HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

ary 11, 1823, at a salary of $1,200 per annum; and he thus
became the first judge in the region since made into the states
of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
Judge Doty began an agitation for Wisconsin territory as
early as 1824, by drafting a bill to erect the "territory of Chip-
pewa" west of Lake Michigan to the Missouri river, and had
interested Senator Thomas HI. Benton in the bill. The agita-
tion for the establishment was continued by Doty for a dozen
years until finally successful. In 1827, Doty had changed the
name to "Wiskonsan," in honor of the principal river, and this
name prevailed in the bill introduced in 1834.
As soon as the first legislature was to meet in Belmont in
1836, Judge Doty, who had become convinced that the four lake
region was the proper location for the beautiful capital of a
beautiful state, had purchased lands, and secured power of at-
torney to control other lands, and joined by Governor Mason
of Michigan, who had money, they became proprietors of a
princely domain of 1,000 acres about the lakes. In October,
Judge Doty formed one of a party if surveyors to lay out the
beautiful city of Madison on this property. He brought little
baggage, except a green shawl and a shotgun, lodging at night
with a half blood St. Cyr. In the next few days they had
meandered the lakes and obtained data from which to form the
maps. He then hurried away sixty miles to Belmont, where
the first territorial legislature was already in session, and com-
menced the agitation to make this paper town the future capital
of this great state, and no matter how he did it, he succeeded.
Doty had given the park on which the capitol buildings now
stand. He located and named Madison, and donated the park
on which the capital buildings stand and located them, and
named Dane county in which the city is located.
Judge Doty was superseded after nine years as United States
District Judge, and very soon after, in 1834, was elected by the
people to the Legislative Council of the territory of Michigan,
which met at Detroit, where he served for two years. After
the territory of Wisconsin was organized, he was very soon
elected a delegate to Congress, where he served until Septem-
ber 30, 1841, when he was appointed by President John Tyler
as Governor of the territory of Wisconsin, a position he held for
three years. In his first annual message, December 10, 1841,
Governor Doty declared for and recommended the building of
railroads, then unknown in the state. For many years he agi-

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