How Madison, Wisconsin Got Its Name (A Capital on Paper)

Madison, Wisconsin, got its name in the fall of 1836 from James Duane Doty, who drew a capital city for President James Madison on land with no city on it. When Doty picked the name, the “city” was a set of survey lines in the woods between two lakes, and he still had to talk a legislature into choosing it.

A green blanket, a shotgun and a compass

The best account comes from the man who did the surveying. J. V. Suydam of Green Bay wrote it down years later in a letter that Daniel Durrie printed in his 1874 history of Madison. On October 2, 1836, he and Doty rode out from Green Bay on horseback, Doty “with his green blanket and shot gun” and Suydam “with my compass and chain.” They planned to camp wherever night caught them and live off whatever Doty’s gun brought down.

After about eight days they reached what was then called Four Lakes. They spent a few days measuring the shores, and Doty stood at a section corner on the strip of land between the lakes and told Suydam not to be surprised if the territorial capital landed right there before the legislature went home. Durrie adds that by his day the corner sat under the western doorway of the capitol’s rotunda, so the spot of Doty’s prediction ended up inside the capitol itself.

Why Madison

You don’t have to guess at the reason, because Suydam’s letter gives it in one line. Doty gave the city its name “in honor of President Madison, whose memory he held in very high esteem.” A railroad officer’s 1908 book of place names along the Chicago & North Western says the same thing more briefly: Madison “was named by Gov. Doty for James Madison, ex-president of the United States.” Henry Gannett’s 1902 survey of American place names for the U.S. Geological Survey doesn’t single out the Wisconsin city, but it explains the many counties and towns across the country called Madison the same way, after the fourth president.

Suydam drew the plat at Belmont, where the legislature was meeting, with Doty giving him “minute directions” on the layout. Suydam certified his survey of “the town of Madison” on October 27, 1836, and Doty signed off on it at Belmont on November 4.

Seven cities and one log hut

A name on a map wasn’t enough. Henry Legler, in his 1898 history of the state, lists more than a dozen towns that wanted to be the capital, from Fond du Lac to Mineral Point, some of them “cities that existed on paper only.” Madison won in the council by 7 votes to 6, and the house of representatives agreed, 16 to 10. Legler adds that “ugly rumors” went around about how it won, and he quotes a contemporary account saying that a number of lawmakers went home “the owners of sundry corner lots in a new town.” That line comes straight from Suydam’s letter, too.

Then the promotion started. In May 1837 a traveler, whom Durrie names as G. W. Featherstonhaugh, rode toward the Four Lakes carrying engraved plans of seven cities, with Madison City as “the metropolis” and North, East, West and South Madison nearby. If you’d ridden in with him, you’d have found what he did, as Legler quotes it: a log hut of one room “about twelve feet square,” put up “within the last four weeks.” The name was real long before the city was, and it took a while for the buildings to catch up with it.

Sources & further reading

• Daniel S. Durrie, A History of Madison, the Capital of Wisconsin (1874). Suydam’s letter: the ride from Green Bay, the survey and the plat, and the name “in honor of President Madison” (pp. 28-30); the section corner under the capitol (p. 31); Featherstonhaugh’s seven engraved cities (pp. 58-59).
• Henry E. Legler, Leading Events of Wisconsin History (1898). The rival towns, the 7-6 and 16-10 votes, the corner lots, and the one log hut (pp. 185-187).
• Chicago & North Western place-names book (1908), p. 96. Madison named by Doty for James Madison.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS Bulletin 197, 1902). The places called Madison and the president they honor.
• GNIS feature 1581834 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Madison, “Capital of State of Wisconsin.”