Geography 321, Chapter 3: Historical Settlement of Madison

(Madison WI, 1787 / http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps4956.html)

Human begins have lived in the Madison area for nearly 12,000 years. The first settlers of southern Wisconsin arrived from Asia shortly after the retreat of the glaciers on 12,000 years ago. Most of the human lived there were ancestors of today's Native American.

Between 300 and 1,300 AD Native American "mound builders" occupied Madison. Of the thousands of effigy mounds that built at the lakes only a few remain today to remind us of their exists.

After the War of 1812, three permanent military outposts were established by the U.S. military in Wisconsin: Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien (1816), Fort Howard at Green Bay (1816), and Fort Winnebago at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers (1828). Besides offering protection to settlers, these early military posts sponsored much civilian activity. During early 1800s native Americans, the Ho-Chunk Nation lived at this area. They were forced to move west of the Mississippi River after the Black Hawk conflict of 1832.

James Duane Doty, a Wisconsin territorial Judge and land speculator, traveled through Madison's Isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona in May 1829 and then he bought 1,200 acres of swamp and forest land on the isthmus for $1,500 and platted a grid of streets. 

After the Territory of Wisconsin was created in 1836, Doty lobbied the territorial legislature during meeting in Belmont (a small town 50 miles southwest of today's Madison), he lobbying aggressively for Madison as the new capital, and offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and promising choice Madison lots at discount prices to undecided voters.

Doty named the city Madison for James Madison, the fourth President of the U.S. and one of Founding Fathers of the United States who had died on June 28, 1836. Doty named the streets for the other 39 signers of the U.S. Constitution.

Territorial legislature voted on November 28, 1836 set Madison as its capital. The Capitol started to build in April 1837.

When the Village of Madison was incorporated in 1846, the population of village had reached 626. Wisconsin became a state in 1848. Madison became a city in 1856 and boasted a population of 6,864. The first settlers were Whites from the eastern states. They were soon followed by German, Irish and Norwegian immigrants. Italians, Greeks, Jews and African Americans also found a home here after the beginning of 20^th century. Today the population of city of Madison is 233,209.

http://www.historicmadison.org/Madison%27s%20Past/madisonspast.html
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=N:4294963828-4294963805&dsRecordDetails=R:CS308