History of Vernon County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens.

              HISTORY OP WISCONSIN.
25
WISCONSIN AS A   PART  OP  THE  NORTHWEST  TER¬ RITORY.
The Congress of the United States, by their act of the 6th day of September, 1780, recom¬ mended to the several States in the Union hav¬ ing claims to waste and unappropriated lands in Jjie western country, a liberal cession to the gen¬ eral government of a portion of their respective claims for the common benefit of the Union. The claiming States were Connecticut, New York and Virginia, all under their colonial char¬ ters, and the last mentioned, in addition thereto, by right of conquest of the Illinois country. The region contended for lay to the northwest of the river Ohio. Virginia claimed territory westward to the Mississippi and northward to a somewhat indefinite extent. New York, and especially Connecticut, laid claim to territory stretching away to an unbounded extent west¬ ward, but not so far to the south as Virginia. The last mentioned State, by virtue of conquests largely her own, extended her jurisdiction over the Illinois settlements in 1778, and the year after, and erected into a county enough to in¬ clude all her conquests. But, what is now the State of Wisconsin, she certainly did not exer¬ cise dominion over. The three States finally ceded all their rights to the United States, leav¬ ing the general government absolute owner of the whole country, subject only to the rights, such as they were, of the Indian Nations who dwelt therein.
Under a congressional ordinance, passed in 1785, for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the western territory, the geographer of the United States was directed to commence the survey of them immediately beyond the Ohio river, upon the plan which has ever since been followed by the general government, re¬ sulting in regular latitudinal and longitudinal lines being run, so as to circumscribe every 640 acres of land, not only in Wisconsin but in all the west, wherever these surveys have been brought to completion. Two years subsequent to the passage of the first ordinance, was that of
another and more famous one, providing for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio. This is familiarly known as the ordinance of 1787; and to this day it is a part of the fundamental law of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, the Rve states since formed out of the region included within the limits affected by its provisions;—an act of Con¬ gress, passed in 1789, having adapted it to the constitution of the United States. But neither the treaty with Great Britain of 1783, nor the ordinances of Congress which followed, gave the United States anything more than constructive possession of the whole of its western territory. The mother country, it is true, recognized the northern lakes as the boundary between her possessions and those of the now independent states, but finding an excuse in the fact of some of her merchants not being paid their claims as stipulated by the treaty of 1783, she retained possession of the whole northwest, including what is now Wisconsin, until 1796.
By the ordinance of 1787, the United States in Congress assembled declared that the terri¬ tory northwest of the Ohio, should, for the pur¬ poses of temporary government, be one district, subject, however, to be divided into districts, as future circumstances might, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient. It was ordained, that a governor, secretary and three judges should be appointed for the territory; a general assembly was also provided for; and it was de¬ clared that religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged. It was also ordained that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the terri¬ tory, "otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." But this organic law was of course nugatory over that portion of the territory o( - cupied by the British, and so continued until the latter yielded possession, and in fact, for some time subsequent thereto.