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.
1835
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.
- July 1835 Joseph Thibault came to the Beloit site and built the first building there, a log cabin.
- 1835 Thiebault claimed ownership of a vast tract of land extending "three looks" in every direction from his cabin.
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.
- July 19, 1835 John Inman and William Holmes visited the present site of Beloit, finding no human habitation there.
- December 26, 1835 A survey contract was made with Robert T. Lytle for subdivisions west of the river.
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.
- 1835 D. Butts broke the first sod in Rock County, in Fulton Township.
- 1835 Virgil Pope settled in Rock County.
- November 15, 1835 A man arrived in Rock County and on November 16 made his selections of land.
The region
- February 9, 1835 The lands of the Fort Winnebago reservation were set apart by order of the president.
- October 1835 A company consisting of John Inman, George Follmer, William Holmes, Jr. and Joshua Holmes started from Milwaukee, accompanied by Milo Jones, who soon left for Fort Atkinson and made a claim there.
- November 15, 1835 John Inman, Thomas Holmes, William Holmes, Joshua Holmes, George Follmer and Milo Jones started from Milwaukee with an ox team and wagon; another passage names the party as John Inman, George Follner, William Holmes, Jr., and Joshua Holmes.
- 1835 Nathan Allyne made a claim on section 35, broke several acres, and raised crops without fence, except dogs.
Nation and world
- October 1835 George W. Jones was elected a delegate for Michigan Territory.
- May 11, 1835 The constitutional convention met at Detroit.
- 1835 Michigan assumed a State Government.
- Summer 1835 George Goodhue and his uncle Tyler H. Moore came west by lake to Chicago and purchased the site of the Tremont House.
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