378                 WISCONSIN     BLUE BOOK.



                     STATE LIBRARY.


                        Trustees, -Ex.-Officio.
ORSAMUS COLE.                Chief Justice............Supreme Court
WILLIAM{ P. LYON       ..    Associate Justice .......... Supreme Court
HARLOW     S. ORTON ......... Associate Justice.......... Suoreme Court
DAVID TAYLOR          ..     Associate Justice .......... Supreme Court
JOHN B. CASSODAY ....... Associate Justice ......... Supreme Court
ALEXANDER WILSON ...................................Attorney General
                             Libscriana.
                       JOHN R. BERRYMAN.

                             HISTORY.
  The State Library had its or.igin in the generous appropriation of $5,000
out
of the general treasury, by Congress, contained in the seventeenth section
of the organic act creating the Territory of Wisconsin. At the first session
of the Territorial Legislature, held at Belmont in 1836, a joint resolution
was
adopted appointing the Hon. JouN MX CLAYTON, of Delaware (through whose
instrumentality the clause in the organic act making the appropriation was
inserted), Hon. LEwis F. LINN, of Missouri, Hon. G. W. JONES, then dele-
gate in Congress from this Territory (which at that time included what now
constitutes the State of Iowa, as well as Wisconsin) and Ilon. PETER HILL
ENGLE, the speaker of the first Territorial House of Representatives, a com-
mittee to select and purchase a library for the use of the Territory. JAixES
CLARKE, publisher of the Belmont Gazelle, and the first Territorial printer,
was the first Librarian.
  The first appropriation, by the State, to replenish the library, was made
in 1851. The sum of $2,503 was then appropriated for the purchase of law
books. In 1854, the sum of $3,003 was appropriated for law and nmiscella-
neous works; and in 1857, the additional appropriation of $1,003 was made
for the same purpose, together with a standing appropriation of $250 for
such additions to the law and miscellaneous departments of the library as
might from time to time be deemed desirable.
  In 1864, the annual appropriation was increased to $5(0, and in 1F66 the
ad-
ditional sum of $i0O per annutm was place 1 at the disposal of the Governor
for the purpose of supplying deficiencies in the law department of the
library. These appropriations were continued until 1877, when the annual
appropriation was increased to $1,50). In 1876, the Legislature appropriated
the sum of $2,000, nearly all of which was needed to pay indebtedness in-
curred for English law books in the year preceding..
  The purchase ofn miscellaneous works for the library was virtually discon-
tinned in 1816. In 1875, the Legislature directed the transfer of the miscel-
laneous books in the State Library to the State Historical Society.
  Strenuous efforts have been made to complete the various series of re-
ports of judicial decisions, and with good success. The English, Irish,
Scotch and American reports are complete, and the L.brary is rich in mis-
cellaneous law books of vdr:.ous countries.