Box 4, Folder 3: Typewritten Letters 1866-1870

1099

Chapter [XVI?] 1866

-1260- 1866.

Milwaukee, Jan. 1866.

Co. Sam'l Stone,

Dear Sir--

You have doubtless received an invitation to attend a meeting to be held at Madison Wednesday evening, Jan'y 24, on the occasion of the opening of our new rooms in the capitol building assigned to the State Historical Society...The R. Road Co. will pass you and upon reporting yourself at the rooms of the society suitable quarters will be provided for you.

It is desirable to establish amicable arrangements between the two societies (Chicago and Wisconsin) for the exchange of duplicates = I therefore hope you will be present to represent your society.

Mary will accompany me to Madison.

Yours truly,

I.A. Lapham.

1100

-1261- 1866.

Jan'y 24th, 1866.

Ladies and Gentlemen,--

On behalf of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, I thank you for the interest, sympathy, and good will for their affairs, you manifest by your presence here on this occasion.

So far as I know or have been able to ascertain, we are indebted to Eleazur Root, our first Superintendent of Public Instruction, under the then newly organized State Government, for the first efficient movement for the establishment of a society for the purpose of collecting and preserving the facts and details of our history, past and passing.

It was he "who was most actively interested in calling the meeting that was held in the Senate Chamber of this capital, on the evening of the 30th of Jan'y 1849. He was, with a very proper propriety, called upon to preside over the deliberations of that meeting, General Wm R. Smith, our venerable and true friend acted as Secretary.

Mr. H.C. Hobart offered a resolution which was unanimously adopted, declaring that it was expedient to found such an institution in our state. George Reed, John T. Smith and I.A. Lapham were a committee to draft a constitution, which was soon reported and also [also?] adopted.

Thirty three gentlemen present manifested their earnestness in the work by becoming members, his excellency, Nelson Dewey, then Governor of the State consented to become the first president and the Rev. Charles Lord of Madison was appointed to the office of Recording Secretary.

Gen. Smith was requested to deliver the first annual address, which duty he performed a year afterwards with great credit

1101

-1262- 1866.

to himself and benefit to the infant society--giving an epitome of our early history and laying down a chart for the future guidance of the society in the prosecution of their voyage of usefulness, then just commenced.

Such was the origin of the society, an important epoch, in whose history, we are assembled here this evening to celebrate.

For five long years our society remained in the helplessness of "mewling infancy"; only a few collections were made, only a few friends were added to our list and few were the dollars in our treasury.

But our childhood days were numbered, when, on the 21st of February 1854, Governor Barstow approved a law which the legislature, with an enlightened liberality worthy of the great state they represented, had passed appropriating to this society, five hundred dollars per annum, until the legislature shall by law otherwise direct; to be expended in "collecting, embodying arranging and preserving in authentic form a library of books, maps, charts, manuscripts, papers, paintings, statuary and other materials illustrative of the history of Wisconsin; to rescue from oblivion the memory of its early pioneers, to obtain and preserve narratives of their early exploits, perils and hardy adventures; to secure facts and statements relative to the history, genius and progress or decay of our Indian tribes; to exhibit [exhibit?] faithfully the antiquities and the past and present resources of Wisconsin; also to aid in the publication of such of the collections of the Society, as the Society shall from time to time deem of value and interest; and to aid in binding its books, pamphlets, manuscripts and papers.

Here is a formidable array of duties, truly--and all to be performed for the sum of five hundred dollars a year.

1101

-1263 1866.

How faithfully these duties have been performed and with what economy this money has been expended, let our well filled shelves and cases answer!

From the date of this law, we leave our state of helpless infancy and enter upon the second stage of our progress with the buoyancy and hope of youthfulness.

Rapid as has been our progress we have not labored without disheartening difficulties, among the chief of which has been the want of suitable accommodations for the precious articles intrusted to our care. It is needless to describe to any here present the low, damp, poorly-lighted almost subterranean apartments we have occupied in the basement of the church.

We have been compelled to grovel in these dismal rooms, and if all desire to accomplish any useful thing, all ambition for progress, and even if all cheerfulness or spirit were not suppressed, it was certainly not the fault of the apartments in which we have been compelled to "abide our time"!

But all this is now numbered with the past--we today open these magnificent rooms in this splendid new State House; our Infancy and our Youth are passed, and we shall be "Of Age tomorrow!"

I.A. Lapham - President

1102

1263a 1866

Dudley Observatory Feby. 19 - 1866

Dr. I. A. Lapham

Dear Sir=

[Yours?] enclosing records of the thermometer during the "cold [here?] " has been received for which accept- my thanks - barometer curve was also duly received, I have not yet had time to compare your results with my own as I wish to do, by developing in a curve on the same scale. But it appears however, that the maximum was reached at the same absolute time at both stations; showing I suppose that the "wavy" pressure was propogated from N.20 South and not from the N. west. But in the absence of sufficient data these conjectures are of little value.

It is a great pity that we could not have a continuous record of the barometer thermometer or - at - twenty or more stations in the U.S. The study of one such shown as the present- would give us a better insight into the theory of atmospheric phenomena, than years of observations made in the ordinary way.

I have also to thank you for your report on the fall of rain, which is of great value in a financial and commercial point of view, as well as to meteorological science.