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HISTORY OF MADISON.
plete reorganization having been effected, a vote of
$500 per annum was subsequently procured from the
legislature to assist in attaining the objects aimed at
by the promoters; and the first annual report for the
year 1854 showed very considerable progress. There
were already more than one thousand volumes in the
library and promises of assistance and cooperation
had been received from numerous societies on this
continent and in Europe, as well as from American
authors whose names are to-day more honorable to
the nation than our material riches. Collections of
autographs, portraits, and life sized pictures had al-
ready been commenced, including mementoes of our
worthiest men, and those lines of effort have been
persevered in with great success to the present time,
until the gallery of the Historical Society has become
singularly complete. With the report for 1854 were
presented many valuable and interesting documents
forming parts of the contemporary and more remote
history of the northwest, in a striking way illus-
trating the importance of the society. One paper was
a translation from the French, setting forth the policy
which the soldiery of that nation should pursue to-
ward the Chippewas and Foxes; another an English
record of tihe days when the British forces had taken
possession of Green Bay and other frontier posts,
soon after the reduction of Canada by the English,
and a very interesting appendix consisted of Jas. W.
Biddle's recollections of Green Bay in 1816-17, about
the time that this country really passed under Amer.
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