Pshaw, talk about the time that tried men's soul, just as if a woman had none." That's how Roseline Peck recalled Madison's first Fourth of July.

Shortly after she arrived on the barren isthmus -- seven months pregnant and with no roof over her head -- James Doty told her, "Madam, prepare yourself for company on the Fourth, as a large number from Milwaukee, Mineral Point, Fort Winnebago and Galena (Ill.) have concluded to meet here for the purpose of viewing the place and celebrating the day. Just constitute me your agent, and I will contract for whatever you want."

Doty ordered lumber from the Wisconsin River and dishes, fixtures, provisions, wines, food and bedding from Mineral Point. A herd of Illinois cattle, being driven to Green Bay, serendipitously appeared on July 2, providing meat for the festivities.

On the evening of July 3, the lumber finally arrived and by 1 p.m. the next day, the dining room floor was laid, a table built, and the holiday dinner cooked.

Peck's guests included Doty, his friend Morgan Martin, 36 workmen who had come to build the Capitol, and a large assembly of Ho-Chunk with their chief, Dandy. "In the evening there was a basket of champagne carried into the dining-room," she recalled, "and good feeling, friendship and hilarity prevailed generally."

Peck later claimed "two or three hundred" people attended Madison's first Fourth of July, but other participants said the size of the party grew with decades of telling, like the proverbial fish that got away.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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