Anita et al.-- many thanks for the thanks. And I like your e-mail address <gohlpost@netw.com>, which seems especially suitable now that the football season is in full swing. Chicago's BEARS and Wisconsin's PACKERS face each other again today-- but I'd best state no personal preferences on the outcome of today's chapter in this ancient rivalry. I'm also quite certain that New York City and Madison, WI, were fully linked by railroads by 1856. And it may have almost as simple for a railroad passenger to travel between these two points in 1856 as it was a century later. What became the MILWAUKEE ROAD was completed from Milwaukee to Madison in 1854, and then Milwaukee and Chicago were finally linked on May 19, 1855, by a railroad line that was soon absorbed by the NORTHWESTERN RR. Also, it's seems likely that a more direct Chicago-Madison route had already been completed by 1856-- that is, the main line of the NorthWestern, which linked Chicago, Woodstock (IL), Janesville (WI), and Madison. It seems clear that the Midwest's impressive canal building activity of the 1830s and 1840s (in OH, IN and IL) was matched and then surpassed by the Midwest's amazing railroad construction activity in the 1850s. This activity was only partly matched in the southern states and pretty much forecast the outcome of the Civil War. ........John (in Chicago) ________________________________________________________ << Subj: Re: mid 19th century migration to WI Date: 12/9/01 12:41:15 AM Central Standard Time From: gohlpost@netw.com (Anita Gohl) To: JQMagie@aol.com Thank you for this wonderful article! After reading the first post about the subject migration to WI, I began to wonder how my ggrandfather traveled from NY City to Madison, WI. I really have no idea, but your tale is one way that it could have happened. He arrived in Madison in 1856 after "wandering around the country for a time." Thanks again, Anita Fish GOHL in northern Idaho >> ________________________________________________________