Section 6. And be it further enacted, That the clerk of the supreme court of the territory of Wisconsin shall deliver over to the clerks of said district court all records and papers in the office of the clerk of the said supreme court relating to proceedings in bankruptcy under the late bankrupt law of the United States. He shall also certify, under seal, and deliver to said clerk all records of judgments and of proceedings in suits pending, and all papers connected therewith, in cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the Untied States.

Section 7. And be it further enacted, That from and after the fourth day of march, eighteen hundred and forty-nine, and until another census and apportionment shall be made, the state of Wisconsin shall be entitled to three representatives in the Congress of the United States.

"We are here today because Belmont was Wisconsin's first Capital, and we're celebrating 150 years of statehood. This gives us the opportunity to step back from our usual concerns, look around and wonder how legislators operated in 1737, when this was the Territorial Capital, and see if we can find any insight for today from what has gone before. The purpose of celebrations like this is to shake us out of our complacency, to make us question how we do things, and to show us how much we have in common, and how much history we share simply by living our lives in Wisconsin.

First a few words about Belmont. Although Belmont was the first official Territorial Capitol for the Wisconsin Territory, for any whites living here between the time when this area was organized as part of the United States under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the territorial capitol was Marietta, Ohio when this was part of the Northwest Territory, Vincennes, when it was part of the Indiana Territory, Kaskaskia, when it was part of the Illinois Territory, and Detroit, when the Michigan Territory was formed. Carving out new Territories and making them into states was a boom industry in those years -- and one people like you and me might have been engaged in.

A484 When Michigan's Territorial Council could feel statehood approaching, they established a new Council for their western counties, (the ones that wouldn't be included in the state of Michigan), and this new Council met in Green Bay on January 1, 1836. The purpose of this Green Bay meeting was to petition for Territorial status, and the question of where the Capital would be was already an important one -- because the federal government traditionally made a large grant, of land or money, for the establishment of the Capital. The Council meeting in Green Bay asked the United States Congress to name Cassville as Territorial Capitol: it was centrally located for the huge new Territory, which included Iowa, Minnesota and part of North and South Dakota, and was in the heavily populated lead-mining region. Congress ignored the recommendation, (an experience that is not unique to their time or any other), and left it up to the new Governor of the Wisconsin Territory, Henry Dodge, to pick a temporary site, and the Legislature to be elected to pick a permanent home.

Dodge picked Belmont, where John Atchison had already begun offering lots of land for sale -- he made the offers in New York, Washington, Dubuque and Mineral Point. Atchison was also bringing in several public buildings he constructed back East, (probably in Pittsburgh), such as this building, and hoped the Governor's action would determine the new Legislature's choice of a permanent Territorial Capitol -- one which would get the $20,000 in federal money.

What was it like? Brown County legislator Henry Baird wrote home "that he was `agreeably surprised, when emerging from the wood, to see 6 or 8 very pretty framed buildings'" -- not the log cabins that must have made up most homes in the Territory. But legislators were crowded, and they complained about lacking heat and water. Today, they complain about office space, travel allotments, committee assignments and state vehicles.