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.
1844
Beloit
- 1844 John Chamberlin and family came to Beloit; he took up 160 acres in Sec. 8 and built a log cabin.
- 1844 Bennett Wooster came to Beloit and began farming about three miles east.
- April 1844 A settler built and moved to the west side of Rock river at Beloit, the second residence there.
- 1844 First brick block erected on Main street (Beloit).
Rock County
- 1844 The Flagler family moved to Rock county and settled on a quarter-section in section 12, Janesville township.
- 1844 The Cleophas Holverson family moved from Dane county to Rock county, settling on forty acres in Newark township.
- May 1, 1844 A settler came to Rock County (Milton Junction).
- 1844 A man came West and settled in La Prairie township, Rock county.
The region
- 1844 The red frame schoolhouse of the joint districts of Rock and La Prairie was erected.
- Winter 1844 Julius Gilbert and Francis Smith "shantied" on the s. e. qr. of section 34; they were young men and single.
- 1844 H. Caldwell purchased 80 acres on Sec. 3, Range 12 north.
- 1844 John Cook sold out to John Shepard, who commenced erecting a grist-mill.
Nation and world
- 1844 A township was settled.
- June 21, 1844 Nathaniel P. Tallmadge was appointed.
- 1844 A church edifice was erected (later rebuilt in 1874).
- June 1844 A convention of Northwestern ministers and churches at Cleveland, Ohio, shaped plans for higher education; the idea of Beloit College originated with ministers returning from a clerical convention held at Cleveland.
Faces from the record
Engraved portraits from the county histories of 1879 and 1908. A different dozen each day.
