Box 3, Folder 5: Typewritten Letters, 1848

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Wisconsin.

Lecture delivered in the Unitarian church, Milwaukee, Feb. 4, 1848 Before the Milwaukee High School and Citizens.

By I. A. Lapham

Ladies And Gentlemen--

I cannot promise you a very interesting lecture this evening; the dry details of facts, however important, they may be, does not admit of that embellishment and grace or literary composition and those charms of eloquent delivery, which are usually expected of public speakers.. besides I must necessarily dwell upon facts that are more or less familiar to many of you. I must therefore beg your patient indulgence if I should appear tedious and uninteresting.

It is a reproach often cast upon Americans when traveling abroad that, while they are studying other countries, they are in a great degree ignorant of their own. Many of our citizens make the " tour of Europe" who have not seen the splenders of Niagara or witnessed our own majestic "Father of Rivers." When questioned by strangers respecting their own country, they sometimes manifest an ignorance that must appear very surprising; and which must be rather mortifying to the pride of the" tourist."

Let us, citizens of Wisconsin, not be guilty of this

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and yet how few of us have climbed either of these mountains. The scenery along the Mississippi river in our territory is not surpassed by that along the famed Hudson; and yet how few of us have laid our eyes on these beauties. We need not go as far as the Mississippi to get into the wild and romantic scenery. Along the upper Wisconsin and from that to the Mississippi the country is much broken by hills and valleys; the hills assuming many fantastic shapes, imitative of animated nature; at least, with a little assistance of the imagination, they are so considered. The traveler sees at a distance an immense image of buffalo, perhaps, reposing upon the ground; at an another point of view it resembles some other animals; and upon a nearer approach all these forms appear to vanish, and only a rugged steep hill, of great height stands before him.

The place called the Dells on the Wisconsin river, a few miles above the Portage at Fort Winnebago, is described as a remarkable place which was once evidently a great cataract. If we could imagine the Falls of Niagara, that have now cut their way for seven miles through solid rock, to have worked its way back so far as to drain Lake Erie and thus allow the river to run through a continuous gorge with a rapid current but without a cataract, we could form some idea of these Dells. The sides are of solid rock almost perpendicular, exhibiting the regular strata or layers and thus affording the geologists, as at Niagara, one of the best opportunities of studying the structure of the earth. The story about this gorge being so narrow as enable a person to jump across it, appears to be without foundation.

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inconsistency. When any of us return to our former homes at the east or make more extended tours, let us be able to exhibit to our enquiring friends, the country of our adoption in its true and proper light. We should be ever ready and able to show our friends and others, what Wisconsin is, is geographically, physically, morally and politically; we should be ever ready and able to exhibit an account of the abundant resources, of nearly every kind, with which a bounti ful providence has graciously supplied her. We should be able to impart information respecting the rivers, mountains, prairies, forests, lead mines, copper mines and iron mountains; her mammoth caves and other wonders of nature with which she abounds.

To be able to do all this we have only to open our eyes and observe the things by which we are surrounded. we must not glide down the stream of the time completely absorbed in the business and cares of life, but must occasionally break off from them and take a peep at the country.

A trip across Wisconsin to the Mississippi river, and up that noble stream to the Falls of St. Anthony would do any of us more good than harm. If we should here take an Indian bark canoe and cross over to Lake Superior it would be all the better. The slight interruption of our business affairs would be more than compensated by the knowledge we should acquire of the country; to say nothing of the beneficial effects in re-animating our minds and spirits and in the improvement of our bodily health and vigor.

There is no natural scenery in the world more beautiful than may be seen from the tops of the Blue Mound, the Platte Mound, and th "montagne que dans a l'eau," on Lake Pepin,

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If we are more gratified with milder scenery; with the simple beauty rather than the wild grandeur of nature, we have plenty of this kind of scenery also. Who has seen the beautiful valley of the Rock river about Janesville or Beloit; or the valley of the Pishtaka in Racine county, with the placid stream winding through it, with the most graceful meanderings, embosoming many islands of various sizes, ornamented by the overhanging branches of the willow and other trees, without the most enlivening and almost overwhelming sense of the loveliness of nature? again those bright silvery lakes, set like rich gems among the rounded or gently sloping hills, adorned by clumps of trees and shrubbery, afford many charming scenes of great beauty; that will be much visited in after times by persons of taste enough to enjoy the beauties of nature.

Our "Oak Openings" as they are called, afford [afford?] much scenery of extreme beauty. Thousands of dollars have been expended in European countries to adorn and beautify the estates of the noble and wealthy classes, without producing anything more than a slight approximation towards the beauty and loveliness of our oak openings. It has been said that if the buildings, the castales and the enclosing walls and hedges were removed from the parks of the English nobles, they would resemble our wild woods and scenery. Perhaps there may be a resemblance but who would not prefer ours, so pure, so rich, so fresh from the hands of the Creator, to this artificial imitation.

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Again, the broad level prairies and the high rolling prairies, with their islands, capes and promontories of woodland are not without their charms. It is true, one soon grows tired of their sameness; but Wisconsin is not so abundantly supplied with this kind of scenery as to become wearisome to the traveler. The prairies should be visited [visited] at different seasons of the year to enable us to appreciate all their beauties. Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the rich green carpet spread over them in early spring, bespangled with the bright hues of the vernal flowers. There again in the autumn the whole scene is colored with the golden yellow of the flowers peculiar to that "crowning season of the year."

Shall we of Wisconsin remain ignorant of facts like these so interesting in themselves and so full of instruction and gratification to us? Rather let us turn our attention to the things around us, learn to profit by them and then be able to gratify our friends by imparting to them a portion of the gratification we have received.

I have spoken of the beauty of the prairies, but it must not be forgotten that although they are beautiful and highly attractive at first sight, they are not, after all, exactly the places for the new settler to fix upon for his future home, unless indeed he can find, what is rarely to be found, a tract of land half covered with timbered and half prairie. Upon the first settlement of the country, much search was made for such farms and a few were so fortunate as to find them. But in general it was ascertained that the line of separation between the prairies and the timber was rather an indefinite one. Nature here as in most other