3rd and final Lyceum of the Season – Sunday, March 24th @ 2PM at First United Methodist Church in Mineral Point.

Our speaker will be Tracey Lee Roberts, Senior Lecturer Emeritus, recently retired from
the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. She has been
researching and writing about the Lead Mine District for three decades. Tracey is
currently writing a book on the life of Henry Dodge in the Upper Mississippi Valley.
Henry Dodge is a familiar name in Wisconsin and in the annals of history along the
upper Mississippi River corridor. He was instrumental in the frontier development of
the Ste. Genevieve District in Missouri, having been appointed sheriff by the infamous
James Wilkinson. When his fortunes ran dry in Missouri in 1826, Dodge removed to a
lead mining compound in Southwest Wisconsin.Despite defying the laws and treaties with the Ho-Chunk nation, Dodge became the
Governor for the newly created Wisconsin Territory. He was lauded for defeating
Blackhawk and his band of Sauk and Mesquakie warriors in the bloody regional battles
during the summer of 1832. While he rallied for the rights of the miners against
regulations the federal government imposed on the lucrative lead mine trade, he was
also the upholder of the law as Governor and Indian Agent.

Tracey will offer a deeper and more nuanced understanding of a man whose name is
known, but his beliefs, his allegiances, and his losses have been obscured by lionizing
narratives of glory.