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Roseline Peck

Mrs. Roseline Peck, born 1808 - died 1898, the first white woman in Madison. She was the wife of the first tavern keeper, Eben Peck. View the original source document: WHI 3941

The Peck cabin, built near the intersection of Butler and Wilson Steets is usually considered the first home in Madison. But the Pecks' residence was actually the city's second home — the first one was never occupied.

 John Catlin

In February of 1837, surveyor John Catlin hired fur trader Michel St. Cyr to build a log house on the isthmus for Catlin. St. Cyr quickly erected the shell, and in the spring Catlin began completing the interior. "I drew the pine lumber to finish the house from Helena on the Wisconsin River at a cost of over $90 per thousand feet, and was so unfortunate after its completion in very good style as to have the inside burnt out before any one lived in it." With a bit of bad luck, the first home in Madison burnt down before it could be inhabited.

The Pecks

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John Catlin, 1856

Quarter-length oval portrait of John Catlin. He was born in Orwell, Vermont in 1803, and settled at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, in May of 1836. Catlin moved to Madison and was a clerk of the Supreme Court in 1836. He was later named Secretary of the Territory of Wisconsin on February 24, 1846. View the original source document: WHI 27651

While Catlin figured out what to do next, Madison's first settlers arrived. They were Eben and Roseline Peck, who had just emigrated from western New York to Blue Mounds. When they heard that Madison had been voted the capital, they decided to move there and build a hotel where the first residents and later legislators could stay.

Rosaline later recalled, "Mr. Peck purchased some lots and immediately sent hands and teams to erect three large rooms or buildings for their occupancy. The buildings were put up before I saw them... The men employed to erect this first house were two Frenchmen, one named Joe Pellkie, the name of the other is forgotten; they were with a party of Winnebagoes who had spent that winter at the largest of the Blue Mounds, and one Abraham Wood superintended the work. Wood then lived at Strawberry or Squaw Point — since better known as Winnequah, on the eastern side of Third Lake...During the erection of these cabins, which was in March, Mr. Peck made two excursions with teams to Madison [from Blue Mounds] to carry out supplies and give directions about the work. There was then snow on the ground, and the lakes were frozen so that Mr. Peck crossed on the ice to Strawberry Point..."

The cabin was habitable by April, and the Peck's kept adding to it "until it was capacious enough to entertain comfortably the travelers and first settlers who visited Madison, and it was then a great accommodation," according to Catlin.

[Sources: the articles linked above and Daniel Durrie's 1874 History of Madison.]

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Eben Peck

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