Prehistory – 19th Century

WoD History of Madison – For Players!

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MUS – Madison Under Siege created history
Source for World of Darkness History https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_(WOD)
Source for Real Life History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_timelines

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2.5 million years ago: Weaver takes humanity as her adopted child to help bring order to the world. Humans discover how to use stone tools and to hunt.

The Endless Night. As the sun sets, Lucifer and a number of angels reveal themselves to humankind and give them the gift of knowledge in a single night that lasts a thousand years.

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1720 AD – 

MUS –  A coven of Verbena arrive in Madison and take control of the Picnic Point Node. Amel Nkosazana Molloy, Adebola Štefan Budny, Lisbet Othmar Salvay

MUS –  Shortly after the Verbena arrive a war sparks up between the witches and the natives.

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1829 AD – Madison’s origins begin in 1829, when former federal judge James Duane Doty purchased over a thousand acres (4 km²) of swamp and forest land on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, with the intention of building a city in the Four Lakes region. When the Wisconsin Territory was created in 1836 the territorial legislature convened in Belmont, Wisconsin. One of the legislature’s tasks was to select a permanent location for the territory’s capital. Doty lobbied aggressively for Madison as the new capital, offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and promising choice Madison lots at discount prices to undecided voters.

A Tetrasomian (Glass Walker) Philodox by the name of Patrick Schulde in Pennsylvania first encounters the spirit and totem known as the Stourbridge Lion, who tells him to bring all those who would join him to the city of Philadelphia in three years’ time.

MUS –  Jay Dee comes to Madison after studying America from Doissetep.

1830s AD:  Suspicious of French motives, Vietnam’s Emperor orchestrates the persecution of the French and Catholics.

A powerful Bane is released from its bonds in the American West; it fuses with a similarly mighty Weaver spirit to become the spiritual menace known as the Storm Eater.

The tribe called the Warders of Men changes its name to the Iron Riders.

In the late 1830s, the Cabal of Pure Thought is dissolved due to its incompatibility with the direction the Order of Reason is progressing, possibly as a result of the Templars abandoning the Order in 1837.

MUS –   John Brightmore a Templar makes his way to Madison with hope to escape the Technocracy and start anew.

1832 AD: In the Black Hawk War, Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo Native Americans, led by Chief Black Hawk, who had been relocated from Illinois to Iowa, attempted to resettle in their Illinois homeland on April 5, 1832. On May 10 Chief Black Hawk decided to go back to Iowa. On May 14, Black Hawk’s forces met with a group of militia men led by Isaiah Stillman. All three members of Black Hawk’s parley were shot and one was killed. The Battle of Stillman’s Run ensued, leaving twelve militia men and three to five Sac and Fox warriors dead. Of the fifteen battles of the war, six took place in Wisconsin. The other nine as well as several smaller skirmishes took place in Illinois. The first confrontation to take place in Wisconsin was the first attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 6, in which one member of the local militia was killed outside of fort. 

There was also the Spafford Farm Massacre on June 14, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on June 16, which was a United States victory, the second attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 20, and the Sinsinawa Mound raid on June 29. The Native Americans were defeated at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights on July 21, with forty to seventy killed and only one killed on the United States side. 

The Black Hawk War ended with the Bad Axe Massacre on August 1–2, with over 150 Native Americans dead and 75 captured and only five killed in the United States forces. Many of the Native American warchiefs were handed over to the United States on August 20, with the exception of Black Hawk and White Cloud, who surrendered on August 27, 1832. Black Hawk moved back to Iowa in 1833, after being held prisoner by the United States government.

MUS –  During the Black Hawk War the Werewolves go to war with the Order of Hermes that is trying to build a Temple on their Holy Site that is now Madison Wisconsin’s Capital.  After a failed attempt to take the construction site the Werewolves worked to ambush the unprotected surrounding areas attempting to kill any member of the Order of Hermes that tried to enter the Area.  The Dream Speakers took a Neutral position but after the war started negotiations with the Order of Hermes to have an Ambassador stationed in Madison for improved relations between Werewolves and Mages 

1834 AD: The resolution of these Indian conflicts opened the way for Wisconsin’s settlement. Many of the region’s first settlers were drawn by the prospect of lead mining in southwest Wisconsin. This area had traditionally been mined by Native Americans. However, after a series of treaties removed the Indians, the lead mining region was opened to white miners. Thousands rushed in from across the country to dig for the “gray gold”. Expert miners from Cornwall, England, formed a large part of the wave of immigrants. Boom towns like Mineral Point, Platteville, Shullsburg, Belmont, and New Diggings sprang up around mines. The first two federal land offices in Wisconsin were opened in 1834 at Green Bay and at Mineral Point. By the 1840s, southwest Wisconsin mines were producing more than half of the nation’s lead. Wisconsin was dubbed the “Badger State” because of the lead miners who first settled there in the 1820s and 1830s. Without shelter in the winter, they had to “live like badgers” in tunnels burrowed into hillsides.

Although the lead mining area drew the first major wave of settlers, its population would soon be eclipsed by growth in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, along with Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee, can be traced back to a series of trading posts established by the French trader Jacques Vieau in 1795. Vieau’s post at the mouth of the Milwaukee River was purchased in 1820 by Solomon Juneau, who had visited the area as early as 1818. Juneau moved to what is now Milwaukee and took over the trading post’s operation in 1825.

When the fur trade began to decline, Juneau focused on developing the land around his trading post. In the 1830s he formed a partnership with Green Bay lawyer Morgan Martin, and the two men bought 160 acres (0.6 km²) of land between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. There they founded the settlement of Juneautown. Meanwhile, an Ohio businessman named Byron Kilbourn began to invest in the land west of the Milwaukee River, forming the settlement of Kilbourntown. South of these two settlements, George H. Walker founded the town of Walker’s Point in 1835. Each of these three settlements engaged in a fierce competition to attract the most residents and become the largest of the three towns. In 1840, the Wisconsin State Legislature ordered the construction of a bridge over the Milwaukee River to replace the inadequate ferry system. In 1845, Byron Kilbourn, who had been trying to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown, destroyed a portion of the bridge, which started the Milwaukee Bridge War. For several weeks, skirmishes broke out between the residents of both towns. No one was killed but several people were injured, some seriously. On January 31, 1846 the settlements of Juneautown, Kilbourntown, and Walker’s Point merged into the incorporated city of Milwaukee. Solomon Juneau was elected mayor. The new city had a population of about 10,000 people, making it the largest city in the territory. Milwaukee remains the largest city in Wisconsin to this day.

MUS – Werewolf and Mage relations improve after a short but bloody war.  The Mages come out on top allowing for the development of the surrounding city.  Mages also secured many holdings throughout the wilderness in these Treaties.

1836 AD –  Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1836. By fall of that year, the best prairie groves of the counties surrounding Milwaukee were occupied by New England farmers. The new territory initially included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota. At the time the Congress called it the “Wiskonsin Territory”.

The first territorial governor of Wisconsin was Henry Dodge. He and other territorial lawmakers were initially busied by organizing the territory’s government and selecting a capital city. The selection of a location to build a capitol caused a heated debate among the territorial politicians. At first, Governor Dodge selected Belmont, located in the heavily populated lead mining district, to be capital. Shortly after the new legislature convened there, however, it became obvious that Wisconsin’s first capitol was inadequate. Numerous other suggestions for the location of the capital were given representing nearly every city that existed in the territory at the time, and Governor Dodge left the decision up to the other lawmakers. The legislature accepted a proposal by James Duane Doty to build a new city named Madison on an isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona and put the territory’s permanent capital there.[16] In 1837, while Madison was being built, the capitol was temporarily moved to Burlington. This city was transferred to Iowa Territory in 1838, along with all the lands of Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River.

MUS – Jay Dee creates the capital on a Node.  He has the approval of the Horizon Council and has sent open invitations to all of the Traditions to set up Chantries in Madison if they so wish.  There isn’t much for true Node power in the area at the time but there was enough to draw the interest of a few Mages

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1837 AD – Start of Queen Victoria’s reign.

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1846 AD – Mexico is forced to sign over a third of Mexico to the U.S. for $15 million.
Marx and Engels issue a Communist Manifesto.

1847 AD:  In December 1847, a second constitutional convention was called. This convention resulted in a new, more moderate state constitution that Wisconsinites approved in a March 1848 referendum, enabling Wisconsin to become the 30th state on May 29, 1848. Wisconsin was the last state entirely east of the Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be admitted to the Union.

With statehood, came the creation of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is the state’s oldest public university. The creation of this university was set aside in the state charter.

In 1847, the Mineral Point Tribune reported that the town’s furnaces were producing 43,800 pounds (19,900 kg) of lead each day. Lead mining in southwest Wisconsin began to decline after 1848 and 1849 when the combination of less easily accessible lead ore and the California Gold Rush made miners leave the area. The lead mining industry in mining communities such as Mineral Point managed to survive into the 1860s, but the industry was never as prosperous as it was before the decline.

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1850 AD – By 1850 Wisconsin’s population was 305,000. Roughly a third (103,000) were Yankees from New England and western New York state. The second largest group were the Germans, numbering roughly 38,000, followed by 28,000 British immigrants from England, Scotland and Wales. There were roughly 63,000 Wisconsin-born residents of the state. The Yankee migrants would be the dominant political class in Wisconsin for many years.

A railroad frenzy swept Wisconsin shortly after it achieved statehood. The first railroad line in the state was opened between Milwaukee and Waukesha in 1851 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The railroad pushed on, reaching Milton, Wisconsin in 1852, Stoughton, Wisconsin in 1853, and the capital city of Madison in 1854. The company reached its goal of completing a rail line across the state from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River when the line to Prairie du Chien was completed in 1857. Shortly after this, other railroad companies completed their own tracks, reaching La Crosse in the west and Superior in the north, spurring development in those cities. By the end of the 1850s, railroads crisscrossed the state, enabling the growth of other industries that could now easily ship products to markets across the country.

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1855 AD – The first Imperial Moot is called in North America, held on New York City’s Manhattan Island. During the Imperial Moot a Rite of Caern Building was enacted, in which the vast number of Garou present supplied an unheard of amount of Gnosis to create a caern amidst a city already in the thrall of the Weaver. The revel that followed was also reputably impressive. The caern created there is better known by the name of the sept that tends it in the modern day: the Sept of the Green.

1857 AD – 

MUS – Fr. Michael Haider founds the Holy Redeemer Church and creates a Choir Chantry.

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1860 AD – 

MUS – The Tremere Rebecca Troy arrives in the City of Madison.  She quickly builds a Chantry.  The Tremere send two adepts to work with Rebecca on control of the city’s magical nodes.

MUS – The Celestial Choir, Order of Hermes, Dreamspeakers, Vampires, Wraith, Changelings and Werewolves of Madison go to war.

MUS – Otto Wolfgang follows a pair of Tremere west to Wisconsin and the city of Madison.  He seeks vengeance for ancient crimes committed against the Gangrel clan.  While hunting the leader of the Tremere he followed, Otto finds out there is a local Baali called “the Mad Town Arsonist” that moved to Madison around its creation and shortly after the mysterious fiery death of his sire.  Rebecca is also aware of the Baali and an uneasy truce is made between Rebecca and Otto to fight the Baali’s influence in the city.  Otto also learns of a Local pack of werewolves that call this area home and have a claim to the land.  Both Rebecca and Otto avoid the werewolves as best they can while learning what they can of them.

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1861 – Lincoln is elected president as the Civil War starts.

Wisconsin enrolled 91,379 men in the Union Army during the American Civil War. 272 of enlisted Wisconsin men were African American, and the rest were white. Of these, 3,794 were killed in action or mortally wounded, 8,022 died of disease, and 400 were killed in accidents. The total mortality was 12,216 men, about 13.4 percent of total enlistments. Many soldiers trained at Camp Randall, which currently houses the University of Wisconsin’s athletic stadium.

Most Wisconsin troops served in the western theater, although several Wisconsin regiments fought in the east, such as the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which formed part of the Iron Brigade. These three regiments fought in the Northern Virginia Campaign, the Maryland Campaign, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Gettysburg Campaign, the Battle of Mine Run, the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign.

The 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which fought in the western theater of war, is also worthy of mention, having fought at the Battle of Iuka, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, and the Battle of Nashville. The 8th Wisconsin is also known for its mascot, Old Abe.

The Tremere perfect the Ritual of the Bitter Rose.

MUS – The Baali uses Madison to blood bond and control many officers in the military that were stationed there.  Both Otto and Rebecca failed to kill the Baali but were able to wrestle control of the city away from the Baali.

American Civil War erupts from centuries of plotting by Wyrm. This diverts Wyrm’s attention from the Native Americans, who start to solidify holdings in the North. Wyrm has U.S. government send smallpox infected blankets to the Natives, killing them in droves. Wyrm spirits of sickness also decimate Natives.

MUS – The War for Madison heats up between The Celestial Choir, Order of Hermes, Dreamspeakers, Vampires, Wraith, Changelings and Werewolves of Madison.

MUS – The Templar John Brightmore is killed, 2 Werewolves, 4 Changelings, 3 Wraith and a Vampire die.

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1868 – 

MUS – Waukon Decorah comes to Madison after faking his death in the mortal world to represent the Dream Speakers of Wisconsin.

MUS – Waukon Decorah Brings an end to the Madison Supernatural War.

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1875 AD – The start of the Sioux War.

The Uktena barely prevent the Storm Eater from releasing a second great Wyrm-creature like itself.

MUS – Jacob Redthorne, known as Sky-Weaver is born.

An Ahl-i-Batin comes to Madison

All of Madison’s Supernatural work together to contain a Nephandi that is believed to have help create much of the tension that exists between the different groups.  This creates a minor truce between all supernaturals of Madison

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1880 – 

MUS – Frank Lloyd Wright (The Mage, who is much older than the mortal records have and a bit of a different background) comes to Madison and works with Jay Dee on construction of Hermetic Chantries throughout Wisconsin.  These are used to Contain the Neverborn in Lake Mendota.

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1883 – 

MUS – Benjamin “Ben” Rothe embraced by Gerlach Muller one of the visiting Tremere tasked with keeping an eye on Rebecca Troy. Later that year the south wing of the capital collapsed killing seven people.  It is believed the Baali caused this accident to complete a ritual to curse the capitol building.  One of the tremere adepts is never seen again.

MUS – The minor truce between the supernaturals is put to its test with the events of the Baali and the death of the Ahl-i-Batin of Madison.

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1890s AD: Every major tribe of Garou is by this point represented in Vancouver.

Thirteen septs of Garou begin the Rite of Still Skies in the evening on this date (its exact duration is not clear, and so may continue into the early morning of the following day). It culminates in thirteen mighty Garou, one from each tribe save the Bunyip, sacrificing themselves in the to seal the Storm Eater once more.

The modern Technocratic Union is born.

MUS – The Technocratic Union attacks Madison Uniting the Mages of Madison

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1890: The Technocratic Crackdown. Ahl-i-Batin Qutbs dissolve their network of minds, vowing to return to the Tradition in the future. The Batini are left without leadership. In the confusion, the Technocratic Union wipes out many zawiya, and only a last-ditch effort, redirecting New World Order operatives to the Taftâni prevents them from finding khanates.

MUS – 2 Batini, an Ahl-i-Batin and a Taftani arrive in Madison

Around this time the creature known as the Yahwie begins hunting and slaying Ananasi in Australia, after some time it makes its way to Madison.

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1895 AD: The tribe known as Iron Riders change their name to Glass Walkers.

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