Wisconsin Historical Collections, Volume XV (1900)

              384 wisconsin historical collections vol xv messrs c c washburne and cyrus woodman were build ing up an important and profitable business and became known as gentlemen of great business capacity and unim peachable integrity washburne built himself a comfortable elegant home and brought his bride to the city she was a sister-in-law of mortimer m jackson and a lady of accom plishments and amiable disposition washburne was a strongly-pronounced whig while woodman was a moderate democrat voting in local elections for whom he thought the best-fitted candidate he never offered himself as a candi date for any office while washburne was once defeated for justice of the peace by an old one-eyed miner named eben polk washburne though highly esteemed was not per sonally popular with the miners and common people wood man was a lover of the fine arts and literature and he and i had many friendly discussions over the respective merits of the works of authors of various nationalities which he regretted being unable to enjoy in their original language having to be satisfied with translations we together read the voyage and discovery of the mississippi by father marquette in french and became quite intimate with that portion of our history the question of petitioning congress to admit wisconsin to statehood was now strongly advocated a constitutional convention was called a constitution framed submitted to a vote of the people and voted down the country for some years past had been flooded with a paper currency called 44 shinplasters wild cats and yellow dogs which were based on " cheek and had no capital to back them they were liable at any moment to be worthless you might go to sleep with 1000 in your possession and wake up in the morning and find your bank bills worthless al though the miners would not touch a dollar of this currency yet it was the circulating medium in every other line of business the people of western wisconsin insisted on in serting into the constitution an article not only prohibiting state banks from issuing paper money but prohibiting and excluding the circulation of any paper money whatever in