3156 S Riverside Dr · Beloit, Wisconsin
Once upon a house — and every word of it on the record.
One piece of land beside the Rock River: the Ho-Chunk village of Standing Post, the trader Joseph Thibault, the Blodgetts who founded Beloit, William S. Yost's farm and cobblestone house, the Yost Park resort, and the Riverside Motel built around it. Every event below links to the page of the source that records it.
The land through time
…–1835
The first people
The Ho-Chunk village of Standing Post beside the Rock River.
"Indian Manufactures": a canoe, tools and garments of the upper Great Lakes nations, engraved for Schoolcraft's journal of 1821. Not specific to the Ho-Chunk. Source
Schoolcraft, Henry R. Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States, Extending from Detroit through the Great Chain of American Lakes, to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition under Governor Cass, in the Year 1820. Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821. Library of Congress copy via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/narrativejournal01scho.1634–1836
Contact and the fur trade
French, British and American traders; Joseph Thibault.
Sault de Ste. Marie, engraved for Schoolcraft's account of the 1820 Cass expedition through the fur-trade country. Source
Schoolcraft, Henry R. Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States, Extending from Detroit through the Great Chain of American Lakes, to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition under Governor Cass, in the Year 1820. Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821. Library of Congress copy via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/narrativejournal01scho.1836–1843
The Blodgetts
Caleb Blodgett buys Thibault's claim; Selvey K. Blodgett farms the land.
"A Map of Beloit": the early village beside the Rock River, reproduced in Brown's Rock County, Wisconsin (1908). 1843–1897
The Yost farm
William S. Yost settles, farms and builds the cobblestone house.
"Wm. S. Yost" on the 1858 map of Beloit Township, Sections 11 and 12. 1898–1930
Yost Park
The riverside resort: picnics, dances and the interurban.
"Yost Park" lettered by the river on the 1904 plat, beside John A. Yost's Park Stock Farm.
The 1820s
The property
Beloit
The region
- Summer 1823 Summer 1823 — Squatters began taking possession of the rich land occupied by the Sacs toward the mouth of Rock river.
- 1825 The Winnebagoes' territorial claim was extensive, its southeast boundary stretching from the source of Rock river to within forty miles of its mouth, where they had a village.
- 1820 The Winnebagoes had five villages on Winnebago lake and fourteen on Rock river.
- July 29, 1829 A treaty was made at Prairie du Chien with the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawattamies.
Nation and world
- 1822 The Sacs and Foxes concluded a treaty with the United States by which they relinquished their right to have the United States establish a trading house or factory, and were paid one thousand dollars in merchandise.
- May 2, 1824 Congress granted quarter sections of land to counties for seats of justice / county buildings; the two passages give different approval dates.
- March 1823 March 3, 1823 — An act of congress was approved authorizing the electors of the Territory of Michigan to choose eighteen by ballot at the next election of the delegate for that territory.
- January 29, 1827 An act of congress was approved authorizing the electors of the territory to elect the members of the legislative council, without submitting names to the president for appointment.
The 1830s
The property
- 1835 William Yost came to Wisconsin and purchased a tract of land in sections 11 and 12, Beloit township.
- 1835 Caleb Blodgett made his first visit to the Beloit site, found the Frenchman Thiebeau there, and quieted his claim for $250; one passage dates the purchase to 1835 and '6, and Blodgett is described as temporarily located with his family in a log cabin at Meacham's in 1835.
- 1836 Caleb Blodgett came to Beloit (early in 1836) and bought Thiebault's claim for $200 — the log cabin becoming the settlers' first abode; the purchase is also dated December 1836 in another passage (see December above).
- May 1836 Caleb Blodgett purchased the claim associated with Joseph Thibault at the future Beloit site. The transaction marked the documented transfer of the location from a French-associated fur-trade claimant to an American settler.
Beloit
- 1835 The first step toward settlement of the town of Beloit was made; the first settlement in that township was made within what is now the corporate limits of Beloit City, and John Inman, the Holmes family and others settled there.
- Fall 1836 Erastus Giles came from Roscoe, Illinois, to Rock County and helped raise the first house put up in Beloit; he is registered as settling in Turtle in October 1836.
- 1836 The New England Emigrating Company acquired land connected with the future Beloit settlement, and the organization’s arrival was identified by local historical sources as a decisive stage in the community’s growth.
- May 1836 Caleb Blodgett came exploring the site of present Beloit and returned in June; he found Thibault living there with two wives.
Rock County
- December 1835 Latter part of December 1835 — Samuel St. John and family (including the first white woman settler in Rock County) arrived after the Inman-Holmes party had made the first settlement.
- 1836 A Mr. William [—] emigrated to Rock County and located on 237 acres in Sec. 33, being one of the earliest settlers.
- Spring 1836 Benjamin F. [—] and Tacey A. came to Rock County and settled in Harmony Township (Rock Prairie).
- 1835 D. Butts broke the first sod in Rock County, in Fulton Township.
The region
- Spring 1830 Black Hawk and his band, returning from an unsuccessful winter's hunt, found their town demolished and the site ploughed up; the passage states that during the preceding winter, squatters after seven years of illegal occupancy had preempted several quarter sections at the mouth of the Rock covering the village site and the Sac corn fields.
- July 1, 1832 The army continued its march up the river and saw an Indian spy on the high ground on the west side of Rock river.
- 1830 Farmer's "Map of the Territories of Michigan and Ouisconsin" was published; it gave the river draining the four lakes as the "Goosh-ke-hawn," noted Lake Koshkonong ("the lake we live on"), and marked a Winnebago village at the mouth of that river.
- 1830 A party of Menomonees and Sioux murdered some of the British band of Sacs; the passage states that in 1831 Black Hawk's war party retaliated by killing twenty-seven Menomonees near Fort Crawford.
Nation and world
- June 15, 1836 Congress passed an act accepting, ratifying and confirming Michigan's constitution and state government, and an act creating the Milwaukee land district (which included present Rock County).
- Summer 1836 Col. James M. Burgess made the first claim in Lima, on Section 17; he and a partner stayed through the season, made improvements, then returned East.
- April 1833 Black Hawk, along with the prophet and Neapope, was taken to Washington, D. C., and kept as a prisoner in Fortress Monroe.
- April 20, 1836 Congress created Wisconsin Territory by approving the territorial act. The new territory included the southern Wisconsin region that later contained Rock County and Beloit.
Faces from the record
Engraved portraits from the county histories of 1879 and 1908. A different dozen each day.
Research in progress
2,413
documented events
41 years so far, 1820–1860
27
on the property itself
614 more in Beloit
9,847
people identified
across the sources
9
sources transcribed
1,456,854 words · 198 clippings