Vinnie Ream

The History of Dane County, 1880

The Peck Cabin

I visited Madison last summer [1873] with my daughter and a lady friend. The old “stamping grounds” were so changed that I could hardly recognize them. The old log house, which we used as a hotel for over a year, then leased or rented to R. L. Ream, and by him kept as a house of entertainment until we lett the place, has since been removed. Mr. Ream was the father of Vinnie Ream, who was born in the cabin after we left it. I think my daughter and Miss Vinnie were the only children born there.* — Pioneer Recollections by Mrs. Rosaline Peck.

*Vinnie Ream, the famous American sculptor, once designated by an eloquent Senator as “Wisconsin's fair daughter,” was born in the first house occupied in the city. This was when Wisconsin was a Territory. After Wisconsin was admitted as a state into the Union, her parents removed to Washington, D. C, and subsequently to the State of Missouri, where Vinnie received the greater part of her education. At a later period, her parents moved over the border to Arkansas, residing at Little Rock and Fort Smith, where little Vinnie became well known and a favorite as a school girl. At the breaking-out of the last war, her father received an appointment in the Treasury Department at Washington, and Postmaster General Blair appointed Miss Vinnie to a clerkship in his department, where she distinguished herself for her extraordinary facility in penmanship. At the time she was thus engaged, she chanced to pay a visit to the studio of Clark Mills, and while witnessing the operation of modeling in clay, she remarked “Why, I can do that.” She took home some clay, and in two or three days returned to the studio with the model of her art work, “The Dying Standard Bearer” which greatly surprised Mr. Mills, for its effectiveness of design, as well as for being the production of one who had never attempted anything of the kind before. From this time she pursued her artistic studies and work at home, after department hours, for about a year, when she gave up her situation and determined to devote herself to art. Wealthy friends offered every inducement to prevail on her to abandon the idea. She also at this time received and advantageous offer of marriage, but her invariable answer to every inducement was “I am wedded to my art.” Vinnie’s success in her profession is well known to the American people, and need not here be dwelt upon. She is now married. Her husband, Richard L. Hoxie, is an officer in the regular army.

Pioneer Recollections, by Rosaline Peck in The History of Dane County, 1880, Wisconsin Historical Society.