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To the Honorabel Legislature of the State of Wisconsin:

Your petitioners have learned that an effort is making to procure an ammendment to the
Charter, authorising Thomas P. Williams and others, to build a Bridge across the Milwaukee
River, (the amendment is to allow the City to vote on the question - bridge or no bridge,) if
this is true, your petitioners would ask that the amendment be so worded that the vote shall
be taken on the question, shall all the bridges be taken down or all stand?

Now our city is so situated that the crossing the river is actually necessary in passing from
the country to the business part of the city. Twelve years have built up our city, and also
built four bridges. The first bridge was built when the town was small, about three miles
from the mouth of the river, and since this bridge (the red bridge,) was built, three others
have been built below, as the business of the town has crowded down the river, and now there
are four bridges in about one and one-forth miles, and the business has now gone down so far
that about 1000 petitioners have asked your honorable body to pass a law authorising and ad-
ditional bridge to be built by Thos. P. Williams. Your honorable body have granted the
prayer of the petitioners, and now is it just or fair that this law should be submitted to a vote
of the city, without putting in all the bridges? Put hem all in and it will show whether they
are wanted or not; and if four are wanted, why should not one thousand men, interested, be
allowed to build the fifth? Now this bridge is to be built at the expense of one or more
individuals, and can there be any injustice in allowing the bridge to be built? The Legisla-
ture have passed similar laws for each bridge, and why not do the same for us? Bridges
advance the value of property in each neighborhood, and why not allow us the same privileges
that you have granted to others? Or are we to be forbid improving our property by bridging
the river, while others are allowed that privilege? The clamor about this bridge is confined
to a few that have been benefited by bridges, and are now unwilling that others should enjoy
this, (ought to be) a common privilege.

MILWAUKEE, March 9, 1849

L.C. Reed
Allen Johnson
C.A. Pember
F.J. Martin
WH Perry
CA Rheese
Daniel Hait
H.A. Burts
Joseph KP Porter
Giles A Wait
James Douglas
Martin Carrell
M.L. Root
A.P. Jones
WB Robeson
Wm Naround
CN Vosburgh
MA Perrigo
Alex Roney
John McCormick
L.H. Law
Joseph H Arnold
Darius H Orton
R.P. [illegible]
James Muellen
John Browning
Peter Summay
Garrett Schuck
DR Lawton
J.P. Sheldon