Simeon Mills. 
525 
be built, and found there the thirty-seven first comers,— the 
pioneers who had arrived on the morning of that day from 
Milwaukee, having been eleven days on the way. 
He worked on the first house there built, was employed in the 
first store, was the first deputy post-master, and the first mail- 
contractor. He was a footpost to and from Milwaukee, crossing 
rivers by ferries but oftener by fording. The mail-matter was 
never cumbersome. 
He was an original member of the Board of Regents of the 
State University — and their treasurer for half a dozen years. 
During his service in this capacity the University largely paid 
its running expenses by buying city lots and selling them. At 
one time its acreage amounted to a square mile or about double 
its present extent. But before 1856 this area had shrunk to 
about fifty acres. 
The State Historical Society, from its start in 1849, had the 
favor and assistance of Mr. Mills. He may be called a ^re- 
charter member of it. From 1854 he was one of its curators 
and from 1878 till his death a vice-president. In early years 
he offered to give an eligible site for a building that would show 
and safeguard its collections. This present the Society was 
then too weak to stretch out its hands for receiving. Knowl¬ 
edge that a fire-proof edifice would make it sure that the his¬ 
toric treasures shall not perish from among men, was a solace 
to him in the chronic languishing of his last illness. 
Our associate outlived all save one or two of the forty first 
founders of Madison. The sabbath of his years was spent in 
full view of the spot where he had stepped ashore into the 
forest from the Indian canoe, and in the midst of the cit) T which 
was more to him than ail the world beside. 
Had Mr. Mills been taught chemistry he would have done 
something to extend the area of that science. He was an original 
thinker in many lines, and printed his views not only in news¬ 
papers but in several little books which he published. 
Mr. Mills early became a member of the Academy. He fur¬ 
thered its researches by excavations in aboriginal mounds, and 
read papers on various themes at its meetings. 
James D. Butler. 
Madison , Wis. 
