the Michigan chapter), and aPuginesque article by Glenn Frank, who in 1925 had succeed-ed Birge as the President of the University of Wisconsin. TheFriends also sponsored a “Regional and Rural Planning Con-ference” in Madison in 1930 and again in 1934. Using all thesetechniques, the group became a leading force for conservationaction and landscape appreciation.

In 1927 the Wisconsin Friends created what would becometheir emblematic park, the only one that they themselves actu-

ally owned. The massive rock formation near Lodi, common-ly known as the Rock of Gibraltar, in Columbia County wasdeeded to the Friends by Gilbert Richmond on the conditionthat it be preserved as a park dedicated to his forebears, whosepioneer homestead was located nearby. In order to take pos-session of a parcel of land the Wisconsin Friends had to incor-porate. This, according to their articles of incorporation,enabled them to “secure and preserve examples of the nativelandscape” in accordance with the organization’s purpose. Theincorporation was duly filed, and on October 29, 1927, theFriends dedicated the Richmond Memorial Park of the Rockof Gibraltar. The dedication ceremony was very theatrical,with many speakers and Jensen himself performing the penul-timate “consecration services.” The ceremony was a great suc-cess, and the new park received glowing articles in newspapersthroughout Wisconsin. It was, perhaps, the crowning momentof the group’s early years.

By 1934 the Wisconsin Friends were slowing down, andtheir aging membership needed a boost. Their president JohnDonald was dead, and his pet project, the Forest of Fame in

In April 1949 Jensen, always young at heart, joined in the fun atMadison’s Glenwood Park.

WHS Archives WHi(X3)53677

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Mount Vernon, fell into the care of the Friends. Started onArbor Day in 1916, this unusual park contained a variety oftrees grown from seeds and transplants from the homes of pres-idents, governors, and other distinguished people. Jensen andAust, however, wanted little to do with a commemorative gar-den of non-native plants. Jensen’s wife, Anne Marie, also diedin 1934, and the following year Kenneth Jensen Wheeler,Jensen’s grandson and the heir apparent for his practice, diedshortly after graduating from the University of Wisconsin’slandscape architecture program. After these blows Jensenclosed his office in Ravinia, Illinois, and moved permanently toThe Clearing in Door County. He was growing dissatisfiedwith the efforts of the Friends, and he shifted his principalattentions to The Clearing itself, where he established a“school of the soil,” partially in competition with Wright’s atel-ier at Taliesin and partially reflecting the folk school he attend-ed as a boy in Slesvig-Holstein. Established to foster Danishpatriotism while this part of Denmark was under German rule(from 1864, when Jensen was a boy of four), these schools wereclosely tied to Nordic culture and an appreciation of the Dan-ish countryside while emphasizing outdoor activities. Aust andother professors at the University of Wisconsin sent their land-scape students to The Clearing, which helped to maintain

Jensen’s ties to Madison. At this time he focused his preserva-tion efforts primarily on fighting encroaching commercialismon the Door peninsula.

The year 1934 saw two important developments for theWisconsin Friends. The first was a reorganization. The groupwrote a new constitution and decreased its board of directorsfrom nineteen to nine. They would expand again to sixteen in1938 for a brief time. The old ex officio seats were changed intoa humbler but better-organized advisory board, involvingmany of the same governmental and private groups with oneimportant addition, the new Wisconsin Wildlife Federation,which was the first nature protection group in Wisconsin tostand on a level with the Friends. The Friends still had sufficientpolitical clout, and almost everyone invited to join the newboard quickly accepted.

The second development of note for the Friends was thearrival in their ranks of Aldo Leopold. Leopold, by then a pro-fessor at the UW and a colleague of Aust’s, gave a lecture at theFriends’ April 26, 1934, conference on state and regional plan-ning. Leopold became a longtime member of the Friends and, by1938, even sat on their advisory board as the UW AgricultureSchool’s representative. Leopold’s involvement is significant inthat he carried an authority comparable to Jensen’s, but his envi-

This contemporary view of Toft’s Point bears witness to the finalsuccess of the Friends of Our Native Landscape.


ronmental ethic was not really compatible with Jensen’s nativelandscapism. Though Leopold may have absorbed some ofJensen’s rhetoric, he ultimately rejected privileging human char-acter over the maintenance of an ecosystem. If the Friends wereoriginally the manifestation of Jensen’s ideologies, they had nowbecome an incubator for new ecological ideas, and Leopold’sland ethic concepts would achieve world-wide acclaim.

This was, alas, not a sign of adaptation and growth on thepart of the group but an early symptom of its ultimate end. AsJensen lost his firm grip on the Friends, they lost the inspirationand single-minded purpose he provided. The group began towander and show tendencies toward becoming more of a socialclub than an activist organization. During the Depression, mem-bers were still involved in rural planning and state legislation,but by the end of World War II, their activity had slowedto a virtual standstill. The group did not maintainvigilance over its earlier accomplishments, a factwhich Jensen angrily reminded Aust of timeand again. Significantly, Leopold wrote anarticle in the January 1943 issue of AmericanForests pleading for the preservation of thethreatened Flambeau State Forest, one of theearliest of the Friends’ projects. In 1943 FranzAust, the group’s principal founder, abruptly

resigned from both the Friends and the university. His successor,professor G. W. Longenecker, wrote to Jensen that the Friendshad “been asleep at theswitch.”12

The worst blow tothe Wisconsin Friendscame in October 1951,

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 13


Jens Jensen, about 1938.

UW Arboretum

Inside The Clearing’s schoolhouse, adults discover their ownconnections to natural science, the arts, and the humanities, a

combination that Jens Jensen believed was inextricable.

Hank Erdmann


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when Jens Jensen died at The Clearing at the age of ninety-one.Jensen had grown even more striking in appearance in his oldage, and he had easily assumed the air of a prophet. His mindand his strength were vigorous until the end, and though his lastfifteen years were full of feverish activity, he feared that hisentire legacy would lose direction without his guiding hand.This last fearful prophecy was not fulfilled: The Clearing waspreserved through the indefatigable efforts of Mertha Fulker-son, Jensen’s longtime secretary and disciple, and later with thehelp of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, as well as The Clearing’smany friends and supporters. The Friends, on the other hand,had already strayed from their old ideals, and without Jensenmuch of the life went out of the movement. Just five years afterhis death, the Wisconsin Friends deeded their very first project,the Rock of Gibraltar, to Columbia County as a county park;two years later, in 1958, they failed to stop the county frompaving a driveway to the top.

Jens Jensen’s legacy was destined to continue through localpreservation efforts and the continuation of his beloved schoolat The Clearing. Ultimately, the Wisconsin Friends took part incarrying on Jensen’s mission in the preservation of Toft Point inBaileys Harbor. Toft Point was the 740-acre forest andunspoiled Lake Michigan shoreline held by unheralded conser-vationist Emma Toft, who had, with others, established theRidges Wildflower Sanctuary.13 Toft had also been an intimateof Jensen and Mertha Fulkerson and thereby had a link to theFriends. “Miss Emma,” as she was affectionately known, want-ed to be sure that her property would be preserved after herdeath, ideally to be added to the adjoining Ridges Sanctuary.She conveyed this dream to Fulkerson, and it was discussed atthe Friends’ “Meeting of the Falling Leaf” held at The Clearingin 1964. Earlier that year Albert Fuller, a botanist at the Mil-waukee Public Museum and a founding member of the RidgesSanctuary, had also suggested to the Friends that the sanctuarybe enlarged to include the Toft property. However, there weretwo obstacles to this: three other Toft relatives also held partownership of the point, and Toft’s life of activism had not lefther enough financial security to allow simply giving away theproperty. She had to find a buyer who would take responsibilityfor the preservation of the point in perpetuity.

Early in 1965 Fulkerson, who would be elected to the boardof directors of the Friends in a year’s time, was holding prelimi-nary talks with the Toft family members on behalf of the Wis-consin Friends. In February the Friends had made acommitment to purchase the property, and a committee headedby Madison’s mayor, Henry Reynolds, was designated to pursuethe matter. In a letter from Reynolds to Thorval T. Toft, theobjectives of the Friends for the Toft property was presented:

“purchase the land . . . provide a method of perpetuity, and . . .give the land to a governmental agency that would relieve theresponsibility of taxes, etc., [and] provide a life occupancy . . . forMiss Emma Toft.”

By then many years had passed since the Friends were theonly major preservation society in Wisconsin. In the years oftheir inactivity, newer groups took the forefront in the battlefor nature protection. None became more formidable thanthe Nature Conservancy, whose Wisconsin chapter wasfounded in 1960. In its first decade alone the Wisconsin chap-ter completed twenty-one projects preserving 2,273 acres at acost of half a million dollars. Paul Olson, the leader of theWisconsin chapter, had a single-mindedness and talent forfund raising that made him a force in Wisconsin conserva-tion. The Friends enlisted his help in securing funds for theToft Point project

After several years of negotiations, the deal for Toft Pointwas settled. The Friends purchased the land valued at$67,000 using some of their own money and a no-interestloan of $55,000 from the national office of the Nature Con-servancy. Subsequently, the property was deeded to the nas-cent University of Wisconsin–Green Bay as an arboretum,with the condition that Emma Toft be allowed to live therefor the rest of her life as caretaker. Paul Olson continued tosupport the project, and found many major contributors tohelp pay off the loan. The Friends did their part too, and onApril 12, 1973, they raised the last six hundred dollars andthe loan was repaid.

After this project, the Friends of Our Native Landscapefaded from public view, a process notably helped by TheNature Conservancy’s policy of claiming complete credit forToft’s Point without mentioning the Friends.14 The Friendseven suffered the ignominy of being referred to as “a nowdefunct predecessor of The Nature Conservancy” in thatgroup’s summer 1977 newsletter. But the Friends were notdefunct; they were simply moving into their final stage. Sur-passed at the forefront of conservation by newer, richergroups, they were focusing again on landscape appreciationand on their own history. They had appointed a committee tosort through their files and papers and assemble an archive oftheir past accomplishments. The Friends remained primarilya social club for another fifteen years, until 2000, when inWisconsin the last remaining chapter disbanded.

The Friends of Our Native Landscape accomplished agreat deal at a crucial period in the history of conservation.They were instrumental in establishing and protecting thestate parks systems of Illinois and Wisconsin. An annotatedmap in the Wisconsin Friends Archives notes involvement in

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 15


the following parks: Aztalan, Tower Hill, Wyalusung, NelsonDewey, Devils Lake, Rocky Arbor, Roche a Cri, Rib Moun-tain, Terry Andrae, High Cliff, and Peninsula State. Byextending this account to include the activities of individualmembers of the Friends, the map would include virtuallyevery state park established before 1960. They stood at theforefront of the development of rural and regional planningand environmental lobbying. Following the philosophy oftheir founder, the Friends were pioneers in the protection oftypical regional landscapes and in the advocacy of publicaccess and public involvement in conservation. When Jensenbrought together many thousands of ordinary Chicagoans fora landscape preservation meeting or just for a nature walk, hewas breaking new ground. Moreover, the Friends includedmany people who would go on to become crucial figures inAmerican conservation, from Stephen Mather to AldoLeopold. The history of the Friends is peppered with grandsagas and famous characters. For any of these aspects andcertainly for them all, the Friends should be remembered.

Behind all of these accomplishments lies the vision of a sin-gle man, a genius of landscape who not only wanted to saveunspoiled nature, but who had a compelling idea of exactlywhy it should be saved. Jens Jensen wanted an environmentthat we would not despoil through our actions, but which wewould nonetheless live in and experience every day. He want-ed us to be a part of the landscape, a product of it, imbuedwith its spirit—for our very identity to be firmly bound to thelandscapes of home. Jensen wrote in Siftings:

It is quite essential to understand the soul of our own envi-ronment and of our own country before we can appreciateand understand the arts and intellectual efforts of other peo-ple and the forces that lie behind them.

To be a friend of the native landscape in the way Jens Jensenwanted is to be a friend to one’s own true self. This lesson is theprincipal legacy of the Friends of Our Native Landscape.

AcknowledgmentsThis article, especially in its latter parts, was made possible

by William H. Tishler’s acquisition of the archives of the Wis-consin chapter of the Friends of Our Native Landscape.Jensen’s autobiography, Siftings, originally published in 1939,was reissued in 1990 by the Johns Hopkins University Press,and it is an essential resource for anyone interested in learn-ing more about the man and his philosophy.

The authors are grateful to Ms. Marion Kerr and Mrs.Jeanette Paul for assistance in preparing this article.

The AuthorsA Door County native, William H. Tish-ler is professor emeritus of LandscapeArchitecture at the University of Wiscon-sin–Madison. He holds degrees from theUW and Harvard University. A formerchair of Wisconsin’s Historic PreservationReview Board, he has developed andtaught courses in historic preservation,and with his students, he prepared the

master plan for the state historic site, Old World Wisconsin, atEagle .

Erik Ghenoiu is a doctoral student inArchitecture at Harvard University. Heholds degrees in urban geography, cultur-al geography, and the history of art. Hestudies nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryurbanism and issues related to the cultur-al landscape. Some of his recent projectsinclude a historiography of the concept of“place” in architectural discourse and an

investigation of the relationship between American and Germancity planning around 1910.

1Unless otherwise indicated, the primary sources noted in the article are from the archives of theWisconsin chapter of the Friends of Our Native Landscape, hereinafter referred to as FONLarchives, which is currently in the possession of the principal author, the group’s final president. 2 Standard treatments of this story may be found in Stephen Fox, The American ConservationMovement: John Muir and His Legacy (1980; reprint, Madison, WI: University of WisconsinPress, 1985) and Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (1967; reprint, New Havenand London: Yale University Press, 1982).3 See the pamphlet series “Saturday Afternoon Walks in the Forests, Fields, Hills, and ValleysAbout the City,” which became a publication of the Prairie Club in its twenty second issue, Cen-ter for Research Libraries, Chicago, C-20918. 4 A more lengthy account of Jensen’s earlier activity may be found in Robert E. Grese, JensJensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1992).5 Some recent scholarship has cast doubt on Jensen’s moral integrity on the ground that hisadvocacy for native plants helped lead to the racist excesses of the Nazi ideology of the Volk(e. g., Wolsche-Buhlmahn, “Political Landscapes and Technology: Nazi Germany and the Land-scape Design of the Reichsautobahnen.” Selected CELA Annual Conference Papers: Nature andTechnology (Iowa State University, 1995, vol. 7). This passage of Jensen’s is a good exampleof how for him the genetic attributes of race were less significant than the formative effects ofnative landscape. Jensen, himself an immigrant, had no qualms about adopting and becoming apart of a region other than that of his birth. For a complete refutation of the allegations againstJensen, see Dave Egan and William H. Tishler, “Jens Jensen, Native Plants, and the Concept ofNordic Superiority,” Landscape Journal 18, no.1 (1999): 11–29.6 A. W. N. Pugin, Contrasts, introduction by H. R. Hitchcock (reprint, New York: HumanitiesPress, 1969) second edition; E. C. Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment (on the Basisof Ratzel’s System of Anthropo-Geography (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1911) Note thatSemple’s work is a continuation of a German school of geography with which Jensen mighthave been familiar through his German ties. 7 See Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, 13, nos. 1-2, and 15, no. 6.8 See Grese, p. 127. Grese gives an essentially similar account of the early years of the Illinoischapter of the Friends.9 For a good account of Madison’s development, see David Mollenhoff, Madison: A History ofthe Formative Years (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishers, 1982).10 See Yearbook of the Prairie Club (Chicago: Prairie Club, 1914).11 Most issues through 1934 are found in the FONL Archive; other copies are in the possessionof the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Steenbock Library at the University of Wisconsin.In the 1940s a larger-format Illinois chapter newsletter succeeded this publication.12 Personal correspondence, Longenecker to Jensen, February 22, 1944, from the JensenArchives of the Morton Arboretum, Lisle Illinois.13 For the history of Toft Point, see Roy Lukes, Toft Point: A Legacy of People & Pines (EggHarbor: Nature-Wise, 1998).14 See for example the Nature Conservancy News 18, no. 1 (1968) or the Wisconsin Chapter,Nature Conservancy pamphlet of 1970.

The original Trout Lake Station was built in 1925, and itsrustic buildings offered the same view of the lake that

appears here. The station was moved across the lake to thesouth shore after the mid-1960s.


Expanding WatersHow Wisconsin Became the Wellspring

of a New Scientific FieldBy Scott Spoolman

Ten thousand years ago, as the great mass of the last gla-

cier retreated to the north, it littered the northern quar-

ter of Wisconsin with thousands of huge chunks of ice.

The ice chunks gouged great holes in the earth, and as

they melted, water filled the holes and formed what are now called

kettle, or ice block, lakes. Because of the random nature of glacial

lake formation, the myriad lakes of the region vary greatly in their

structure, chemistry, and biological characteristics. One of the larger

kettles in what is now Vilas County in the northeastern part of the

state is Trout Lake, an unusually deep and cold body of water. It is

one of the very few lakes in Wisconsin that house relict populations

of lake trout. The author of this article is the recipient of an Alice E. Smith

Fellowship from the Wisconsin Historical Society.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 318

The setting offers a picture-postcard perspective of north-ern Wisconsin, but the significance of Trout Lake goesbeyond the state’s natural beauty or sport fishing opportuni-ties. It was here that Trout Lake Station, officially known asTrout Lake Limnological Laboratory of the Wisconsin Geo-logical and Natural History Survey, was founded in 1925 byProfessors Edward A. Birge and Chancey Juday, Wisconsinpioneers in the field of limnology, the study of inland waters.Scientists and technicians began arriving in the 1920s to studyTrout Lake—to probe its depths, to tramp its shores, and toexamine the creatures living in its waters. The state of Wis-consin, home to thousands of inland lakes and thousands ofmiles of rivers and streams, continues to be affected by theirwork to this day.

I visited the site of the original laboratory, now an emptybeach backed by tall pines on the northeast corner of thesouthern lobe of Trout Lake. My guide was Dr. John Mag-nuson, former Director of the Center for Limnology at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison. Though recently retired,Magnuson continues his work and makes frequent trips toTrout Lake. He stood at the site of the original lab on acloudy, wet October morning, gazing out over the water.Mist and light rain dampened the blaze of autumn foliage

that ringed the lake. The grayness of the water and sky, alongwith the muted colors, lent an eerie mood to the beauty of thelandscape.

“Sometimes when I stand in this spot, I can sense the his-tory of our discipline,” he said, “and it seems like the ghostsof Birge and Juday are here with me.”

Limne—“Pool or Marshy Lake”Edward A. Birge grew up in New York state, graduated

from Williams College in Massachusetts, and came to Madisonin 1875 to be an instructor of natural history at the Universityof Wisconsin. Among the creatures he came to study were thezooplankton in Madison’s lakes, specifically Cladocera. As anatural historian and biologist, he sought to describe how thelakes’ physical and chemical conditions determined the distri-bution of the zooplankton, from hour to hour, and from monthto month, asking questions about water temperature and cir-culation, animal and plant life, weather patterns, and how allthose factors interacted.

Birge’s goals and approach certainly sound reasonable toour twenty-first century ears. In 1894, however, when Birgebegan formal sampling of Wisconsin’s lakes, scientific practiceshad been changing all over the world. The traditional, finite

Above: Trout Lake in Vilas County.Left: Professor Chancey Juday had joined the

Wisconsin faculty in 1900, but it would be anothertwenty-five years before he and E. A. Birge founded

the Trout Lake Station. Before 1925 they often workedon Madison’s nearby lakes, just as they are here in

1917 on Lake Mendota, using a plankton trap.

Graphic by Joel Heiman

WHS Archives (X3)37040


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 19

approach of discovering,describing, and naming specieswas giving way to one of criticalinquiry and ongoing observa-tion. By framing his researchwith questions, observing condi-tions for extended periods oftime, and incorporating the useof other scientific disciplines inhis pursuits, E. A. Birge took aleading role in developing abranch of science that was newto North America—the study oflimnology.

Shorthand definitions oftendescribe limnology as “the studyof lakes,” and some dictionariesinclude the phrase “freshwater,” but these terms are toolimiting. The field draws itsname from the Greek wordlimne, meaning “pool or marshylake.” But it has come to includeinland salt waters, fresh waterlakes, rivers, wetlands, andgroundwater. It is growing toencompass more even than thephysical scientific aspects. It is,as John Magnuson describes it,the study of inland waters in allaspects.

The best definition is stillthe one found in the 1963 clas-sic textbook Limnology inNorth America:

the study of all inland waters and the external influences that

affect the nature of the waters and the processes going on in them

. . . concerned not only with the life in these waters . . . but also

the chemistry and physics of the waters, the geology, meteorology,

hydrology and bioecology of their drainage basins, and the pro-

gressively greater influence of man on the total complex of life and

processes in these waters.

Even today, this scientific endeavor continues to expand,somewhat like a flooding river, in many directions.

If the analogy of a river is apt for limnology, it is largelybecause the discipline, like a river, has several sources and trib-

utaries. Before Birge’s time, lim-nology had been practiced inrudimentary ways in Europeand in the United States. Asearly as the late 1600s, Euro-pean geologists, biologists,chemists, and engineers took tothe lakes to discover anddescribe the species living thereand to study waves, temperaturedifferences and effects of light atdifferent depths, movement ofmicroorganisms, and thedynamics of flowing waters.Such sources were also found inthe United States, where in1850 Swiss-born naturalistLouis Agassiz published LakeSuperior: Its Physical Charac-ter, Vegetation, and Animals.Agassiz also founded theMuseum of ComparativeZoology in Cambridge, Mass-achusetts, where Edward Birgecame to study in 1873. Agassizdied only three months afterBirge’s arrival, and within twoyears, Birge left his studies thereto accept an instructor’s positionat the University of Wisconsin.

E. A. Birge had been teach-ing for more than twenty yearsat the University of Wisconsinwhen he completed his firstplankton studies in 1895. Two

years later, Wisconsin’s legislature established the WisconsinGeological and Natural History Survey and appointed Birge asdirector. He was also serving as Zoology Department Chair,Dean of the College of Letters and Science, and the state’sCommissioner of Fisheries. While the Survey provided signifi-cantly more resources, Birge had little time for research. Eventhat small amount of time could not be protected when, threeyears after his appointment as the Survey’s director, he accept-ed the position of acting president of the University of Wiscon-sin, a post he would hold until 1903. (Years later Birge wouldagain be asked to serve, and he would accept the title of uni-versity president, holding that office from 1918–1925.) To keephis lake studies going, he sought out a partner in 1900.

In 1912 E. A. Birge had served as professor, dean, committeemember many times over, and even acting president of the Uni-versity of Wisconsin, but he seems most comfortable pictured ashe is here, taking readings from an anemometer and enjoying

the view of Green Lake.

WHS Archives (B46)61

S U M M E R 2 0 0 320


That partner was to be Chancey Juday, a biologist and anative Hoosier trained at Indiana University who was study-ing plankton in a lake close to where he had grown up. Birgeinvited Juday, twenty years Birge’s junior, for an interviewand hired him immediately. The Birge-Juday partnershipbecame the driving force for limnology in Wisconsin duringits first four decades. Birge carried on as an administrator andtook care of fundraising, personnel, and politics, while Judayserved as the field manager of the program. Birge laterdescribed Juday as “the first, and for years the only limnolo-gist in the country.” Juday was the first teacher of limnologycourses at the University of Wisconsin; later, he would directthirteen graduate students in their work.

Birge believed the most important work of limnologists wasout in the field—which, for a limnologist, means out on thewaters. His approach was recognized as both comparative anddescriptive. He sought to gather data from the lakes as they

were in their natural state, to compare that data, to describe thechanges over time, to find patterns, and then to explain thosechanges and patterns. Birge was probably influenced by thenotion advanced in 1887 by Professor Stephen Forbes of theUniversity of Illinois that a lake is a microcosm—that a body ofwater is analogous to the body of any organism, complete withanatomy and physiological processes. To understand the partsand processes of a lake, Birge argued, one must collect enoughdata over a long enough period of time, and he tirelessly col-lected samples and amassed data in pursuit of his goals.

Above: Birge at left and Juday at right (with a man identified asMarch in the center) testing the first mud thermometer on the ice,ca. 1927. The permanent hammer, attached to the two insulated

lines, drives a thermometer into the mud as far as the hammeritself can go. Right: Even a land-based vehicle had limnological

uses, as Birge demonstrates in 1930, reading the gauge of the “sunmachine,” a small device attached to the car’s rooftop.


WHS Archives PH1282

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 21


Many years after forming his partnership withJuday, Birge described one culminating experi-ence in that endeavor in an address before theMadison Literary Club, entitled A House HalfBuilt, in 1936. From 1911 to 1916, his team hadfiltered more than 2000 tons of water and cen-trifuged nearly 200 more tons to extract the food-stuffs of fish. He reported:

Here we had for the first time a definite notion of the

total quantity of food and eaters handled by the lakes in

the process of their housekeeping. . . . After nearly 20

years of experience in the study of lakes we had learned

to ask the question: how does a lake keep house?

That notion—how a lake keeps house—was adefining one for Birge’s career and for the dailylives of many who worked with him.

Juday shared Birge’s view of limnology as adescriptive, comparative field, and believed his work was tobe done out on the lakes. Birge and Juday both regarded lab-oratory work with skepticism and looked askance at experi-mentation. They didn’t believe they could learn anything bymanipulating the lake environment, because that wouldinvolve artificially changing what they were studying.

The first collaboration for Birge and Juday, examining dis-solved gases and their biological effects in Wisconsin’s lakes,would become a classic study that involved collecting datafrom 156 lakes, many of which were in the north central partof the state. In 1925 that area had captured the attention ofthis prolific team, and in fact, would become the locale for thenext great surge of growth in Wisconsin’s limnology program.Birge and Juday needed one central location in the areawhere they could observe and gather information, a placethat would serve as a base for the entire program and for thestate of Wisconsin as a whole. They found that place at TroutLake.

Trout Lake StationEdward Birge had traveled by train to Trout Lake in the early

1920s. The railroad station at the southeast corner of the lakeincluded a hotel and dance hall that serviced workers and visitorsat the existing State Forestry Headquarters. Birge and Judaychose the site for their new field station and set up operations in1925 in an abandoned schoolhouse and a garage near theForestry building. Eventually, they converted four old beachbathhouses into laboratory buildings. For the first couple ofyears, most workers, including Juday, camped out on the shore

of the lake. Later, the shore would boast permanent sleepingquarters. One of the researchers in the early days was a graduatestudent named Rex Robinson. Robinson was one of many for-mer limnology students who gave interviews to writer AnnamarieL. Beckel, who, with historian Frank Egerton, told the story ofthe University Limnology program from its very beginningsthrough the early 1980s in the 1987 publication, Breaking NewWaters: A Century of Limnology at the University of Wisconsin.Robinson recalled the rugged conditions of the station in its earlyyears:

We used a Model-T Ford for transportation . . . The ‘improved’

roads were gravel and became very rough during heavy summer

usage. . . . Many lakes were inaccessible except by trail. . . . If no

boat was available, we set up a portable wood-frame canvas boat or

inflated a portable rubber boat. A few times one of us would swim

out a distance from the shore to take a water temperature and obtain

a water sample.

In 1925 three biologists and one chemist worked at the sta-tion, but by the mid-1930s as many as twenty-two scientists andassistants spent their summers there. Juday ran the station fromits inception until 1942 when he retired. During those years,Trout Lake became the center of limnological research in Wis-consin.

A vital aspect of the early days of Trout Lake was the varietyof fields from whence the researchers came. Birge and Judayused their greatest resource, the University of Wisconsin, torecruit the numerous people needed for the job. Birge, as a for-

The Trout Lake crew in 1929, left to right: Chancey Juday, WillisTressler, Fred Stare, Lowell Taylor, Ed Schneberger, E. A. Birge, and

Hugo Baum.

UW Center for Limnology photo by Eleanor Tressler


S U M M E R 2 0 0 322

Above: Despite the lack of foliage, the unmistakable backdrop ofTrout Lake frames E. A. Birge as he takes to the water, his

preferred location for study. Right: Arthur D. Hasler brought alaboratory-based approach to research, and this departure fromvirtually exclusive research in the natural environment lost himthe support of Birge and Juday but earned him the respect of his

students, who sought greater experimentation.

WHS Archives PH1282

UW Center for Limnology photo by B.W. Hoffman

mer dean and president, was able to entice chemists, biologists,bacteriologists, physicists, and engineers to journey north to Wis-consin’s limnological frontier. Trout Lake became the scene ofmajor cross-pollination among the various fields, and this multi-disciplinary cooperation became a well-established tradition.

Juday maintained his bent for collecting data, literally by theboatload. Researchers surveyed over 500 lakes to gather data ontheir geological, chemical, and biological properties. Thatincluded cataloging flora and fauna; measuring water depths,temperatures, alkalinity, dissolved gases, visibility and otherproperties; studying the lakebed soil; describing the lay of the sur-rounding land; and recording how these aspects changed overtime for each lake. In that mass of data, they hoped to discoverpatterns and principles that would apply to lakes everywhere. Infact, so much data was assembled that much of it was never usedby Birge or Juday, or by anyone, until it recently became part ofa computer database shared by the current UW limnology pro-gram and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Juday’s retirement in 1942, the year Birge turned ninety-

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 23


The Lake Mendota lab, situated next to the Memorial Union onMadison’s campus, is a familiar building to students and longtime

Madison residents, although many do not know the building’spurpose. It was built in 1963 under Hasler.

UW Center for Limnology

one, coincided with the decline of Trout Lake as the center oflimnology in Wisconsin. The demands of World War II lim-ited station funding. They had also made no plans for whowould succeed them in directing limnologyin Wisconsin. The university’s limnologyprogram generally faded for a few yearsafter Juday retired. He and Birge wrotetheir last paper together in 1941, andChancey Juday died in 1944. EdwardBirge died in 1950, at the age of ninety-eight.

A New School of Thought in Wisconsin—the Hasler YearsAs the careers of Birge and Juday were winding down,

other scientists began to point out the limitations of theirdescriptive, comparative approach. These younger scientistswanted to spend less time collecting data and more time ana-lyzing it—to spend less time in the field and more in the lab.One such scientist was Michael F. Guyer, who chaired theZoology Department in the mid-1930s. Limnology studieswere housed in his department at the time. He built a small

laboratory on Lake Mendota at the end of Park Street andran it independently of Birge and Juday, who had little inter-est in his pursuits. Guyer was looking for someone to run that

lab and, eventually, to lead the limnologyprogram.

In 1937 Guyer found Arthur D. Hasler,a graduate of Brigham Young Universitycompleting his doctoral degree underChancey Juday and working as a biologistfor the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. Haslerhad come to Wisconsin from his native

state of Utah in 1932 to join his fascination for experimentalbiology and his field experience under Juday. Unlike Juday,however, he planned to conduct experiments in the naturalenvironment. (Hasler was to become eminently successful inthat pursuit; he is best known for determining how salmonseeking spawning grounds find their way back to their natalstreams using their sense of smell.) Hasler’s vision was toframe a new era for Wisconsin’s limnology program.

When Juday retired in 1942, Arthur Hasler took over histeaching and research responsibilities. In these last years of

Hasler embraced

experimental limnology,

regarding it

as adventure

S U M M E R 2 0 0 324


the Birge-Juday era, Hasler had not been invited to use theTrout Lake station because his experimental approach was inconflict with the priorities of Birge and Juday. Hasler clearlyhad higher regard for experimentation, and he was one ofmany experimentalists who felt that the old compare anddescribe approach was not really scientific in a modern sense.Hasler wanted to recreate lake conditions in the lab in orderto manipulate variables. Eventually, he did whole-lakemanipulations, changing variables in the lakes themselves.But while Juday was still in charge of the Trout Lake Station,it was not available to Hasler for such endeavors. Juday feltthat studying nature could not possibly involve manipulatingit, and he reserved the facility exclusively for his brand ofresearch. Hasler did not assume the directorship of the stationuntil 1962, but he did become the new driving force in thelimnology program at the University after Birge and Judayleft. The transition from one era to the next was anything butsmooth, and in fact, it was really a major shift more than atransition.

Hasler regarded experimental limnology as adventure. Asreported by Beckel, Hasler’s first group of graduate studentsset out to build experimental ponds in the University of Wis-

Above: A year after the formal establishment of the Center forLimnology in 1982, a conference titled “History of Limnology inWisconsin” drew students from several generations and fields of

study. Left: John Magnuson, looking over Trout Lake in 2001,recalls both his own twenty-two year tenure of leadership and the

significance of the men who led before him.



S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 25


consin Arboretum. While theyeventually succeeded—and theponds are there to this day—theyfirst tried to create the pondsusing dynamite, an escapade thatbecame known as “Hasler’sFolly.” The explosions made amess, and the researchers werepelted by peat that blew straightup into the air and rained downupon them.

Other tales of adventure stilltold at limnologists’ reunionsinvolved night diving in LakeMendota. In an interview in2001, Robert Ragotzkie, whobecame one of Hasler’s studentsin 1950, told of a study of yellowperch that required diving aftersunset. Long before there werediver training and certificationprograms, Ragotzkie and his fel-low students ordered air supplytanks through the mail. Accord-ing to Ragotzkie:

The tanks came in a box with some

instructions, and we put them on

and went diving in 30 to 40 feet of

water in the dark. We needed a light, so we attached a handle to a

photoflood lamp, taped it up to make it waterproof, hooked it to our

generator, and sent the diver down. We didn’t realize that the bulb

might be crushed by the water pressure, and sure enough, one night

the bulb imploded. Up in the boat, the generator suddenly slowed

because it was sending 110 volts down to where our diver Ralph

Nursall had been holding the light looking for perch. Nursall came

to the surface quickly, and we got him out of the water. He was

okay, but we switched to more sturdy lamps after that.

By far the majority of experiments went more smoothly forHasler’s students. But the spirit with which these investigatorsembraced their work gives a sense of the vigor that Haslerbrought to his position at Wisconsin. Egerton reports inBreaking New Waters that Hasler connected with his gradu-ate students as Birge and Juday never had. He held weeklyseminars with guest speakers—experts from around the world.The students took turns presenting topics, as if at profession-al meetings, and under Hasler’s stern glare, quickly learned

the rigorous process of peerreview. They received Hasler’sinvaluable assistance in obtain-ing grants.

At the same time, once ontheir way, they were expected togo it alone. “For independenttypes,” Robert Ragotzkie said,“Dr. Hasler’s program was agreat place to be.”

Over the years, Hasler’s fifty-three doctoral students fannedout to explore a wide range ofresearch areas. The earliestprojects were conducted inhighly controlled situations akinto laboratories, but the experi-mental work quickly expandedto the natural environment.Hasler became known for hiswhole lake manipulations, inwhich he and his students wouldchange one variable in a lakeand observe the effects.

For example, student WaldoE. Johnson hypothesized thatchanging the alkalinity of aboggy brown-water lake byadding lime would make the

water clearer, allowing sunlight at greater depths, therebyincreasing plant growth, dissolved oxygen, and fish popula-tions. In the early 1950s, Hasler arranged with Notre DameUniversity to use a pair of wilderness lakes called Peter andPaul Lakes, owned by Notre Dame on the Upper Peninsulaof Michigan. The researchers filled in the narrows connectingthe nearly identical lakes. Peter Lake became the experimen-tal site, to which they added lime. Paul Lake served as a con-trol and was left untouched. The experiment supportedJohnson’s hypothesis, but more important, became a mile-stone in Wisconsin limnology, upon which many subsequentexperiments were at least partially modeled. It convincedskeptics that one could perform a controlled experiment inthe natural world.

Like Birge and Juday, Hasler was a force for growthbecause of his abilities for organizing, finding funds, and deal-ing with political realities. His arrangement with Notre Dameis a good example. He made maximum use of funding sourcessuch as National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Atomic

James F. Kitchell succeeded Magnuson in 2001, the same yearthat Arthur Hasler died, and the program is as vital as ever to

both Wisconsin’s history and future.

John J. Magnuson


S U M M E R 2 0 0 326

Energy Commission (AEC) during post-war years that wereboom times for science in general. In 1962 Hasler directedthe building of a new limnology laboratory west of the origi-nal lab on the shore of Lake Mendota. Jutting over the lake,it houses offices, labs, a library, a boat slip, and wet sampleprocessing rooms, and today remains the headquarters forWisconsin’s programs.

Hasler and his colleagues revived Trout Lake Station,which had languished during the years of World War II.Research resumed in the 1950s and outgrew its prewar facil-ities. In the mid-1960s, Hasler obtained funding for a largenew four-season laboratory on the south shore of the lake.One winter, William Schmitz, Hasler’s graduate student whooversaw the building of the new lab, found a way to moveseven of the original buildings across the lake on the ice, fromthe old site to the new one. Today, some of the old labs house

students, while others are maintained for equipment storage.Hasler broke away from some of the practices of Birge and

Juday, but he held fast to their tradition of promoting inter-disciplinary mix as a vital element of the program. He wouldbring people together from every field and from around theworld, get them talking, and see new ideas being sparked andpeople cooperating to bring them to fruition. To his studentshe emphasized the importance of adaptability. At the 1983conference on the History of Limnology in Wisconsin, Haslerstated:

The best thing you can do in your earliest stages is to give yourself

the kind of training that isn’t final. Get the basics, so you can tack-

le anything in a systematic, intelligent way with the curiosity, the

motivation, and the inspiration to learn it. . . . I think it’s a great

shame if anyone starts with any subject in science today with the


Prior to the 15th International Congress on Limnology, Profs. Robert A.Ragotzkie (left), local chairman, and Arthur D. Hasler (right), execu-tive chair of the congress, inspect yellow lotuses on Mendota Bay near

the willows.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 27

idea that he’s going to be doing that all

his life.

Robert Ragotzkie considers theinterdisciplinary richness to be ahallmark of Hasler’s program andis himself a product of it. Hereceived a joint degree in zoologyand meteorology, moved to Geor-gia in 1953 for post-doctoratework, and returned to the UW in1959 as a faculty member in mete-orology. But he continued researchin limnology and later directed theSea Grant Program, which stimu-lates research and outreach educa-tion on the Great Lakes. OfHasler’s program, he said:

You need help to do field research,

and Hasler’s students all helped each

other. We were an ad hoc team and

we became friends. The result was,

you didn’t learn only about your own

bug. You learned a lot about other

problems by helping others with their

work. Limnology at Wisconsin

became dominant because of those

cooperative efforts.

Hasler, like Birge, was at thehelm in limnology for about fourdecades. Both men were highly pro-ductive, fiercely intelligent individu-als with forceful personalities, andthey drove prolific programs ofresearch. Unlike his predecessors, however, Hasler planned foran orderly transition. In 1978 he retired from teaching anddirecting the limnology lab. Even at the end of his career,Hasler demonstrated his penchant for broadening his program.After a careful search, Hasler picked Magnuson, a midwestern-er turned oceanographer who at the time was in Hawaii study-ing the physiology and behavior of tuna. When Arthur Haslerdied in March 2001, John Magnuson had been firmly estab-lished as the head of the program for over two decades.

The Third GenerationMagnuson was born and raised in northern Illinois and

graduated from the Universityof Minnesota with bachelor’sand master’s degrees in fish-eries. He earned a doctorate inzoology and oceanography atthe University of BritishColumbia in 1961. His profes-sional interests include fish andfisheries ecology and the histo-ry of his field.

“In limnology, we live andwork every day with our histo-ry,” Magnuson said in aninterview.

To Magnuson, that meanstaking the best of the past andcarrying it forward in new pro-grams, and that is one way tocharacterize his leadership inlimnology, which began in1978 when Hasler retired.While adding new elements tothe programs, Magnusonmaintained the key traditionsand best habits of his predeces-sors. In 2001 a hundred ormore limnologists gathered tocelebrate his career, to paytribute at his retirement, andto roast him. At that gathering,former doctoral student SteveBrandt noted that Magnuson,like Hasler, believed in chal-lenging students to fend forthemselves.

“At professional confer-ences, John would introduce you to an esteemed scientist andthen abandon you,” Brandt recalled as his colleagueslaughed. “It built character.”

Bringing students and scientists together has been a prior-ity for Magnuson. Bringing people and resources togetherand creating new interactions and synthesis is an urgent pri-ority for any program director. A defining moment in thatendeavor was the establishment of the Center for Limnologyin 1982. It had been one of Hasler’s goals, and Magnusonmade it happen. He pulled the research programs and thetwo lake labs into a new institution within the university andmade possible a dynamic program for limnology on campus.

A trap from the early days of limnological study.

WHS Archives WHi(X3)36989

S P R I N G 2 0 0 328


Magnuson articulated its meaning, “This change opened theway for the significant growth in faculty, program, and facili-ties during the 1980s and 1990s.”

That growth has been dramatic. When the Center wasformed, it was staffed by Magnuson and James F. Kitchell,then the associate director for the Mendota Lake lab. Today,there are four resident faculty members at the lab and twen-ty-three other workers, including administrative and researchstaff. Up at Trout Lake, Tim Kratz now directs the laborato-ry, where space has doubled since the Center was formed, ashas the number of resident researchers. Four scientists and sixother staff members now work year round at the station.

The interdisciplinary tradition continues to thrive. Nowresearchers are augmenting lab work with statistical analysisand ecosystem modeling, a major growth area. The field has

expanded geographically to include floodplain river ecology,undertaken by Emily Stanley, who views lakes and streamsconceptually as ends of a continuum. Because of increasinghuman impacts on nature, limnology has brought in socialscientists to study how people—through politics, economics,and lifestyles—affect and relate to aquatic ecosystems.

Technology has been another area of major changes sincethe Center was formed. Both labs house state-of-the-artequipment. In the northeastern lakes, this includes a systemof remote sensors—little robots on buoys that make regulartrips to the bottom of the lake to record data such as temper-ature, dissolved oxygen, and organic carbon levels—sendingthe data back to the lab in continuous radio transmissions.Researchers also use satellite and acoustic remote sensingtechnology to study Wisconsin’s waters.

Trout Lake Station offered a curious blend of new and old equipment.

WHS Archives WHi(D483)6996

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 29

As they did under Birgeand Juday, and then Hasler,research programs have grownricher and more diverse withinthe Center for Limnology.Wisconsin became one of thelargest of twenty-four sites inthe Long Term EcologicalResearch Network—a consor-tium of over 1,100 scientistsand students investigating eco-logical processes around the world. At thesame time, much of the research is aimedat solving more immediate problems. Forexample, Stephen Carpenter is examiningwhat happens to fish populations whenfallen logs are removed from shorelines, asthey usually are in the development oflakeshore property. Removing such debrismakes the shoreline less biologically com-plex, and that might affect fish adversely. Carpenter also stud-ies the effects of invading species in lakes, a subject of greatinterest for wildlife managers and anglers.

James Kitchell, who received his doctorate at the Univer-sity of Colorado and came to Wisconsin in 1970, is now direc-tor of the Center. He sees the history of limnology inWisconsin as a natural sequence of events in the birth andgrowth of a scientific field. In a recent interview, heexplained:

You first survey what you are studying over a period of time, as

did Birge and Juday. Then you try to understand the nature of

it, as Hasler did. Now we ask, what can we do about it? We try

to hire people who complement each other in experience and

expertise to do basic research. And we work with management

people in business and government to apply what we find toward

solving problems.

In the 1980s Wisconsin limnologists used the analogy of“breaking new waters” to describe their endeavors. Thesedays, limnology itself might be thought of as a flooding river,expanding in many directions. The analogy has its limita-tions. Unlike a flooding river, limnology is not an uncon-trolled destructive force, but rather a carefully planned andcoordinated set of programs. However, as Magnuson pointsout, the flood can be a healthy component of a large flood-plain river system. It augments the interactions between landand water and stimulates organic and inorganic cycles. Fish

reproduce in floodplains. “The flood is a property of

a river system that is essentialto its functioning, its produc-tivity, and the exchanges thatmake the system work,” Mag-nuson says.

So, like a naturally benefi-cial flood, the expansion oflimnology has benefited sci-ence and society. The UW

Center for Limnology has always been, andcontinues to be, a major force in thatexpansion.

ResourcesAn excellent account of the story of lim-

nology in Wisconsin can be found in Break-ing New Waters: A Century of Limnologyat the University of Wisconsin, a special

issue of the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sci-ences, Arts and Letters, written by Annamarie L. Beckel andFrank Egerton and published in 1987. Breaking New Watersis a primary source for this article, and the author wishes toacknowledge his appreciation to the editors.

I conducted interviews with the following individuals inthe year 2001 and wish to thank them for their time and con-sideration: John J. Magnuson, former director of the UWCenter for Limnology; Robert A. Ragotzkie; James F.Kitchell, Stephen R. Carpenter and Emily H. Stanley, all ofthe Center for Limnology; Timothy K. Kratz, Senior Scien-tist and Associate Director of the Trout Lake Station; Carl J.Watras, Research Supervisor, Trout Lake Station; and Hath-away Hasler.

Several publications were extremely helpful including ATextbook of Limnology, third edition, by Gerald A. Cole,published by Waveland Press in 1983; Focus on Field Sta-tions, a bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, fromJanuary 1999; Limnology in North America, edited D. G.Frey and published by the University of Wisconsin Press in1963. Alexander J. Horne and Charles R. Goldman’s Lim-nology, second edition, published by McGraw-Hill, Inc., in1994 was also helpful as were John J. Magnuson’s work,“Lakes and rivers” in the Encyclopedia of Global Changepublished by John Wiley & Sons; and G. C. Sellery’s E. A.Birge: A Memoir, published by the University of WisconsinPress in 1956.

The Author

Scott Spoolman, a Wisconsin native, isa freelance writer. He received a master’sdegree in journalism, concentrating on sci-ence writing, from the University of Min-nesota in 1983. He lives in Madison, andwith his wife, son and daughter, and heenjoys exploring the waters of Wisconsin.

“If the analogy of a river

is apt for limnology, it is

because the discipline,

like a river, has several

sources and tributaries.”

MacQuarrieand Leopold

By Keith Crowley

Excerpt from Gordon MacQuarrie:The Story of an Old Duck Hunter

WHi (X3)44394

The Wisconsin Historical Society Press is proud toannounce the publication of the first full-length biography ofone of Wisconsin’s favorite writers, Gordon MacQuarrie, bestknown for his Old Duck Hunters stories. Author MichaelMcIntosh writes in his foreword to this new volume: “GordonMacQuarrie was one of the most influential writers of his

time—so much so that he shaped an entire generation ofwriters who are just now emerging in the mold that he cre-ated.” This excerpt deals with MacQuarrie’s contributionto the conservation and wildlife management movement.

In April 1936 Gordon MacQuarrie left the SuperiorEvening Telegram for the bigger, greener pastures ofMilwaukee, where he became the first outdoor editorof the Milwaukee Journal. When MacQuarrie began

at the Journal on April 19 he didn’t have an official title, but hewas in effect becoming the first full-time professional out-door writer in the nation. Other men dabbled in outdoornews stories, but MacQuarrie was the first on record to

specialize in the previously neglected field. Men like Jay“Ding” Darling of the Des Moines Register devoted

part of their time to conservation and sportingstories, but their scope remained broad.

MacQuarrie focused on the out-door life by mandate from the

Journal’s management, and heturned this position into one of the

most coveted writing jobs in thecountry. . . .

Soon after MacQuarrie arrived in

This pen and ink sketch ran with Mac-Quarrie’s first column in the Milwaukee

Journal, April 19, 1936, and was themodel for the MacQuarrie Foundation

Medallion.

MacQuarrieand Leopold

Milwaukee in 1936, he developed a per-sonal relationship with Aldo Leopold.With Leopold’s assistance MacQuarrietackled the issues of wildlife manage-ment from a scientific viewpoint. Hejoined Leopold in advocating numerouspolicies not generally accepted by theordinary sportsmen and sportswomen ofthe state.

While MacQuarrie was no scientist,he was deeply interested in the directionLeopold’s work was taking. . . . InLeopold, MacQuarrie had an open lineto the very latest information about sub-jects he held very dear—and no lessimportantly, to subjects he was obligatedto cover as the outdoor editor of the Mil-waukee Journal. In the late ’30s andthroughout the ’40s, MacQuarrie andLeopold, who was then teaching inMadison, communicated frequently.They talked of the ever-changing face ofmodern conservation and of Leopold’sconservation principles, which directly conflicted with the beliefsof Wisconsin’s sportsmen. MacQuarrie set about to learn fromthe master and to disseminate this information to his statewideaudience. After all, Leopold’s research and opinions had a directeffect on Wisconsin’s sportsmen.

By the early 1940s Leopold had become a key player not onlywithin the research and education community, but also within thepolitical arena. In 1942 Wisconsin Governor Julius Heil invitedLeopold to serve on the State Conservation Commission; shortlythereafter he chaired the Committee on Natural Resources.While Leopold did not always agree with the conclusions andmethods of either body, his very presence gave these politicalorganizations scientific credibility.

Leopold’s position at the University of Wisconsin gave him theopportunity and the resources to implement his new philosophyat the “shack,” a piece of dormant farmland the Leopold familyhad purchased to use as a retreat and laboratory. Leopold’sattempts to reestablish the native ecosystem on this plot of ground

continually fascinated MacQuarrie. Hevisited Leopold at the shack several timesand wrote columns for the Journalexplaining Leopold’s work.

The results of Leopold’s grand exper-iment were published after his death in1948. The treatise, A Sand CountyAlmanac and Sketches Here and There,has since become the primer for modernconservationists. It became an instant hitupon its publication in 1949, and it hasnever gone out of print. MacQuarrie’scopy of the Almanac was well worn anddog-eared. He read it many times in hisown search for a sense of fulfillment. InNovember 1949, after MacQuarrie hadcompletely digested the book, he issuedthis proclamation to Journal readers:

A Sand County Almanac is a modern

bible of conservation. Everyone in Wis-

consin with any serious interest in the

future of Wisconsin’s soil, woods, fields

and waters, will want to own a copy of this book, the final word from

one of the greatest men ever to teach at the university of Wisconsin.1

MacQuarrie obtained several exclusive interviews withLeopold for the Milwaukee Journal from 1936 through the1940s. And his appreciation of the man was never more obviousthan in a feature article for Outdoor America magazine, “HereCome the Biologists,” published after MacQuarrie’s death. In ithe calls Leopold “the greatest news tipster of my experience” andpays homage to the scientists and the science that Leopoldhelped create.2

He also undoubtedly spoke to Leopold off the record on manyoccasions. MacQuarrie and Leopold hunted waterfowl togetherin the Mississippi River bottoms. They took several nature walksat Leopold’s shack, of which MacQuarrie once wrote, “A sports-man, sitting with Leopold, can get a new pair of eyes for seeinghere.”3 In a private memo dated January 11, 1939, MacQuarriescolded Leopold for not providing more information to the news-

MacQuarrie on assignment nearSolon Springs,Wisconsin.

Photo by Milwaukee Journal/Staff, September 1946. © 2002Journal Sentinel Inc. Reproduced with permission.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 332

The Wisconsin Historical Society

Director: Robert B. Thomasgard, Jr.

Officers

President: Patricia A. Boge President Elect: Mark L. Gajewski Treasurer: Anne M. West Secretary: Robert B. Thomasgard

Board of Curators

Ruth Barker, EphraimThomas H. Barland, Eau ClaireMurray D. “Chip” Beckford, CascadePatricia A. Boge, La CrosseMary F. Buestrin, MequonThomas E. Caestecker, Green LakeJohn M. Cooper, Jr., MadisonWilliam J. Cronon, MadisonCraig Culver, Prairie du SacLaurie Davidson, MarinetteNess Flores, WaukeshaStephen J. Freese, DodgevilleMark L. Gajewski, MadisonCharles E. Haas, La CrosseBeverly A. Harrington, OshkoshFannie E. Hicklin, MadisonGregory Huber, WausauMargaret Humleker, Fond du Lac

John Kerrigan, Dubuque, IAEllen D. Langill, WaukeshaGenevieve G. McBride, MilwaukeeJudy Nagel, DePereJanice M. Rice, StoughtonFred A. Risser, MadisonJohn M. Russell, MenomonieJohn Schroeder, MilwaukeeDale Schultz, Richland CenterGerald D. Viste, WausauAnne M. West, MilwaukeeCarlyle H. “Hank” Whipple, Madison

Ex-officio Board of Curators

Delores C. Ducklow, President, FRIENDS of theSocietyJohn Grek, President, Wisconsin Council forLocal HistoryRoy C. LaBudde, President, Wisconsin HistoricalFoundationDavid W. Olien, Senior Vice President, University ofWisconsin System

The Wisconsin Historical Foundation

President: Roy C. LaBudde, MilwaukeeVice-President: Bruce T. Block, MilwaukeeVice-President: Margaret B. Humleker, Fond du LacVice-President: Sheldon B. Lubar, Milwaukee

Vice-President: Edwin P. Wiley, MilwaukeeTreasurer: Rhona E. Vogel, BrookfieldSecretary: John D. Singer, MadisonAsst. Treasurer & Asst. Secretary: W. Pharis Horton,Madison

Hartley B. Barker, Scottsdale, AZ.Thomas H. Barland, Eau Claire (emeritus)Patricia A. Boge, La CrosseRobert M. Bolz, MadisonDaniel W. Erdman, MadisonJames D. Ericson, MilwaukeeRockne G. Flowers, MadisonJohn J. Frautschi, MadisonMark L. Gajewski, MadisonGary P. Grunau, MilwaukeeRichard H. Holscher, Lake TomahawkRalph C. Inbusch, Jr., Fox PointW. Robert Koch, MadisonPaul Meissner, MilwaukeeGeorge H. Miller, Ripon (emeritus)Jodi Peck, Fox PointPeggy A. Rosenzweig, WauwatosaWalter S. Rugland, AppletonRichard L. Schmidt, West BendRobert B. Thomasgard, MadisonCarol T. Toussaint, Madison (emerita)Robert S. Zigman, Milwaukee

papers—particularly the Milwaukee Journal.He wrote Leopold that “Fact is whenever Iget something from you or your students itgets pretty sympathetic scrutiny. . . . I like theauthenticity all of your work has. It ought tobe in the paper, this paper and other papers.But my concern is this paper.”4

During a particularly turbulent time in1943, when Wisconsin deer populations hadgrown to serious overabundance, MacQuar-rie got Leopold to express his true sentimentsabout wildlife management for the record.“The real problem is not how we shall handlethe deer in this emergency,” Leopold said.“The real problem is one of human manage-ment. . . .”5

During the early 1940s Wisconsin’s cher-ished deer herd had grown to unsafe levels inthe face of mild winters and the absence ofsignificant hunting pressure (from humansand from the much reviled wolves) during thefirst years of World War II. Many Wiscon-sinites viewed this unprecedented growth inthe herd as a boon, but MacQuarrie, with his ever-widening bio-logical perspective, saw that without dedicated management thebottom would drop out if Wisconsin was subjected to a harshwinter. It was.

By March 1943 the deer crisis had reached critical mass, and

MacQuarrie came off the fence in his Journalcolumn. Early in the month MacQuarrie wasasked to join the state’s Deer Committee asthey toured northern Wisconsin to assess thedamage. For three days the group trampedthrough deeryards and cutovers, barelybelieving the carnage they saw. Due to deepsnow and frigid weather, the deer were dyingin droves, and the forest was being denudedof anything mildly resembling feed. Mac-Quarrie knew it would be hard to explain thedevastation to his readers; in his next Journalcolumn he simply said the biologists “willnever be believed by men and women whodid not have the chance to get out there andsee it with their own eyes.” Wisconsin Con-servation Commissioner Virgil Dickinsonsaid of the crisis, “Whatever we do about itthey [the state’s sportsmen] will crucify us.”6

Before that trip MacQuarrie had allowedLeopold and his gang numerous occasions toexpress themselves in the Journal. After wit-nessing the devastation, he wholeheartedly

supported the biologists and stopped pulling his punches.Leopold and fellow biologist William Feeney contended that200,000 does should be eliminated from the state’s deer herd toreduce the mass starvation. MacQuarrie agreed and challengedhis readers to support the experts.

MacQuarrie was a stickler when it cameto equipment. He was continually

attending to his sizable collection ofoutdoors paraphernalia, or “the sinews

of war” as he called it. Whetherreplacing worn decoy cords, mending

a broken fly rod tip, oiling a reel,or cleaning his well-worn old

doublegun, he considered“puttering” a favorite pastime.

Photo by Milwaukee Journal/Staff, 1945. © 2002Journal Sentinel Inc., reproduced with permission.

This position did not sit well with readers. “Bucks only” hadbeen the popular sentiment for many years in Wisconsin, andmany of MacQuarrie’s readers did not believe the situation war-ranted overhauling the deerhunting laws. MacQuarrie con-tinued to defend the experts,saying, “John Q. Public wantshis information . . . sugar-coat-ed. . . . And he wants to sit therein the evening under the readinglamp and mebbe add a hunch ortwo of his own to the generalpicture. The time for hunches inthe management of Wisconsin’sdeer herd is over.”7

MacQuarrie took a fair amount of heat on the issue. It wasthe first time in his career that his written opinion did not gel withthe mainstream public’s. But MacQuarrie was no shirker, and hestuck to his guns throughout the crisis. Eventually the antiman-agement movement withered, but throughout MacQuarrie’stenure at the Journal some John Q. Publics still clung tenacious-ly to the antimanagement vine.

From that point on MacQuarrie repeatedly and personallydefended the fish and game managers in his Journal column. Heused his newspaper pieces to provide the latest scientific theoriesand practices to readers who sometimes did not appreciate thefull scope of the wildlife and fisheries situations. In 1949, whenthe deer population again grew to unsafe levels, Wisconsinsportsmen and “nature-lovers,” as MacQuarrie called them,demanded that the Conservation Department artificially feed thedeer. MacQuarrie called the practice of deer feeding “moneywasted” and advocated managing the herd, not feeding it.8

He could just as easily have used his column to lambaste thescientists and government agencies for their failings, as many ofhis contemporaries did, but he was beyond such tactics. In thebeginning, however, the experts, Leopold included, were dis-trustful of newspapermen in general. They had been raked overthe coals by journalists before, and for the newcomer MacQuar-rie it was an uphill battle. MacQuarrie had to convince Leopoldof his noble intentions. “It took just about one year,” MacQuar-rie wrote, “for this newspaper reporter to convince Aldo Leopoldthat . . . I would not brutalize the facts.”9 MacQuarrie choseinstead to clearly explain the scientific position to the oft-befud-dled masses. It became a career-long trend in his columns.

During the 1940s’ deer crisis in Wisconsin, Leopold was sub-jected to harsh criticism from many segments of the Wisconsinoutdoor society. Even some within the Conservation Department

suggested that Leopold would not be satisfied until no deerremained in Wisconsin.10 MacQuarrie bristled at the implica-tion, then and later. The last of MacQuarrie’s freelance work

published was “Here Come theBiologists” in 1960. In thatessay MacQuarrie recalled thepoor treatment heaped onLeopold:

Leopold originated the concept of

“the land ethic.” He said a great

many things now quoted widely

today, but let it not be forgotten

that in his day he was upbraid-

ed—even reviled—by those

assorted ignorami whose knowledge of wildlife ended with what

grampaw told them.11

Throughout his life MacQuarrie had a great deal of faith inpeople’s ability to handle whatever outdoor crisis reared its head.This faith was common to his generation. Such great technolog-ical and scientific strides had been made in so many facets of lifethat many Americans developed a simplified view of life’s riddles.All things, they assumed, would be figured out—all problemssolved in due time.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 33


The AuthorFor more than fifteen years, Keith Crow-ley has been tramping the woods andwaters of northwest Wisconsin. His free-lance writing has appeared in such publica-tions as Sporting Classics, WisconsinOutdoor Journal, Wisconsin Sportsman,Minnesota Sportsman, Rocky MountainGame & Fish, and Florida Game & Fish. He

resides in Hudson, Wisconsin, with his wife and sons, but spendsan inordinate amount of time at his retreat on the Eau Claire Lakes.

1. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Right Off the Reel,” Milwaukee Journal, October 20, 1949.2. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Here Come the Biologists,” draft, Gordon MacQuarrie Papers, Wis-consin Historical Society Archives.3. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Right Off the Reel.” Milwaukee Journal, October 20, 1940.4. Gordon MacQuarrie, memo to Leopold, January 11, 1939, Aldo Leopold Archives, Universi-ty of Wisconsin-Madison.5. Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold, His Life and Work, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,1988): 444.6. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Right Off the Reel,” Milwaukee Journal, March 23, 1943.7. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Right Off the Reel,” Milwaukee Journal, March 28, 1943.8. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Right Off the Reel,” Milwaukee Journal, February 8, 1949.9. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Here Come the Biologists.”10. Meine, p. 48911. Gordon MacQuarrie, “Here Come the Biologists.”

G ordon MacQuarrie: The Story of an Old Duckhunter isavailable through local bookstores. Members of the Wis-

consin Historical Society can receive a 10 percent discount byidentifying themselves as such and ordering the book by call-ing (800) 621-2736. Hardcover $34.95 ISBN 0-87020-343-6;Paper $22.95 ISBN 0-87020-344-4.

Cork bluebill decoy from MacQuar-rie’s set. Carved by Ollie Drahn of

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ca. 1940.Photo by Keith Crowley.

Pheasant tracks in the snow. According to Aldo Leopold, theRiley area was “devoid of pheasants” until the Riley Game

Cooperative stocked it in 1931.

UW Department of Wildlife Ecology

Four years before AldoLeopold acquired thefarm along the Wis-consin River that

became incubator and inspira-tion for A Sand CountyAlmanac, the great naturalistdeveloped an interest in anotherswath of southern Wisconsinreal estate. This land, however,Leopold did not purchase. Hesimply wanted a place to huntbirds and test his game-manage-ment theories.

One Sunday morning in thesummer of 1931, while explor-ing the dairy country southwestof Madison, he stopped at thefarm of Reuben Paulson andasked for a drink of water. The two men fell to talking, andsomething surprising transpired. “He needed relief from tres-passers who each year poached his birds despite his signs,”Leopold wrote in 1940 in the Journal of Wildlife Management.“I needed a place to try management as a means of building upsomething to hunt. We concluded that a group of farmers,working with a group of town sportsmen, offered the bestdefense against trespass, and also the best chance for buildingup game. Thus was Riley born.”1

By Riley, Leopold meant the Riley Game Cooperative,which he and Paulson formed in 1931 and in which they con-

tinued to be involved for at leastseventeen years. They wereaided by a law that had justbeen passed by the Wisconsinlegislature that authorized thecreation of shooting preserves,the planting of game birds onthose preserves, and the length-ening of hunting seasons onthem.

The Riley Game Coopera-tive was centered in the smallcommunity of Riley, tucked intothe steep hills that mark the ter-minal moraine country ofsouthwestern Dane County. It isabout equal distance betweenMount Horeb and Verona,north of Highway 18. In 1931

Riley included a post office, general store, and railroad waterstop. There were perhaps a dozen houses close by the railroadstop and almost as many farms within a radius of a couplemiles.

One of those farms became the home—during the 1960sand 1970s—of the Silbernagel family, including the authors ofthis article. Although we reaped the benefits of the conserva-tion work begun three decades before—hunted pheasant andsquirrels on the farm; witnessed ducks and geese gliding intothe Sugar River marsh; saw rabbits, fox, and even an occa-sional deer near the cover of the fencerow plantings that

Remembering the Riley Game Cooperative

By Bob Silbernageland Janet Silbernagel

Tracking

Aldo Leopoldthrough Riley’s Farmland

Aldo Leopold with a favorite hunting dog on unidentifiedproperty believed to be on the Riley Game Cooperative.

Aldo Leopold Foundation Archives

S U M M E R 2 0 0 336


Leopold had helped engineer—we knew nothing of the RileyGame Cooperative growing up. We learned of it in For theHealth of the Land, a 1999 book of Leopold essays not previ-ously published in book form. It included two articles aboutRiley.

Those articles led us to dig deeper. We found that the coop-erative, despite its longevity and its use by Leopold as aresearch laboratory for his students at the University of Wis-consin, was largely unheralded. Leopold wrote a few articlesabout it, and so have others since his death. But it did notachieve the same sort of conservation celebrity that attached tohis Wisconsin River farm and the shack upon it after the pub-lication of A Sand County Almanac.

Still, Leopold did not ignore Riley. He left a stack of recordsabout the Riley project, many of them in the archives at theUniversity of Wisconsin. Among the things we discovered werecorrespondence between Leopold and Paulson about theorganization of the cooperative, annual reports about the suc-cess of the hunts, and records of bird plantings.2

But it was the hand-drawn maps that grabbed our atten-tion. It’s been more than fifteen years since our parents sold theRiley farm, but the Leopold maps refresh our recollections andmemories of the landscape.

There. That’s the Sugar River slough. Bob and brotherCarl floated a leaky dingy on it, searching the murky waters forturtles, crawdads, and carp. And there are the railroad tracks(today the Military Ridge Bike Trail). The tracks marked thesouthern end of the Sugar River marsh and our property. Weslogged through the knee-deep muck of that marsh, swattingblack flies and pushing heifers back to their pasture.

And here. That shaded zone the map describes as grazedtimber on the J. L. Brannan farm is surely the same woodpatch on the Silbernagel farm where shag-bark hickory treesmingled with oaks and elms. Horses and youngsters foundsummer comfort in their shade and snatched fruit off a wildapple tree. Along the fencerow beside the woods, we gatheredhickory nuts and picked wild plums and grapes.

West beyond the crest of the hill, the woods were a different

Aldo Leopold was an inveterate map maker, and this undated map ofthe Riley Game Cooperative is likely from his hand.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 37


world. Stinging nettles and blackberry brambles clutched atour legs. Sumac and poison ivy obscured trails. Raccoon,muskrat, and deer hid in the thick cover. It was a deep wilder-ness, at least for young explorers.

Here, on another map, is our old cornfield just north of themarsh, where we hunted pheasants and raced snowmobileswhen winter snow lay deep enough. Nearby is the pasturewhere we galloped our horses and pastured the cows. Andthere, east of the farmhouse, is the hilltop hay meadow wherea hot-air balloon unexpectedly dropped out of the sky one crispautumn morning. Frightened horses raced for the cover of thewoods.

While the documents from the Leopold archives elic-it nostalgic and sentimental memories for us, theyare not written in the lyrical style of his Sand

County essays. They are more stenographic.“Summary of Winter Feeding at Riley, 1936–37.” “Pheasants Killed on Riley Preserve—1938.” (A total of 65). “Riley Quail Census—1936–37.” They chronicle the rapid growth of the cooperative, from

just three farms to eleven, covering more than 1,700 acres, andthey record the increasing success of the conservation pro-grams. But even in the secretarial style of his annual reports,Leopold could not keep his humor or opinions entirely incheck. This is from a 1940 newsletter to the Riley Game Coop-erative members: “There are several stray cats in the areawhich won’t do our nesting birds any good. Members areencouraged to invite these cats either to come back home, or toget underground where all cats behave.”

There are other stories, only glimpsed in the notes andnewsletters. The low bird kill in 1945 had more to do with ashortage of gasoline and rubber than a shortage of pheasants.A Cooper’s hawk took a hen pheasant near Ken Cook’s feederon February 1, 1941. And John Riley won the annual contestfor the biggest pheasant of the season in 1945.

We decided to follow up on this last item since John Riley isnot just a name on the old documents. The Riley communitygets its moniker from his great-grandfather, Richard, whohomesteaded there. And John Riley now lives about fifteenmiles from Riley in Verona.

We called to test his memory.3

The community of Riley liesin the southwestern part ofDane County along Sugar River(identified as Sugar Creekon what is believed to beLeopold’s map).

Joel Heimangraphic

S U M M E R 2 0 0 338


“I remember that pheasant.It was a snowy day,” Riley said.“I turned seventeen on Christ-mas, and it was right after that.”December 31, according toLeopold’s newsletter. “I waspoking around in the woodsnear Paulson Road. I was bymyself. I didn’t have a dog oranything. When the roosterwent up I winged him. I had totrack him in the snow into thethicket. How big did they say itwas?”

The newsletter listed it at1,500 grams.

“That’s right, they measuredeverything in grams,” Johnrecalled.

For John Riley, memories ofthe Riley Game Cooperativeare bright and pleasant: “Every year they had a big picnic inthe spring. All of the farmers and their families would turn out,and all of the town members. It was a big thing. I rememberone year we had it down at Paulson’s farm, and we playedbaseball in a big pasture. That’s all covered with brush now.”

Each year as well, the town members would host a banquetat a nice restaurant or club in Madison. The farmers and theirsons would attend. “Everybody was all dressed up. It was quitea deal for us farmers,” Riley remembered with a chuckle.

John also remembered Aldo Leopold as “just thegreatest man you’d probably ever want to be around,” some-

one who never abandoned histeaching role, even when out ona hunt. “He’d tell you aboutanything you wanted to know,”John said. “He’d just take a stickand draw things out for you onthe ground. Every year, he’dcome out with two or three stu-dents from his class. They’d fixfences and clear unwantedplants from along thehedgerows.”

Gene Roark is a few yearsyounger than John Riley, buthe, too, remembers the lateryears of the Riley Cooperative,when his father was a townmember of the group. A friendof Leopold, the elder Roarkapparently met him when bothwere on the faculty at the Uni-

versity of Wisconsin.4

“I especially recall one hunt, with my dad and Leopold,when after I’d missed a hen Leopold told me, very softly, thatI was ‘shooting from the hip,’” Roark said. “I felt humiliated,mostly because I knew he was right.” But Roark extracted a bitof revenge later in the day when Leopold’s bird dog, a short-hair that Leopold was very proud of, locked on point on aclump of marsh grass. “I felt I’d gotten even,” Roark remem-bered, “when a big yellow cat erupted from the grass and boththe shorthair and Leopold looked as embarrassed as I’d felt.”5

For the farmers like John Riley and his dad, Wes, the Riley

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WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUSINESS PARTNERS

John Riley, whose great-grandfather provided the name for thecommunity of Riley, hunted on the Riley Game Cooperative and

remembers Aldo Leopold and much more.

Joel Heiman photo

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 39


Game Cooperative wasn’t a part-time effort. Itbecame part of their everyday life. “Every farmhad a feeding station on it for the birds,” Rileysaid. “We furnished the ear corn. The townmembers would buy other feed for them. Andwe covered the feeders with cornstalks.” Young-sters like John were enlisted as foot soldiers inLeopold’s conservation army: “I used to have acopy of a book . . . a ledger . . . where I kepttrack of how many pheasants and other birds wesaw on our farm. One year we had 160-somebirds.”6 John was just a toddler when the RileyGame Cooperative was founded, so he has nopersonal recollection of the natural conditions—the quality of habitat and game availability—prior to the cooperative. But, based on what hisfather and others have told him, it was poor.

Gene Roark also relied on the assessment ofothers and reached a similar conclusion:“Heavy grazing and erosion had reduced coverto bits and pieces, and game of any kind wasscarce. Pheasants were nonexistent.”7

Leopold described the situation this way:“Three years ago, when we first met, to flush arabbit was the biggest adventure one mighthope to fall upon in a day’s hike on the Paulsonfarm.” And this: “Like other outdoorsmen, bothof us had listened patiently to the fair words ofthe prophets of conservation, predicting theearly restoration of outdoor Wisconsin. We bothhad noticed, though, that as prophecies becamethicker and thicker, open seasons for hunting became shorterand shorter, and wild life scarcer and scarcer.”

But assistance came from an unlikely source: the Wis-consin legislature. “Now it so happens that in the samewinter of our discontent . . . there emerged, as out of a

cloud, all duly enacted, the ‘Wisconsin Shooting PreserveLaw,’” Leopold wrote. That law allowed land owners or thosewho controlled land to plant pheasants on the property andshoot three-quarters of the number of planted birds in an openfall season. Furthermore, the law prohibited trespassing on theproperty in question by people other than those involved in theshooting preserve.

Members of the Riley Cooperative were interested in manygame birds, not just pheasants “and still less in shooting pheas-ants recently let out of a coop,” Leopold said. The co-operativemembers, no doubt led by Leopold, quickly figured out, how-

ever, that while the new law restricted shooting of the domes-tically raised pheasants, it had applications to wild birds aswell. “We saw in this a chance to build up a wild population,and to do our shooting on those wild birds, releasing sufficienttame ones to satisfy the requirements of the law,” Leopoldsaid.8

With that in mind, the Riley group applied for and obtaineda shooting-preserve license, initially encompassing three farmsin the area, and released twenty-five pheasant that first year.According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources(DNR), there are approximately fifty licensed shooting pre-serves in the state now; the number fluctuates some as thelicenses for the preserves come up for renewal each June 30.The shooting preserves are used primarily as hunting clubs orbusiness retreats. They differ from game farms, of which thereare about nine hundred licensed in Wisconsin today. Thegame farms can raise game birds and release them year-round

Reuben Paulson, cofounder of the Riley Game Cooperative, witha pheasant about to be released, presumably on his property.



S U M M E R 2 0 0 340

for hunters. The shooting preserves—unlike in Leopold’s day—cannot raise birds. They can only buy them and release adultbirds for hunting from September through February.9

DNR records on the shooting preserves only go back to the1970s, not to the days of the Riley Preserve. But, according toa letter Leopold wrote in September 1932, the Riley Coopera-tive obtained “Shooting Preserve License No. 4” on July 25,1932.10 The Riley Game Cooperative was something muchmore than a gathering of sportsmen who liked to hunt birds. Itbecame, through the direction of naturalist Leopold andfarmer Reuben Paulson, a community endeavor.

It’s tough from a perspective seven decades later, to grasphow difficult life in rural Wisconsin was at that time. Farmingwas only beginning to be mechanized, and dairy farming inparticular required long hours of tedious work. A sustaineddrought made farming even more difficult than normal. And,of course, money was scarce. When the Riley Cooperativebegan, there were as yet no agricultural support programs tohelp farmers ride out the tough times.

Yet somehow, Leopold and Paulson convinced other farm-

ers to join the cooperative—to voluntarily add to their work-loads, give up part of their livestock feed, and eliminate por-tions of their precious pastureland. The Riley GameCooperative began with just three farm members and five townmembers. According to the initial bylaws and letters fromLeopold to Paulson, the farmers supplied land and feed for thepheasants, while town members supplied money—$20 each,annually, in the first years—to purchase birds or eggs, to reim-burse farmers for part of their corn, to provide signs to post theboundaries of the cooperative, and to cover the costs of theannual banquet for the members. Both groups provided laborto build winter feeders for the pheasants and plant pine treesand brush for cover. They all kept eyes out for trespassers andhelped count birds.

And, of course, they hunted. Numerical records of thosehunts are listed in the annual newsletters that Leopold dutiful-ly wrote and mailed to all of the members of the cooperative.But they don’t capture the pleasure that members took in hunt-ing birds in places where there had been little wildlife before.That pleasure is reflected in stories recounted by the likes of

The railroad tracks as they appeared running near the Riley commu-nity in the 1930s. Today the tracks are gone, and the railroad grade is

part of the Military Ridge State Trail.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 41


John Riley and Gene Roark, who grew up hunting on thecooperative, and by Leopold’s own, more literary accounts.“To kill one’s first cock on one’s own grounds is a memorableexperience,” he declared.

But it’s clear from the archive record and individual storiesthat the cooperative also became more than just a group ofhunters. It quickly developed into a communal affair thatinvolved not only the men who hunted, but also youngsters andfarm wives. Young people took feed to the pheasant feeding sta-tions during the winter and made daily logs of the pheasants,quail, prairie chickens, Hungarian partridges, rabbits, and foxesthey spotted. Reuben Paulson’s wife was official keeper of thescales. When cooperative members shot a pheasant, they wereto take it to Mrs. Paulson to have it weighed and recorded.

There were gatherings of the farm and town members tobuild the brush shelters that were to provide winter shelter forthe birds and feeders where farmers or their sons could set outcorn. “None of us for years had so enjoyed our winter Sun-days,” Leopold wrote of those gatherings.11

Although Leopold and Paulson sought to keep the size ofthe cooperative small, so that all those involved would alwaysknow each other, it expanded rapidly on the farm side. By thelate 1930s there were eleven farm members and more than1,700 acres involved; this, despite the fact that Leopold some-times hectored the farm members to do more conservation

Around fifty licensed shooting preserves currently exist in the state.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, ResearchReport no. 24, 1960-67.

This letter from Leopold to Paulson dated September 3, 1931, out-lines the purposes and lists the original membership of the Riley

Game Cooperative.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 342


Recent view of the Riley Game Cooperative area from Highway J southof Riley. At the center of the photo in the distance is a pine plantation

on the corner of the Paulson property.

Joel Heiman photo

work. In a 1935 newsletter he urged each farmer that year toprovide “at least one new cover area fenced against grazing”and “at least one food patch (or equivalent in shocked corn leftin the field over winter).”

In 1937 the cooperative expanded in a new direction. Thatyear, Leopold began using it as an outdoor classroom andresearch facility for his classes at the University of Wisconsin.“If you see a small army coming across your fields, it isn’t theGermans,” he warned the cooperative members in a 1940newsletter. “It’s just Professor Leopold’s class in wildlife ecolo-gy, learning how farmers, town sportsmen, and birds all find‘Lebensraum’ at Riley.”

When war came, the Riley Cooperative did not forget thosewho went abroad. Leopold provided extra copies of hisnewsletter to all Riley members so they could send them tosons in the military “whose hunting this year was not of theRiley variety.” The war also drained the cooperative of man-power. In 1942 there were not enough people to plant all theNorway pines the cooperative had ordered. In his newsletter,

Leopold offered the trees to any and all takers. Still, neitherdrought nor depression, war nor postwar boom brought thedemise of the Riley Cooperative. In 1948, just a few monthsbefore his death, Leopold despaired at the high cost of pheas-ants to plant and the poor growing seasons the past three years.He wondered “whether the Riley enterprise should continue.”He was quickly reassured that the majority of Riley memberswanted it to carry on.12

The cooperative changed the Riley landscape in anumber of ways. For example, there were regularplantings of pheasants, carefully catalogued each

year. But other game species, including quail, Hungarian par-tridge, ruffed grouse, and prairie chicken began to appear spo-radically as cover improved. And cover improved largelyunder Leopold’s guidance. To overcome chronic overgrazingof most of the area, yet not seriously affect the farmers’ abilityto take care of their cows and hogs, Leopold concentrated onwhat he called “foul-weather cover.” “It consists of cattail bogs

too soft for cattle to enter, bush wil-low along streams and railroad tracks,and grape tangles or plum thickets infencerows.”13 The members of thecooperative also developed plantingsof evergreen trees, mostly red andNorway pine, fenced off from cattle.

They learned from painful experi-ence. A severe drought in 1934 and1936 cost them many of the plant-ings, and inadequate fences allowedanimals to get in and destroy others.But they tried again, with assistancefrom the University of Wisconsin stu-dents and depression-era CivilianConservation Corps crews. By 1939,when another drought hit, most of theplantings survived.14

Much of that work is evidenttoday. Warren Exo, who has lived inthe area since the 1960s, still pickswild plums along the Military RidgeTrail west of Riley each autumn.Grape tangles and other brush arestill plentiful along many of thefencerows. The evergreen stands arethe most noticeable. The red pinesare now approaching seventy yearsold, and they tower thirty feet highand more. But the old stands arebreaking up. Deciduous trees such asblack cherry and box elder are creep-ing in under the pine canopies,preparing to replace the older ever-greens.15

Those plantings were what attract-ed many of the farmers to the cooper-ative and kept them involved. “Iknow Dad really liked the plantings,the bushes along the fencerows andthe stands of evergreens,” Rileysaid.16 Over the years, the success ofthose plantings and of the game man-agement efforts would help convince others to join. Forinstance, J. L. Brannan, who rented what would become theSilbernagel farm, was not listed as a farm member in any of theearly Riley documents. By the late 1930s he was included inthe list of members, however, and pheasant kills were record-

ed on the Brannan farm.The Riley Game Cooperative continued, largely through

the will of Aldo Leopold, up until his death. The archives con-tain Leopold’s final “Riley News Letter,” dated April 8, 1948,barely two weeks before he died of a heart attack while fight-

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 43


Original Riley Game Cooperative fence line along Paulson property.

Joel Heiman photo


S U M M E R 2 0 0 344

ing a brush fire on a neighbor’sfarm next to his beloved Wis-consin River farm. That finalnewsletter is briefer than earlierones, but it still contains awealth of information: Twenty-four hens and five cocks werereleased in 1947, all with alu-minum leg bands. Only tenbirds were killed in 1947, thelowest number since 1933. JayHenderson applied for five hun-dred red pine and white sprucetrees to use as windbreaks. Newstate regulations for shootingpreserves required all birds to beturned loose using the “gentlerelease system”—placing cageswith open doors in the releasearea and allowing the pheasantsto wander out as they chose.17

“Up until he died he kept itgoing,” John Riley said. “Afterthat it just fizzled. He was theonly one from town who reallyworked to keep it going.”18

Roark says that remnants of thecooperative continued until theearly 1960s. “I don’t know whenRiley ceased to be licensed as apreserve, but as best I can tell,my last hunts were in ’61 or’62.”19

Although he moved off the family farm more than a half-century ago, John Riley hasn’t entirely abandoned the com-munity founded by his ancestors. He returns regularly. In theautumn of 2001, a deer hunt in the area provided Riley with alink to the past. On a fence along the boundary of O. Hub’s oldfarm, he found a remnant of the Riley Game Cooperative. Itwas a small, yellow metal sign, about the size of an auto licenseplate that said “Wisconsin Licensed Shooting Preserve.” Oncethose signs were ubiquitous throughout the Riley farm country.“I think people really respected them. They didn’t trespassmuch when they saw those signs,” John said.20

Roark, too, has continued to visit the area, though he rarelyhunts now. “Sometimes I wish I’d ‘kept the faith’ and made aneffort to keep Riley going, if for no other reason than to honorwhat Aldo Leopold and Reuben Paulson had started,” he

said.21 In the late 1980s Roarkattempted a different means ofpreserving Riley, urging theDane County Commissioners toconsider much of the old RileyCooperative farmland for landprotection. His one-man cru-sade met with little initial suc-cess. But in the twenty-firstcentury, it could reap bigrewards, perhaps aided by a giftto the Dane County ParksDepartment to be in the Townof Verona or Riley area.

Jim Mueller, who retired inearly 2002 as a Dane CountyParks Department planner saida variation of Roark’s proposalwas adopted into the county’sparks and open space plan in2001.22 Since then, the Depart-ment of Landscape Architectureat the UW, where Janet Silber-nagel teaches, has partneredwith the Dane County Parks,Natural Heritage Land Trust,and local landowners to studythe landscape ecology and landuse of the Riley area, and to sug-gest conservation strategies thatwill protect the legacy ofLeopold and the Riley GameCooperative. Just as Leopold

used the Riley Cooperative for an outdoor classroom sixtyyears ago, Janet is using it today for her landscape architecturestudents at the University of Wisconsin.

So the legacy survives as far more than some old metal signsrusting in the brush of hidden fences. It is in the fencerowsthemselves, and the brush that has maintained itself throughthe decades. It is in the tall pine groves, like that just to the eastof the former Silbernagel farm. New homes now nestle amongthose stately trees. The cooperative’s legacy is also in thedescendants of those pheasants planted almost seventy yearsago and all of the other species of wildlife that have foundhomes for generations in the cover Aldo Leopold created.

On a winter’s hike around the Riley area, evidence of thoseanimals is abundant. Tracks in the snow indicate that moderninhabitants include not only pheasants but wild turkeys, mice,

R. J. Paulson with white spruce planted in Riley area, believedto be in 1936. In most letters and documents regarding Riley,Leopold referred to his friend as “R. J. Paulson,” but in a few

letters and one article, he is listed as “Reuben Paulson.”



S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 45

1Aldo Leopold, “History of the Riley Game Cooperative, 1931-1939,” in For the Health ofthe Land: Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings (Washington, D.C.: IslandPress, 1999), 176. Originally published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, 1940.2Riley Game Cooperative records, Aldo Leopold Archives, University of Wisconsin,Department of Wildlife Ecology.3Telephone interview with John Riley, December 2001.4Telephone interview with Gene Roark, January 2002.5Gene Roark, “The Riley Game Co-op,” Dane County Conservation League newsletter, Jan-uary 1987.6John Riley interview.7Roark, “The Riley Game Co-op.”8Quotations from Aldo Leopold, “Helping Ourselves: Being the Adventures of a Farmer anda Sportsman Who Produced Their Own Shooting Ground,” For the Health of the Land, 33-40. Originally published in Field & Stream, 1934.9Telephone interview with Shirley Zwolanek, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,July 2002.10Letter from Aldo Leopold to Mr. Paul Kelleter, whose title is given only as “Director ofConservation, Madison, Wisconsin.” The letter is dated September 20, 1932, and in itLeopold amends the boundaries of the Riley Shooting Preserve. Riley Game Cooperativerecords, Aldo Leopold Archives, University of Wisconsin.11Leopold, “Helping Ourselves,” 39, 35.12Riley Game Cooperative records.13 Leopold, “History of the Riley Game Cooperative,” 181–82.14Ibid.15Visit to Riley area with Warren Exo, December 2001.16John Riley interview.17Riley Game Cooperative records.18John Riley interview.19Roark, “The Riley Game Co-op.”20John Riley interview.21Roark, “The Riley Game Co-op.”22Telephone interview with Jim Mueller, January 2002.23Leopold, “History of the Riley Game Cooperative, 180.24Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1949).

rabbits, and coyotes. Ducks and geese still thrivearound the creek and in the marsh. The tracks marksome changes, not only from Leopold’s day, but alsofrom when the authors grew up. Then, wild turkeyswere unheard of. Red foxes were common, but coy-otes were a rarity. Now coyotes are becoming thedominant predators.

But perhaps more than anything, the Riley Coop-erative remains a living monument to Leopold’s beliefthat conservationists can work with local landownersto preserve and restore the natural world. The RileyCooperative, he wrote, “aims to prove that the down-ward trend of wildlife in the dairy belt can be reversedby the combined efforts of farmers and sportsmen,without large expenditures either of cash or land.”23 Itis a pragmatic, let’s-get-down-to-work statement ofLeopold’s ideas for the Riley Cooperative. But thoseideas did not stray from his basic principles of peopleand land, as expressed in his foreword to A SandCounty Almanac: “We abuse land because we regardit as a commodity belonging to us. When we see landas a community to which we belong, we may begin touse it with love and respect.”24

Releasing a trapped pheasant after banding.UW Department of Wildlife Ecology

The AuthorsJanet Silbernagel is a member of thefaculty of Landscape Architecture and theGaylord Nelson Institute for Environmen-tal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches a regional designand conservation studio, along withresearch methods and geographic infor-mation systems. Janet studies the ecologyof cultural landscapes. Her work generally

has direct applications to conservation or ecological design.Currently she has a public design project underway in Middle-ton to reveal nature in an urban setting and is designing an exhi-bition about cultivation along Wisconsin’s Lake Superior region.

Bob Silbernagel and his wife, Judy,abandoned their home state of Wisconsinfor the mountains of Colorado thirty yearsago but return annually to visit the MountHoreb and Madison areas. After studyingjournalism at the University of Wisconsin,Bob began his journalism career in Vail,Colorado. He has been the editorial pageeditor for The Daily Sentinel in Grand

Junction, Colorado, for the past eight years. He is the author ofStalking the Dinosaur Hunters of Western Colorado, publishedby the Museum of Western Colorado and several historicalmagazine articles.

Uncovering the Story of

Fort Blue

The Wisconsin Heights battleground, just fifteenmiles north of Blue Mounds, was the site of Black

Hawk’s final military success.


In the spring of 1832 a terrifying series of alarmsspread like prairie fire throughout the lead miningregion of northwestern Illinois and present-daysouthwestern Wisconsin. A large force of Native

Americans, led by the Sauk warrior Black Hawk, washeaded in that direction with the intent of attacking anddriving out settlers. Word of impending danger hadalready reached the tiny mining settlement of BlueMounds, in what is now Dane County, Wisconsin, andwork on a log fort was well underway. The settlers—min-ers and farmers—feared not only Black Hawk but a gen-eral uprising of the neighboringHo-Chunk people. Tensionbetween the settlers andNative Americans hadbeen building for sometime in the region, andduring those springmonths lead minerHenry Dodge headeda newly formed militiaregiment of the Michi-gan Territory, whosemembers served underthe general commandof federal militaryauthorities.1 Thosewho personally wit-nessed Black Hawk’smovement through the Michigan Territory would recountthe days of fearful tension, in both spoken and writtenword, throughout their lives. Their descriptions of thatspring of 1832 would provide the documents that twenti-eth-century students would rely upon to learn about fron-tier life in Wisconsin.

But not all stories are told in words. By the act of con-structing and living in the fort for many months, the resi-dents of Blue Mounds left an additional record of theirlives in the very dirt upon which the fort rested, and by theobjects of work and play that they used every day. Thisrecord was unearthed, literally, more than 150 years laterby both professional and volunteer archaeologists. Theircombined curiosity and efforts would result in a broader,more accurate understanding of life in a frontier commu-nity, and the opportunity for future exploration. No mat-

By Robert A. BirminghamMounds

Ebenezer Brigham, founder ofBlue Mounds and “squire” to the

small mining community.



S U M M E R 2 0 0 348

ter how the story is told, however, it begins with “the BlueMounds.”

“A Beacon to the Traveler, Thirty Miles Distant”There are many physical descriptions of “the Blue Mounds,”

the densely wooded twin hills whose peaks are visible from thir-ty miles away. These descriptions appear in official documentsfrom the early years of the territory, including the lyricalprose of Henry Schoolcraft, who toured the leadregion the year before Black Hawk’s uprising:

The highest elevations, the Platte

Mounds and the Blue Mound, are cov-

ered with soil and with trees. Numer-

ous brooks of limpid water traverse

the plains, and find their way

either into the Wisconsin, Rock

River, or the Mississippi. . . .

The surface soil is a rich black

alluvion; it yields abundant

crops of corn. . . . I have never

. . . seen a richer soil, or more

stately fields of corn and oats,

than upon one of the plateaux

of the Blue Mound.

Such is the country which

appears to be richer in ores of

lead than any other mineral

district in the world.2

By 1831 several individu-als had invested some years inBlue Mounds, and the best-known is Ebenezer Brigham,who founded the communityin 1828 on the south slope ofthe east mound.3 By 1832 thecommunity of Blue Moundsincluded his mine, frontierinn, and mercantile establishment. All were located near a largespring and just off a major Indian trail that would later becomepart of Wisconsin’s first highway, the Military Road. The Ho-Chunk maintained a camp nearby and with them Brigham trad-ed merchandise for pelts.

The small Blue Mounds community consisted of single menand several families, many employed by Brigham. One family,that of William Aubrey, Brigham’s hired hand, lived with theunmarried Brigham, taking care of his house. Another frontier

family was that of Essau Johnson, a lead mine operator whoowned land, including a farm and a lead smelter next toBrigham’s place. Johnson’s written recollections of the BlackHawk War, penned when he was in his eighties, clearly exagger-ate many things, including his role at the fort. His memories, andthose of many others, are the basis for much of the history writ-ten about Wisconsin’s frontier life.

From Mines to MilitiaUpon hearing that Black Hawk and his1,200 followers had crossed the Mississippi

River in early April, settlers throughoutthe lead-mining region hastily con-

structed forts, stockades, andstrongholds to protect them fromanticipated Indian attacks. Com-panies of several hundredmounted militia or rangers,under the command of HenryDodge, began to ride the oldIndian trails to guard the set-tlements and forts. Mountedcouriers or “expresses” trans-mitted information betweenforts and the military, prima-rily regarding the move-ments of Black Hawk’s band.

Construction beganabout May 10, and just dayslater, an incident occurredthat may have caused thefort builders to acceleratetheir pace: an attack by BlackHawk, to the south, on mem-bers of the Illinois militia, ina place near a Rock Riverlanding called Stillman’sRun. The settlers at BlueMounds had no idea that the

“attack” was Black Hawk’s attempt to broker peace with militiamembers, whose panic at being confronted led to several deaths,both white and Indian. But the militia’s response was under-standable, by settlers and government officials who perceivedBlack Hawk’s return as an invasion. Indeed, some scholars havespeculated that although Black Hawk’s move was to reclaim hisvillage, he may have hoped to spark a general uprising. The Illi-nois and Iowa-Michigan militia, as well as federal troops, wereordered to return Black Hawk to the west side of the Mississippi

Black Hawk, after his capture and release, was transformedfrom a menacing figure of fear to a sympathetic symbol of a

vanishing, and thus no longer threatening, culture.


S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 49


River “dead or alive.” Under these circumstances, it is no won-der that on May 14 the Illinois Militia rebuffed Black Hawk’s bidfor communication and skirmished with members of his band onMay 14. Fear of immediate attack from the area Ho-Chunk mayhave played some role in motivating the completion of Fort BlueMounds in just two weeks’ time. Several dozen frightened set-tlers—men, women, and children—from the surrounding coun-tryside moved to the fort.

The names of the people who moved into the fort vary withthe documents that list them. Not surprisingly, few narrativesmention women by name, although their presence there wasmentioned. And the children who lived there often went name-

less in the narratives as well. One of the longest lists of male res-idents is in the narrative written by H. A. Tenney in the Wiscon-sin Historical Collections. He lists twenty men, several of whomplayed prominent roles in 1832, but many of them simply soughtout the protection of the fort. Their names include McCraney,Kellogg, Lycan, Ferrall, Bower, Keith, Houghton, Collins, andBroch.4

Eyewitness and later historical accounts described a fairlylarge log fort. Edward Beouchard, a fur trader and miner, pub-lished his description of the fort in William Smith’s 1854 Historyof Wisconsin, stating that the 16- to 17-foot high log stockadewas 150 feet in length with two corner blockhouses, 20 feetsquare.5 He wrote that within the stockade stood a log barracksand a storehouse that was 20 by 30 feet in size. In his remem-brances, Essau Johnson also described a rather large structureencompassing a half-acre with two large, two-storied blockhous-es, measuring 26 by 30 feet.6 Johnson added that he, his wifeSally, and a newborn infant child moved into one blockhouse,while Brigham took the other blockhouse along with some of hisworkers.

A construction pattern identical to Fort Blue Mounds was foundduring excavation of the Apple River Fort, another Black HawkWar fort built by settlers near present-day Elizabeth, Illinois. It

has been reconstructed, and visitors are welcome.

Pat Goitein

Bottom, left: A U.S. Army button from a soldier’s uniform providesproof of a military presence at Blue Mounds. Photo, left: Archaeol-ogists found both the honey-colored French gunflint, at left, anda broken lead gunflint patch, at right. Researchers also foundlead patches similar to the Fort Blue Mounds specimen during

excavations at the site of a federal garrison, Fort Crawfordin Prairie du Chien.Photos by Joel Heiman

Brigham brought his accountbook listing orders and goodssupplied to the settlers of the BlueMounds area as part of his mer-cantile business. On the back ofbook, Brigham kept a brief diaryof the dramatic events that tookplace at the fort.7 Elsewhere inthe book he provided informationabout where to contact his next ofkin.

Henry Dodge, as the leader ofthe Michigan Territory Militia,came to Blue Mounds to empha-size the fort’s strategic impor-tance. As the closest fortificationof any kind to Black Hawk’s trail,it would serve as a depot for pro-visions for the troops, and its pro-tection was critical. The men ofBlue Mounds formed a companyof the Iowa (County) regiment ofthe Michigan Territorial Militiaon May 20, and Dodge himselfbegan to drill them. They alsoelected their first companyleader, Captain John Sherman.8

Among the miners, there wereno small arms and only a fewrifles and shotguns. The companypetitioned Dodge for guns, andaccording to Johnson, Dodgesent the men to Galena, Illinois,where they came away with just ablunderbuss and a six-pounder.Indeed, quartermaster accountsfrom Fort Defiance south of Mineral Point indicate that a swivelgun, which is a small mobile canon that can be mounted onstockade wall or ship’s deck, was signed out to Fort BlueMounds. The same record shows that a dozen or so U.S. mus-kets and accoutrements had been distributed to Fort Jackson inMineral Point for use by the mounted militia assigned to FortBlue Mounds,9 but mounted militia spent little time at the fortitself since their job was to patrol the area, so few of these armsactually came to the fort. Repeated requests to Dodge for armsand provisions for the fort went unheeded, prompting EbenezerBrigham to write in his diary for June 23 that Dodge “appears tobear mali[ce] against [us] for no cause.”10 According to Johnson,

he and Brigham eventually had to go to the federal stronghold,Fort Winnebago, located in present-day Portage, forty milesfrom Blue Mounds, where they secured a wagonload of usedmuskets that required repairs.

Fort Blue Mound’s strategic position made it the focus offrantic activity. Uncertain of the intentions of the Ho-Chunkbands in the district and fearing that they might side with BlackHawk, a council was held at Blue Mounds on May 28 with theprincipal chiefs of the Wisconsin River area.11 Two days earliera similar council had been held with other Ho-Chunk leaders atLake Mendota. Those Ho-Chunk who attended the councilsassured the Americans of their peaceful intentions. Around the

LakeKoshkonong

Rock River

Sugar River

Pecatonica

River

Kic

kapo

oR

iver

LakeGeneva

Mississippi River

Four Lakes

Wisconsin River

I L L I N O I S

Mis

siss

ippi

Riv

er

Ft. Koshkonong

Galena

Dubuque

Wiota(Ft. Hamilton)

Rock Island(Ft. Armstrong)

Saukenuk

Dixon’s Ferry

Wisconsin Heights

Bad Axe

Madison

Stillman'sRun

25 miles

25 kilometers0

0

Wabekieshiek(Prophet’s Village)

U N O R G A N I Z E DT E R R I T O R Y

M I C H I G A N T E R R I T O R Y

BattleBlack Hawk’sroute, 1832State / Territorialboundary, 1832

Prairie du Chien(Ft. Crawford)

Portage(Ft. Winnebago)

Mineral Point(Ft. Jackson)

Blue Mounds(Ft. Blue Mounds)

( )Dodgeville(Ft. Union)

area of main map

IOWA

ILLINOIS

WISCONSIN

Ft. BlueMounds

Ft. Blue Mounds & the Black Hawk War, 1832


Black Hawk’s route through Illinois and Wisconsin affectedmany of the new communities. The Sauk leader brought his peo-

ple safely through the lead region of present-day south centralWisconsin, but met with defeat at Bad Axe when trying to cross

the Mississippi River.

Map by Amelia Janes

S U M M E R 2 0 0 350


same time a mounted carrier brought news to the fort of anattack on a settler’s homestead near the Fox River in Illinois.Potawatomi warriors had murdered several people and abduct-ed two teenage girls, Rachael and Silvia Hall, who were turnedover to some Sauk in the war party.12

Edward Beouchard, the fur trader, acted on behalf of the fed-eral government and rode to the Ho-Chunk encampment on theBlue Mounds, northeast of the Brigham residence. There he metwith principal chief Wa-kon-kaw, who in turn went to the chiefsof the Four Lakes area, at present-day Madison. Within a fewdays, Captain Sherman received word from the Ho-Chunk thatthe release of the sisters had been secured, and that they wouldbe released to the Americans. But the Ho-Chunk also passed onfrightening news: Sauk war parties were on the way “to attackthis place.”13

A group of Ho-Chunk, including several principal chiefs,delivered the hostages on June 1 to Fort Blue Mounds, where thewomen took care of the girls, who were haggard but otherwisehealthy.14 Dodge and a company of men came to the fort to takecustody of the girls but, deeply suspicious of the alacrity withwhich the release of the Halls was obtained, took hostage the Ho-Chunk party itself in a misguided attempt to guarantee peacefulbehavior of area Ho-Chunk.15 Although the party was soonreleased after another council, and Indian Agent Henry Gratiot

attempted to appease the enraged chiefs and warriors with hors-es and other gifts, the friction between the Ho-Chunk and Amer-icans exploded into violence a few days later. On June 6 WilliamAubrey and Jefferson Smith, another of Brigham’s workers, leftthe fort on horseback to get fresh water from the spring next tothe Brigham establishment. There they were surprised by a smallparty of Native Americans who shot and killed Aubrey. Pan-icked, Smith dropped his gun, left his horse, and ran to the fort,blood flowing from his nose from fright and exertion.16

The settlers of Fort Blue Mounds surmised that the attackerswere not Black Hawk’s warriors, but those of the band of the Ho-Chunk encamped nearby on the Blue Mounds. Black Hawk wasforty miles away, near Lake Kegonsa. One statement made by amilitia member at the time of the incident said that the attackwas precipitated by a Ho-Chunk man who had a verbal alterca-tion with Aubrey’s wife, during which he threatened to kill herhusband.17 Indeed, Ho-Chunk leaders confirmed, after the war’send, that one of their own had killed Aubrey and that several had“raised the hatchet” against the Americans.18

After Aubrey’s death, riders from the fort, led by a mountedcompany sent by Dodge, followed a trail to the recently aban-doned Ho-Chunk camp and then to the Wisconsin River, wherethe search was suspended. According to Johnson, Aubrey wasburied on a high piece of prairie northeast of the fort, “where it

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 51

The abduction of Rachel and Silvia Hall filled the lead regionwith terror, but Potawatomi, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk people, all

playing different roles, brought the girls to the safety of Fort BlueMounds, with the assistance of Edward Beouchard.

WHS Archives Name File

S U M M E R 2 0 0 352


would be a nice place for a bury-ing ground.”19 Anxiety increasedat the fort through June asreports were received of otherattacks and small but bloody bat-tles in the lead mining district.20

Then on June 20, a large Saukwar party struck close by, killingtwo men on patrol, EmersonGreen and George Force. Thetwo had ridden out to investigatestrange noises heard the previousnight. Several miles east of thefort, the riders encountered BlackHawk’s warriors, who had appar-ently been guided to BlueMounds by sympathetic Ho-Chunk.21 Force was killedinstantly, but Green made for thefort. Within view of the fort’sinhabitants, Green had his horseshot out from under him, and hewas quickly surrounded.

Several eyewitness accountsindicate that Green’s body hadbeen horribly mutilated. Theremains were buried at the fort.22

Force’s body, however, lay onthe prairie for four days, the set-tlers too frightened by the natureof Green’s death to travel anydistance to retrieve it. An entrydated June 23 in Brigham’s briefdiary of events concluded, “oursituation is a delicate one. . . . Iexpect an attack from the Indi-ans. We cannot stand a siege.”Dodge and his rangers discov-ered the remains of GeorgeForce, also mutilated, and buriedhim on June 24 alongside themain trail about two miles east ofBlue Mounds. Dodge left menfor a time to provide security forthe fort.23

Although Brigham expected a direct attack upon the fort, theonly violence was upon those who left its safety. No longer a tar-get, Fort Blue Mounds functioned primarily as a supply center

for the military. In mid-July, thir-ty-six wagonloads of supplies,gathered from depots at MineralPoint and Dixon’s Ferry in Illi-nois, were assembled at the fort.They were to be sent east in reliefto Atkinson’s troops as they pur-sued and ultimately destroyedBlack Hawk’s band and then cap-tured the Sauk leader himself inAugust.24

When the soldiers left in theirfinal pursuit, a welcome calmdescended on the people of thefort as the war passed them by.The Blue Mounds company ofthe Iowa County Michigan mili-tia was mustered out of service ofthe United States by command ofGeneral Atkinson on August 20,1832, and the lead miners andsettlers returned to their homes.Esau Johnson wrote that hereturned to his place to find hisbuildings and lead furnace dis-sembled and burned, presumablyby Native Americans. He and hisfamily returned to the fort to livefor awhile as he rebuilt hishome.25 Brigham stayed in thecommunity that he had founded,watching it grow. New arrivalsrecalled the establishment of apost office at “Squire Brigham’s,”his many cows and “large, excel-lent garden,” and “the farmingand mining hands” who contin-ued to board at his home.26

“Squire” Brigham apparentlywas flourishing, both as a farmerand a lead miner, but JosephShafer in his Domesday Bookdescribes a community that pur-sued neither mining or farming.

“There was mining activity about Blue Mounds, and a few otherpoints, but not enough to interfere with the agricultural utiliza-tion of the land. But the farms were comparatively undeveloped,only 2 having as much as 100 acres improved.”

WHS Archives Wis Mss AM

Ebenezer Brigham’s account book documents the everydaylife of the “Fort Establishment.”

Although in shards, the ceramics found at Blue Mounds stillhave a tale to tell. The common blue and white colors and

familiar patterns were a mark of civility on the frontier. Thedetail shows the word, “warranted,” a sign of authenticity.

Photo by Joel Heiman

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 53


No account clearly describes the use of the fort after thespring of 1832. It was apparently dismantled, its timber likelyused to fuel the lead furnaces. The fort and the role that it playedin the Black Hawk War, was not forgotten completely, however.In 1910 the heirs of Ebenezer Brigham donated a quarter acre ofland from the original fort site to the Wisconsin Historical Soci-ety, which dedicated a bronze commemorative plaque at the siteduring a well-attended public ceremony.

At the time of the marker dedication, the swales and depres-sions marking the site of Fort Blue Mounds were still visible,allowing the installation of four cement pillars to distinguish theproperty from surrounding farmland. But time passed, and plowseventually obliterated these markings, knocking down thecement pillars that gave some indication where the original fortwalls might be. In the 1990s all that could be seen of Fort BlueMounds was a small, disintegrating cement marker with abronze plaque in a middle of farm field.

The New VolunteersIn the spring of 1991, one hundred and fifty-nine years after

the volunteer militia left Fort Blue Mounds, another large groupof volunteers converged on the site, this time to locate and docu-ment the remains of the fort. Worried that development in therapidly growing rural area might damage the remains of FortBlue Mounds, the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Office of the

State Archaeologist (OSA) initiated a project to define the sitearea and eventually to preserve it. Taking advantage of greatpublic interest in archaeology and Wisconsin history in general,the OSA enlisted help from the Charles E. Brown Archaeologi-cal Society, a large group of nonprofessionals. Many others alsodonated their time and skills, including Boy Scout troop mem-bers completing archaeology merit badge requirements. Between1991 and 2000, more than fifty different volunteers worked onsummer weekends, and, though slower than a typical archaeo-logical investigation, the project successfully accommodated vol-unteer schedules, demands of additional training and oversight,and the inevitable impact of Wisconsin summer weather.

Above: Dedication at Fort Blue Mounds. The plaque dedicated onthat September day in 1910 was the first historic marker erected bythe Society, and the ceremony as well as the plaque itself reflectedthe efforts of an energetic landmarks committee and a new era of

public outreach pioneered by director Rueben Gold Thwaites.Right: The historical marker at the site of

Fort Blue Mounds


Robert Birmingham

S P R I N G 2 0 0 354

Personal motivations differed. Most were drawn to the proj-ect by the excitement associated with unearthing important his-torical artifacts. One individual, however, sought a personalconnection to history. Howard Houghton is a direct descendantof William Houghton, one of the Brigham’s “hands.” Howardprovided much information about his great-great-grandfather,including that William Houghton was a blacksmith. Howardspent many hours alongside his wife screening for artifacts thathis relative might actually have used or made.

Finding the FortThe first task was to determine the exact location of the prop-

erty donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1910. On itwould be the remains of the fort. The historic marker was still onthis land, but was it near the actual fort site? The deed to theproperty had no reference to location. Volunteer Terry Genske,a civil engineer, reasoned that the bases of the broken cementpillars that once marked the Society land could be found in theground using a metal detector because they had iron reinforcingrods. Genske, who often has to search for property markers as apart of his job, then quickly located the bases of the markers,reestablishing the quarter acre of Society land.

The next—and much greater—task was to locate the buriedremains of the fort on the small parcel of land. Historicalaccounts indicated that the size of the fort was much larger than

a quarter acre, so—if true—the land on which the fort rested hadto extend onto surrounding farm fields. Three strategies wereused to search for the fort’s boundaries. First, with the coopera-tion of the landowner, the surface of surrounding farm lands wassystemically searched for artifacts that would mark locations offort activities and structures. The survey included the use of ametal detector and the excavation of small test trenches in aneffort to bisect the walls of the fort. Second, the Society propertywas gridded off into five-foot squares, and a selection of theseunits were carefully excavated by using shovels, trowels, screens,and other archaeological tools. Last, once preliminary informa-tion had been gathered, local contractors rapidly removed thetop ten inches of soil in selected areas that had already been dis-turbed by plowing to further uncover the remains of structures.Archaeologists use this last method judiciously since it necessari-ly leads to the loss or destruction of potentially important artifactsin the plowed topsoil. More sophisticated remote sensing tech-nology was employed but with limited success, due to the geolo-gy and soil characteristics of the hill.

The land outside the Society’s quarter acre yielded few relatedartifacts but excavators quickly uncovered straight dark soil dis-coloration on the Society property that was several feet deep andone foot wide, indicating a filled-in trench that once supportedthe vertical logs forming the stockade or outer wall of the fort. Inseveral places, the rounded ends of the individual oak logs were


Preliminary sketch of Fort Blue Mounds.

Drawing by Mark Heinrichs basedon a drawing by Mike Thorson

S P R I N G 2 0 0 3 55

still there. Approximately five feet beyond the stockade, anotherdeep and wider dark stain was found to parallel the wall, a filled-in defensive ditch that encircled the fort. Tracking the orientationof the stockade line and defensive ditch led to a huge surprise:Fort Blue Mounds was much smaller than the historical record,even eyewitness accounts, led us to believe. In fact it was entirelycontained within the Society’s quarter acre. The deed to theproperty refers only to a “block house,” a term often used for boththe fort as a whole and the main building. Volunteer researchersdiscovered that the stockade—that is, the outer wall—was rectan-gular, measuring 55 feet by 45 feet.

It was built of individual oak logs placed vertically in a “wall-trench” one foot wide and approximately two feet deep. The sur-rounding defensive ditch ranged from four to seven feet wide andfour feet deep. Gaps in the southeast and northwest corners of thestockade represented the presence of the two blockhouses. In thelimited excavation, archaeologists found no structural evidence ofthe blockhouses, although a large, shallow dark stain found run-ning perpendicular to the southeast corner of the fort may be the

dirt floor of one structure. The lack of a wall trench in the twocorners of the fort suggests that blockhouses, unlike the stockadewalls, were built using horizontal log construction, like log cabins.The size of the blockhouses at Blue Mounds could not be deter-mined by the limited excavations but the gaps in the stockadecould have accommodated the fairly large structures described inthe historical accounts. Although no specific size for the dwellingsin the fort can be determined, only two walled areas for twenty ormore people, including children, reinforces the belief that theclose quarters of the fort, during times of both terror and anxiouswaiting, must have been a challenge.

Unearthing the PastSeveral thousand artifacts were recovered, deposited during

both the four-month occupation and after the lead minersreturned to their normal lives. A major category of artifacts arerelated to military activities, and several hundred lead musketballs and shot pellets of various sizes were recovered primarilyfrom the interior of the fort. Although many of the musket balls


An archaeologist models correct technique for these children,while the State Archaeologist (and writer of this article) looks on.The students were there to pose for the cover of WHS Press book,

Digging and Discovery: Wisconsin Archaeology.

Bobbie Malone

S P R I N G 2 0 0 356


and shot may have been standard military issue, the fort’s inhab-itants also cast ammunition in molds for themselves with leadtaken from the adjacent mine. Some of the most common objectsfound in the fort interior were small chunks of melted lead, theby-products from the casting. Several fragments of castings withlead shot attached, called “sprue,” as well as unprocessed leadcubes were unearthed.

Other gun-related objects found were gunflints and one halfof a broken lead gunflint patch. They were most likely left by thefederal soldiers, rather than the local militia because most of theflints at Fort Blue Mounds were the honey-colored French flintsthat the U.S. military preferred and purchased in quantity. Civil-ians tended to use black, British-made flints. But the broken leadgunflint patch? It would be a logical assumption that, because itwas made of lead, it was a local product, but that logic wouldprove faulty. Only the military commonly used the mass-pro-duced lead patches because soldiers were likely to have to firetheir guns continuously. Leather patches were much more com-mon on the frontier, when gunshots were more occasional andthere was little risk of burning through them. The presence ofthese two types of military artifacts confirms the presence of U.S.

Army issued weapons as Johnson said, and U.S. armyregulars as documented after the Battle of WisconsinHeights. The button from U.S. army soldier’s uni-

form, though not a gun-related object, further indicates a mili-tary presence at the site at some point.

Domestic activities at the fort site are represented by hun-dreds of broken pieces of ceramic tableware and a smaller num-ber of bone-handled knives and forks and metal spoons.Although only fragments, the ceramic shards are easily recog-nized as English imports colorfully decorated by a variety ofmethods referred to as transfer print, edge-decorated, annular,and hand-painted. Those found at Fort Blue Mounds thus fardiffer from other sites in that the range of styles is narrower. Thismay reflect lower economic status of the Blue Mounds commu-nity, its remoteness from distribution centers, or most likely, thatlife at the fort was perceived as temporary and immediate, andnot all available items were brought there.

Analysis of ceramics also confirms that the site was used afterthe Black Hawk war. Makers’ marks on two nearly completedishes discovered in the fill of the defensive ditch indicate thatthey were manufactured in the late 1840s. Ironically, one of thedishes was a commemorative plate for another American con-flict, the Texas Revolution of 1836. The discovery does not indi-cate that the structure continued to be used as a fort, but rather

Above: Three pieces of lead found at the Fort BlueMounds site show the progress from mines to militia. The block at left is raw lead; a musket ball or bullet islower left; and the piece at the right is sprue, the waste

product from the processing. Left: Local animals offeredmore than food for physical sustenance. The dominoshown here is carved from animal bone, and it and

clay marbles found at the site allowed the settlers someamusement while living in close conditions.

Photos by Joel Heiman

that it continued to exist in the com-munity of Blue Mounds.

Animal bone found during theexcavations, combined with the his-torical record, shows that the settlerssubsisted on a narrow range ofdomesticated and wild foods. Thesettlers ate pork and venison withminor amounts of beef and poultry.Oats, corn, and garden crops wereplanted, although, like hunting,these activities were disrupted by thewar. Brigham’s account books indi-cate that potatoes, flour, and supple-mentary store-bought goods such assugar, salt, coffee, and tea were important to the people of BlueMounds.27 During the war, lack of food must have been problemsince letters to Dodge included desperate pleas not only for guns,but also for provisions. Other artifacts found at the fort siteincluded numerous fragments of white clay pipes, wine andwhiskey bottles, nails (mostly from boxes), tools, clothing buttons,and one coin—an 1838 American half penny found in the defen-sive ditch. Each provides an insight into the history of the fort.The date of the half penny found at the bottom of a filled-indefensive ditch, helps date the filling of the trench by returnedminers.

The discovery of each artifact excited the volunteer workersat the site, but a few artifacts in particular helped researchers tounderstand the humanity behind the artifacts. A hand-carvedbone domino piece and several clay marbles reflected gamesplayed, perhaps to wile away the hours in the crowded and tensefort compound. These artifacts are a reminder of the humanitythat belongs to history. In successfully connecting the two, thisarchaeological project met its most basic goal.

But there were other goals as well. The Wisconsin HistoricalSociety archaeological investigations sampled only a small partof the Fort Blue Mounds site, acquiring enough information toanswer some basic questions about the physical layout and con-dition of the fort. The archaeological information combined withhistorical research provide a clearer window to the past thanwhat documentary evidence alone could provide. With thisinformation, the site was listed on the National Register of His-toric Places in 2002.

Other goals are still unmet. Remains of most of the fort siteare still hidden and preserved below the surface of the hill onSociety property, awaiting future archaeological and historicalresearch. Perhaps one day, the fort can be accurately recon-structed, bringing to life a tumultuous and important period of

Wisconsin history. Future researchmay also relocate the graves of Lt.Emerson Green, Pvt. WilliamAubrey, and Pvt. George Force sothat they can be appropriatelymarked as resting places of some ofthe first American military casual-ties of what is now Wisconsin.

S P R I N G 2 0 0 3 57

1 Alice E. Smith. The History of Wisconsin: Vol. 1From Exploration to Statehood (Madison, WI: StateHistorical Society of Wisconsin, 1973). Some of theminers were working and living on lands that the Ho-Chunk still claimed.2 Joseph Shafer, The Wisconsin Domesday Book(Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society 1932) 39. 3 Allen Ruff and Tracy Will, Forward! A History ofDane: the Capital County (Cambridge, WI: Wood-henge Press, 2000) 37–38.4 H. A. Tenney, “Early Times in Wisconsin,” in Col-

lections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society.) 1:98. 5 Edward Beouchard, “Beouchard’s Narrative,” in The History of Wisconsin in Three Parts, His-torical, Documentary, and Descriptive, Part II, ed. William Smith (Madison, WI: 1854) 209–214. 6 Essau Johnson Papers, 1800–1882, Wisconsin Historical Society. Johnson’s reminiscences areembellished and confused with regard to regard chronology of events and therefore must beregarded critically.7 Ebenezer Brigham Diary, Ebenezer Brigham Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society. 8 Muster Role of Captain Sherman’s Company of Iowa Militia Stationed at Blue Mounds Fort,Wisconsin Historical Society.9 George M. Crawford and Robert Crawford, eds., Memoirs of Iowa County (Northwestern His-torical Association, 1913) 2510 Brigham Diary; Ellen M. Whitney, ed. The Black Hawk War:1831–1832 (Springfield: IllinoisState Historical Society, 1970–1978, two vols.)11 Blue Mounds Council, May 28, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol. 2, part 1,467–469.12 “Beouchard’s Narrative,” 213.13 John Sherman to Henry Dodge, May 30, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol. 2, part1, 487–488.14 “John Messersmith’s Narrative,” in The History of Wisconsin in Three Parts, Historical, Doc-umentary, and Descriptive, Part II, ed. William Smith (Madison, WI: 1854) 225; “Beouchard’sNarrative,” 214.15 Henry Gratiot to Henry Atkinson, June 6, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol. 2, part1, 531–532; Henry Gratiot to William Clark, June 12, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War,vol. 2, part 1, 577-579; Henry Gratiot Diary, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol. 2, part 2,1303.16 Ebenezer Brigham to John H. Kinzie, June 15, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol.2, part 1, 604–606; “Beouchard’s Narrative,” 209; Essau Johnson Papers.17 James M. Stode to Henry Atkinson, June 10, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol. 2,part 1, 566–569.18 Council with the Rock River Winnebago, September 11, 1832, in Whitney, The Black HawkWar, vol. 2, part 2, 1133.19 Essau Johnson Papers.20 On June 14 four men were killed at Spafford’s Farm near Hamilton’s diggings at modern dayWiota. On June 16 a man was killed and scalped during a battle on the Pecatonica River.21 “Beouchard’s Narrative,” 211–212; Brigham Diary; Essau Johnson Papers.22 “Beouchard’s Narrative,” 212.23 Henry Dodge to Henry Atkinson, June 30, 1832, in Whitney, The Black Hawk War, vol 2, part2, 715.24 Thayer, Crawford, ed., Hunting a Shadow: The Search for Black Hawk (privately published,1981) 203.25 Essau Johnson Papers.26 Tenney, “Early Times in Wisconsin,” 6:347. 27 Accountant Books, Essau Johnson Papers.


The site of Fort Blue Mounds is not presently open to the public. However, off-site interpretation, museum exhibits, and a major archaeological publication areplanned. Moreover, visitors can stop at a historic marker in the village of BlueMounds, within view of the fort site, commemorating the fort and the BlackHawk War. Elsewhere, travelers can follow the Black Hawk trail in Wisconsinby visiting thirty-five historic markers associated with the Black Hawk Warrecently erected by local historical organizations in cooperation with the Wis-consin Historical Society.

For Further Study

The Author

Robert Birmingham joined theWisconsin Historical Society in 1986and has been the Wisconsin StateArchaeologist since 1989. He earnedboth bachelor’s and master’sdegrees in Anthropology from theUniversity of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.He is senior editor of the special vol-

ume of The Wisconsin Archeologist called WisconsinArcheology and the senior author of the new book IndianMounds of Wisconsin published by the University of Wis-consin Press. In 2000 he received the Increase LaphamResearch Medal from the Wisconsin ArcheologicalSociety.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 358

E D I T O R S ’ C H O I C EBooks Events Multimedia Exhibits Resources Locations

✒

ohn C. Hudson’sAcross This Land isthe first book pub-

lished since at least the 1970sto cover the regional, physi-

cal, cultural, and economic geography of the entire UnitedStates and Canada. Hudson, an accomplished historical geogra-pher, harkens back to the ideographic tradition that character-ized academic geography through the mid-twentieth centurywith a text that provides both a highly informative synthesis andenjoyable reading throughout.

The book consists of twenty-seven chapters, each covering adistinctive sub-region of the ten major regions of the UnitedStates and Canada. These chapters pay little attention to state ornational boundaries; regions are defined instead by physiogra-phy, climate, and land use. To describe each sub-region, Hud-son deftly weaves a tapestry combining strands of physicallandscape, geology and geomorphology, climate, settlement pat-terns, soils, economic livelihood, and historical events. Theresult is that each chapter can stand on its own, yet the readercannot resist continuing on to the next. Maps, landscape pho-tographs, and carefully selected references flesh out the narra-tive descriptions in each regional vignette. And yes, there is evena chapter on Hawaii.

The regional geography of Wisconsin is described in twochapters. The first, which discusses the lower Great Lakesregion, addresses several significant industries, including a largeportion of the manufacturing belt, the traditional iron and steelindustry, and much of the nation’s automobile industry, as wellas the core of the nation’s dairy industry. Hudson succinctlydescribes how each industry has shaped the economic and cul-tural geography of the region and identifies recent changesbrought on by global competition and free trade agreements.The ethnic heritage of European settlement is briefly described,as are the Niagara escarpment, the Driftless Area, and the majormetropolitan regions (besides Chicago, which is included in the

Across This Land: ARegional Geographyof the United Statesand CanadaBY JOHN C. HUDSON

The Johns Hopkins University Press,Baltimore, MD, 2002. Pp. xxi, 474.Index, notes, bibliography, illustra-tions, maps. ISBN 0-8018-6567-0,$29.95, softcover.

J

chapter on the Corn Belt) of the lower Great Lakes.The second discussion of Wisconsin appears eight chapters

later in the chapter on the upper Great Lakes region. In justeleven pages, Hudson places its early settlement history in thecontext of the physical environment, addresses the “cutover”region, and the geographical character of the Canadian Shield’sextension into Wisconsin, upper Michigan, and Minnesota.

Across This Land whets the appetite for more extensive read-ing, map study, and travels. The delicious historical details areinterspersed with sweeping generalizations that capture theessence of each region and sub-region. Unfortunately, while thereferences following each chapter are instructive, a more exten-sive bibliographic essay was not included. Moreover, some ofthe illustrations, while interesting in their own right, fail toenhance the narrative prose. But these are quibbling concerns,minor blemishes that do not mar Hudson’s impressive accom-plishment.

So why should someone interested in Wisconsin history readthis book? First, Wisconsin’s history and geography do not existin a vacuum, and Hudson places the state and its people andindustries in broad regional context. Second, Hudson covers theentire United States and Canada in a single, affordable book offewer than 500 pages. Third and most important, it’s such goodreading and such a valuable resource that Across This Land isan essential book in the personal library of any well-read Amer-ican or Canadian.

RUSSELL S. KIRBY

University of Alabama at Birmingham

T O O U R R E A D E R S

Are there books, events, or resources about Wisconsinthat you think we should know about?

We’d like to hear from you.Write to Reviews Editor,

Wisconsin Magazine of HistoryWisconsin Historical Society

816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706-1482or e-mail [email protected]

Most books featured in Editors’ Choice may be purchasedor ordered from the Wisconsin Historical Museum store:(608) 264-6428 or www.wisconsinhistory.org/shop. They mayalso be acquired from most major bookstores or on-line retail-ers. Books from smaller presses should be ordered directlyfrom the book’s publisher, whose address may be found onthe Internet or by contacting us at the above address.

It is hard to imagine thenorthwoods landscape ofWisconsin, Michigan, and

Minnesota as something otherthan long stretches of forest speckled with lakes, rivers, smalltowns, and fishing resorts. However, to grow trees in an area stilloccasionally called the “cutover,” required conscious planningand place-making. The cutover—an area of forty-five countiesacross three states that share several natural and cultural charac-teristics—earned its name for its appearance in the early twentiethcentury after decades of ruthless logging. In Planning a Wilder-ness, James Kates, who holds a Ph.D. in journalism from the Uni-versity of Wisconsin and is currently an editor at the MilwaukeeJournal Sentinel, traces the roots of today’s northwoods. Hedemonstrates how foresters, land economists, and planners lookedat a landscape scarred by social and economic stagnation, failedagriculture, and a crisis in tax delinquency and envisioned avibrant new economy based on scientific forestry and recreation-al tourism.

Kates explores this vision for cutover regeneration by examin-ing the lives, careers, and ideas of a handful of men active in con-servation in the 1920s. For example, Richard T. Ely and P. S.Lovejoy sought to end the failed agricultural experiments in thecutover. Both men advocated a more rational, scientific approachto land use—one informed by the emerging disciplines of regionalplanning and land economics—that would identify the most pro-

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 59

Planning aWilderness:Regenerating theGreat Lakes CutoverRegionBY JAMES KATES

University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, 2001. Pp. xix, 207. Index,notes, illustrations.ISBN 0-8166-3579-X, $29.95,hardcover.


Barn Again!

B arnstorm Wisconsin is an initiative of theWisconsin Humanities Council that isbringing the Smithsonian traveling exhib-

it “Barn Again! Celebrating an American Icon” toWisconsin. The exhibition also features a specialexhibit on Wisconsin’s barns and agricultural his-tory. The tour runs through November 1, 2003 and

will visit Kewaunee, Farm Technology Day inWaupaca County, Osceola, and Washburn thissummer and fall. For details on the many Barn-storm Wisconsin events scheduled, the tour dates,and to find out more about “The Year of the Barn”in Wisconsin, visit the Wisconsin HumanitiesCouncil website at: http://wisconsinhumanities.org

Celebrating an American Icon - 2003 Wisconsin Tour

ductive use for any plot of land. The cutover, they determined,was far better suited to growing trees than crops. The problem formen like Ely and Lovejoy, the author explains, lay in convincingthe general public of this conclusion. Residents of the cutoverresisted collective planning and forest regeneration, valuinginstead a pioneer lifestyle that favored individual action and con-ceived of farming as the highest form of land use. Kates empha-sizes the surprising role that writers played in changing publicopinion. For example, he suggests that the novels of James OliverCurwood and Harold Titus, two writers and conservationists whoset many of their stories in the cutover, sold to residents of thenorthwoods the vision of the northern Great Lakes as a plannedforest. Here, Kates explores the process of place-making, illustrat-ing how the cutover became a place with not only forests, but alsomyths and stories about those forests.

However, the extent to which these conservationists convincedthe cutover’s residents of the need for reforestation remainsunclear. For most of the book, Kates remains in the realm of ideas.He traces the evolution of rural zoning laws and shows how theplace-making of storytellers and writers supported these ideas. ButKates fails to make a crucial connection; he does not show howideas translated into on-the-ground changes in the cutover. With-out this connection, there is no way to gauge the impact of theideas that he analyzes. (Of course, the cutover is forested today.)Nor does Kates consider the social costs of the planners’ vision forthe cutover by exploring, for example, how forest regenerationaffected the people who lived in the region.

Nevertheless, Kates has an important story to tell, and he tellsit well. He writes with strong, clear prose, and deftly introduces thereader to both the theories and the personalities of his subjects.Planning a Wilderness reminds us that the modern landscape ofthe Great Lakes cutover is the product of conscious planning, andthat a planned “wilderness” holds many lessons about Americaninteractions with nature.

JAMES FELDMAN

University of Wisconsin-Madison

T his is the story of PaulZimmer’s journey from

his boyhood in Canton, Ohio,and his days as a soldierduring atomic tests in theNevada desert. His clear,poignant prose takes usthrough his many years as awriter and publisher and

finally to the rural tranquility of his present life on a farm in thehills of the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin. Above all,the book is a consideration of the ways that nature providesmeaning and solace, and of the importance of finding the rightplace in which to live.

University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, 2002. Pp. xvii, 229.ISBN 0-8166-4019-X, $21.95,hardcover.

After the Fire: AWriter Finds HisPlace

BY PAUL ZIMMER

S U M M E R 2 0 0 360

Wisconsin Travel Companion: A Guide toHistory along Wisconsin’s Highways

BY RICHARD OLSENIUS

AND JUDY ZERBY

University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2001. Pp. 336. Index, bibliog-raphy, illustrations, maps. ISBN 0-8166-36780-8, $19.95, softcover.

This reprint tells the stories behind the road signs and pro-vides the history of towns along the most well-traveled high-

ways of Wisconsin. It not only recounts why towns were formedand how they were named, but it also offers local anecdotes, his-torical accounts, and personal glimpses of Wisconsin’s culture.The volume is enlivened by maps, illustrations, and historical pho-tographs.

Ghost Towns of the Forest: VanishedLumber Towns of Wisconsin, Vol. 1BY RANDALL E. ROHE

Forest History Association of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Rapids, WI, 2002. Pp. 333.Index, notes, illustrations, appendices, maps. ISBN 193180327-7, $42.50,hardcover.

Have you ever heard of Shanagolden, Wisconsin? Or Morse,Marsh Rapids, or Knox Mills? These are the names of some

of the ghost towns that dot the Wisconsin landscape, towns aban-doned as their timber disappeared and their sawmills shut down.Rohe provides a brief history of fifteen ghost towns, complete withhistoric photographs of the abandoned places and the people wholived in them.

B O O K A N N O U N C E M E N T S

In 1970 Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin helped to galva-nize the environmental movement by founding the nation’s first

Earth Day. In this book Nelson offers his thoughts on the state oftoday’s environmental movement. He discusses current environ-mental concerns like population growth and global climatechange and suggests a strategy for reprioritizing environmentalissues on the national agenda.

R ichard P. Thiel provides a first-hand account of the return ofthe timber wolf to Wisconsin. Thiel made a career out of

tracking and protecting the animals that he calls the “phantom ofthe forest,” eventually holding the post of wolf biologist for theWisconsin Department of Natural Resources. In this book heshares his personal and professional stories from his interactionswith Wisconsin’s expanding wolf population.

Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise

BY GAYLORD NELSON WITH SUSAN CAMPBELL AND PAUL

WOZNIAK, WITH A FOREWORD BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2002. Pp. xx, 201. Illustrations, notes,maps, index. ISBN 0-299-18040-9, $26.95, hardcover.

Keepers of the Wolves: The Early Years ofWolf Recovery in Wisconsin

BY RICHARD P. THIEL

University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2001. Pp. xiii, 227. Index, notes,illustrations, maps. ISBN 0-299-17474-3, $19.95, softcover.

Lighthouses of theGreat Lakes: YourGuide to theRegion’s HistoricLighthouses

TEXT BY TODD R. BERGER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL

E. DEMPSTER

Voyageur Press, Stillwater, MN,2002. Pp. 160. Index, bibliography,125 color and b/w photographs.ISBN 0-89658-517-4, $29.95,hardcover.

L ighthouses of the Great Lakes takes readers on a historicaltour of the 312 lighthouses of Minnesota, Michigan, Wis-

consin, New York, Ontario, and to a lesser degree Pennsylvania,Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Berger’s lively stories about lighthousekeepers and their families, horrific storms, and even encounterswith ghosts are complemented by outstanding color photographsof lighthouses, interiors, and lenses.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 61


Letters from Our ReadersEditors’ note: The Winter 2002-2003 issue featured the arti-cle, “Judge James Duane Doty and Wisconsin’s First Court”by Patrick Jung. The article generated two thoughtfulresponses, which the editors shared with Jung. Those lettersand Jung’s response follow.

I loved your publication of Patrick Jung’s article on JudgeDoty in the recent issue, especially learning more detail

about the trial of Oshkosh. I do have to share a correctionwith you, however, in the detail of the judge’s case against“country marriages.” Of course he was referring to “commonlaw” marriages, where the French married natives by theircustoms, not American legal custom. Jung stated that Ebenez-er Childs was one of the men “indicted for the crime” on page38, when, in fact, Childs was on the jury in this case. Childs,in his “Recollections,” Wisconsin Historical Collections Vol.4, p. 166–167, stated that he was the first plaintiff in a GreenBay trial under Robert Irwin, but in the common law mar-riage case, he was nearly prejudiced against because he wasalso a witness to so many of these defendant couples. He wasallowed to remain on the jury. His comment, which Jungaccurately quoted, was probably in reference to Doty givingout the fines over the jury’s recommendation, though Childsdidn’t state it that way exactly, so I can see how misleading thestatement was. I interpreted Childs’s statement to mean thathe was probably on the side of the common law marriages,and though Doty was harsh, they had to submit.

When I saw Jung’s interpretation of Childs’s statement, Iwent back to Childs’s own words and reread it, and I am con-vinced he was on the jury and not “indicted for the crime.” Iapologize to Mr. Jung my need to point this out. I’m sure hisarticle is overall accurate, but as Mr. Childs is a strong focusof the book I’m writing, I need to set the record straight.

Thank you for providing a great local history read.MONETTE BEBOW-REINHARD, via e-mail, Abrams, Wisconsin

Iappreciate the scholarship of Patrick Jung as he portraysthe court and life of James Duane Doty. History however,

can be viewed from varying vantage points. The imageviewed by the spirits of my ancestors from their Métisgravesite in Bay Settlement reveals Doty’s nether side.

A disreputable manipulator and minion of Governor Cass,Doty was not exactly a romantic figure in Wisconsin history.Cass vowed to “eliminate Gallic sloth” and extinguish theproperty rights of inhabitant Native American and Métis.

Doty, like Cass, was primarily interested in speculating in theproperty of others; whatever endeavor would fill his ownpockets intrigued him.

In his defense, the “honorable” judge was among peers ashe engaged in a number of corrupt schemes. John JacobAstor, a master puppeteer and fur magnate, used both men todo his bidding and swell his coffers. Those most affected, therightful inhabitants including my Native American and Métisancestral grandparents had suffered significantly by the timeDoty was named Judge. The military presence was establishedin Wisconsin to intimidate the Native Americans and Métis.Injustices were only exacerbated. Doty clashed with the mili-tary as well, but for very different, sometimes self-centeredreasons.

The Yankee interlopers to which Doty belonged foundthemselves cringing at the sight of peaceable, self-governingpeople with impeccable manners and ability to speak severallanguages. The communal ways of my ancestors, their dressincluding deerskin and feathers, and the ability of the group tomove about the cultures of two societies uneased the alreadytight skin of the intruders. Of course Doty and cronies wereconcerned that Native American title would hold or theywould not be swindled and the ability to rape the land andplunder the resources would be impaired.

Doty was among those who foraged politically and helpeddevelop the seedier side of government that has managed toendure. These men posing in positions of power did accom-plish some admirable things while living a life of dreaming andscheming and we build monuments to their memory. Butsomehow I think my ancestors would not have applauded theman for his “contributions” to their race or justice. It may wellbe that Doty should be admired for his sheer tenacity andbrash resolve. Among the affable, cheerful, compliant Métiscommunity his attributes must have been liabilities.

Indeed many of the Métis inhabitants discussed moving toCanada following the U.S. incursion into Wisconsin. Most ofmy kinfolk quietly vanished into their tribal connections andwere further persecuted by our government. My ancestralgrandfather appeared before Doty in the infamous fornicationtrial of those 28 men for the misdeed of native marriage oftheir Native/French selves to their Native American wives. Inmy grandparents’ case, François and WaBeNesMaWaQuahad already lived together for many years, had several chil-dren and were part of a successful, well-established communi-ty. In 1821, François was formally denied the right to vote

S U M M E R 2 0 0 362


according to Territorial papers and in 1824, François wasindicted for fornication. François and WaBeNesMaWaQua,“unlawfully, scandalously, publicly and notoriously did liveand cohabit together,” according to court documents. Tothese ancestral grandparents I am eternally grateful. To Dotywho eventually extracted five dollars and court costs fromFrançois for his crime of fornication and eventually attempt-ed to use François’ name in a profitscheme, I wink in the jovial mannerof my fore bearers.

LINDA JOHNSON, via e-mail,Kohler, Wisconsin

Patrick Jung responds:

Iwant to thank Ms. Bebow-Rein-hard for bringing to my attention

a factual error in my article. Afterreading her letter, I rechecked thecourt records concerning the 1824session of the Additional Court ofMichigan Territory, and, much tomy embarrassment, I found thatEbenezer Childs did not appearbefore the court to be tried for thecrime of fornication as I state onpage 38 of my article. Moreover, Ialso checked the available case filesto see if the prosecuting attorneyhad drafted an indictment againstChilds during the 1824 court ses-sion, but I did not find any suchdocument. This presents historianswith something of a puzzle sinceChilds’s published reminiscences involume 4 of the Collections of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin indicate that he was at least indicted for this crime.Ms. Bebow-Reinhard has done an impressive amount ofresearch on Childs, and she offers some convincing argu-ments for why Childs made the comments he did. Regardlessof why he made these comments, she is correct in stating thatChilds did not appear before the court in 1824 nor at anyother time for the crime of fornication. Again, I thank her forpointing this out.

Ms. Johnson’s letter presents a different kind of historicalproblem. When I first read her letter, I assumed that she wascritical of how I presented Doty in my article, but subsequentreadings disabused me of that idea. I believe that the purposeof Ms. Johnson’s letter is to communicate that Doty was not

the hero that he is often portrayed as in less critical worksconcerning Wisconsin history. My own article was not anattempt to lionize James D. Doty. A long time ago, I learnedthat the writing of history does not and should not have as itspurpose the creation of heroes and villains. The writing of his-tory is an academic exercise that must be characterized bycritical use of sources, disciplined methodologies, and, most

significantly, objectivity. Was JamesD. Doty the great statesman whoserved as a federal judge, a territori-al governor, and who establishedthe city of Madison, or was he agreedy, conniving, manipulativeYankee who preyed upon the nativeand Métis residents of early Wis-consin? He was undoubtedly a littlebit of both, but these profiles arecaricatures, and neither one can beconsidered an objective historicalportrait of the actual man. Ms.Johnson is correct when she statesthat “History. . . can be viewedfrom varying vantage points,” how-ever, as every good historian knows,every vantage point has to be tem-pered with objectivity.

In my own article, I sought toillustrate the impact of the Addition-al Court upon the residents of earlyWisconsin. Moreover, for all ofDoty’s faults, the records of theAdditional Court clearly and consis-tently demonstrate that he hadsought to treat Indian and Métis

persons fairly. His papers also show that, for his time, he hadvery progressive ideas concerning Indian people. While wewould label his ideas racist today, in the context of the 1820s,Doty possessed surprisingly tolerant ideas concerning nativesocieties. It is this aspect of Doty that caught my eye as an his-torian, and it was this aspect of Doty that I wanted to examine.I sought, as I always do when I write history, to be objectiveand dispassionate in my analysis. I will let the readers of theWisconsin Magazine of History judge whether or not I havesucceeded in this objective.

As a final note, Ms. Johnson and the readers of the Wis-consin Magazine of History should understand that the customof country marriage (or “la façon du pays”) was not a com-pletely benign system. Ms. Johnson notes that her ancestors

Doty’s image receives attention.Wisconsin Supreme Court

S U M M E R 2 0 0 3 63


William Best Hesseltine Nominations

had lived together for many years and had had several childrenwhen Doty fined François for engaging in “fornication.” It isundoubtedly true that many of the men charged with this crimelived in stable, long-term marriages. However, in the long run,the eventual decline of the custom of country marriage was apositive turn of events for Indian and Métiswomen. Because country marriages couldbe easily dissolved, it was not unusual forwomen to be abandoned by their husbandsand thrown into destitution and poverty.The establishment of Anglo-American lawunder the Additional Court put an end tothis by making divorce extremely difficultand the abandonment of wives and childrena crime. Thus, from the vantage point ofIndian and Métis women, the custom ofcountry marriage was not wholly to theirbenefit, and it often worked directly counter to their interests.And while Doty certainly did not have their interests in mindwhen he criminalized the custom of country marriage in the1820s, his efforts in this regard were certainly a positive devel-opment for Indian and Métis women.

Once again, I want to thank Ms. Bebow-Reinhard and Ms.

What a surprise and pleasure to turn to the inside lastpage of the Winter issue and see Edgar and Jennie

Krueger, my grandmother Lorena GoetschEvans’s cousins. The taped interviews thatMarjorie McClellan had with my grand-mother when she worked with the Kruegercollection of photos preparing Six Genera-tions Here are family treasures, and youcan be sure that every family photo in ourpossession is labeled!

History becomes real when you see yourfamily’s relation to it. When my grand-mother saw the cover of the 1977 edition of

Germans In Wisconsin, she exclaimed, “Why, there’s UncleAugust and Aunt Trina!” History isn’t just other people, it’s us.Thank you, Wisconsin Historical Society, for helping this fam-ily remember.

MARVEEN ALLEN MINISH, Minneapolis, MN

With this summer issue, Volume 86, whose four issue coversappear here, has come to an end. We are once again asking ourmember readers to vote for their choice of best original article. A listof all eligible writers and articles (excerpts and short essays arenot in the running) appear on our Web site,www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh. Look for a special ballot in yourJuly/August issue of Columns or members can vote on the Web,

by emailing [email protected], or by regular mail,addressed to Hesseltine Award, Wisconsin Magazine of History,816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706. Provide the name of thewriter, the article title, and your member number, or your own name.

Voting ends on November 1, 2003. Thank you!The editors

Johnson for their comments, and I want to thank the WisconsinMagazine of History for the opportunity to respond to their letters.

History isn’t just

other people, it’s us.

Thank you, Wisconsin

Historical Society, for

helping this family

remember.

Back Matters

Inspiring History

64S U M M E R 2 0 0 3

In his 1990 article for this magazine, “Landscape andHome: Environmental Traditions in Wisconsin,”William Cronon describes how his early interest incaving led him to a general passion for land and its his-

tory that has defined his life and work as an environmentalhistorian. While caves inspired Cronon to learn to “read thelandscape as a place of many stories,” for others, he says, thecatalyst could just as easily be a passion for “hunting or bird-watching or farming or evenjust owning a piece of land.” Itis the “simple act of declaringan interest,” he explains, that“carries us across a thresholdthat leads outward from our-selves to the world around us.”

Of course, what Crononcalled Wisconsin’s “especiallyrich tradition of people whohave committed themselves tothe land in a passionate andself-reflective way” did notbecome apparent to him untilhe left the state for graduateschool. Unlike his undergradu-ate professors in Madison, whohad integrated environmentalissues and questions across awide range of disciplines, mem-bers of the academic communi-ties he joined later had muchless interest in what some ofthem called “outdoor history.”When Cronon was compli-mented for the original perspec-tive reflected in his study of theenvironmental history of colonial New England, he gave thecredit to his early training: “I was simply writing history as Ihad learned to do back home.”

While Cronon became aware of the uniqueness of Wis-consin’s environmental tradition only after leaving the state,for those of us who arrive as adults, it becomes apparent soonafter we get here. I now feel as if I began breathing in theinfluence of Aldo Leopold upon crossing the state line for thefirst time. Back then I had not yet read Leopold’s Sand Coun-

ty Almanac or any of his essays that appear in the 1999 pub-lication For the Health of the Land. Now that I have, my con-sciousness has been raised regarding what we can learn froma piece of land.

My reading of Leopold coincided with meeting Janet andBob Silbernagel, who seem to have absorbed Leopold’s influ-ence from the land itself. As siblings, they grew up in the1970s on a farm that was once a part of the Riley Game

Cooperative, a shooting pre-serve in Dane County thatLeopold and others founded in1931. Only as adults did theylearn from essays in For theHealth of the Land that thefarm on which they were raisedwas part of a significantLeopold project. By that timeJanet was a teacher of land-scape architecture at the UWin Madison, and Bob was ajournalist with an environmen-tal bent. Perhaps their devo-tion to the land ethic is anexample of “inspiration” in thetruest sense of the word: “theaction, or act, of breathing inor inhaling.” Their story in thisissue traces the history of theRiley Game Cooperative andits impact on their lives.

Conservation, archaeology,limnology, landscape architec-ture, game management, andenvironmental history are notnecessarily poetic sounding

terms, but those who established and practiced these disci-plines in Wisconsin have done so with artistic levels of pas-sion. Leopold, Jens Jensen, Edward A. Birge, Chancey Juday,Arthur Hasler, and Gordon MacQuarrie—who all makeappearances in this issue—have done their part to infuse theWisconsin air with an environmental ethic.

—J. Kent Calder

Fishing on the Sugar River, ca. 1936.


Staying home inWisconsin never was

so good!

If this summer’s

travel plans involve

staying close to

home, consider enjoying

the lively action and

unique activities at the

Society’s many historic

sites. Located through-

out the state, the sites

offer many days’ worth

of enlightenment about

Wisconsin’s past.

Visit our Web site for individual schedules,special events, and locations.

www.wisconsinhistory.org/sites

Pendarvis, WHS Place File

Madeline Island, Steve Cotherman photo

Wade House, Robert Granflaten photo Old World Wisconsin, Joel Heiman photo

Wisconsin Historical Society Press • 816 State Street • Madison, WI • 53706-1482

In 1920 the Wisconsin chapter of the Friends of Our Native Landscape wasformed, and its founder, Jens Jensen, infused the group with his own spiritualbond to nature, garnering members with a strong desire to protect and cele-

brate the land. These program covers are just part of the story told in this issue byWilliam H. Tishler and Erik Ghenoiu.

Friends of Our Native Landscape Archive

summer 2003 issue of the wisconsin magazine of...

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