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.
1845
Beloit
- September 1845 A tavern-keeper came to Beloit and bought eighty acres of land in Section 4, building a log house.
- 1845 The first bridge across Rock River at Indian Ford was built by private subscription, Stephen Allen, builder.
- January 1, 1845 A merchant (a Buffalo former resident) came to Beloit and commenced business as a merchant.
- 1845 A large brick house was built in Beloit, with a conspicuous front portico supported by four tall Corinthian columns.
Rock County
- 1845 Arrivals and settlements in Rock County recorded without more precise dates: A. Wyatt Smith removed to Janesville ; Capt. William Macloon came from Boston and settled at Janesville ; A. M. Simmons (father) settled in Harmony about 1845 ; a Beloit lawyer removed to Beloit ; Ezra Philo Doty came to Janesville ; a Walworth lawyer came to Wisconsin and located at Janesville ; a New York farmer bought a farm at Beloit ; a Connecticut man took up eighty acres in Sec. 18 at Beloit ; the Millett family located in Beloit ; Hans and Bargitt Halverson's family came to Newark, buying land in Section 12 ; a Durham Co. settler located in Newark, buying and improving two farms ; the Case family moved to Clinton and settled on 160 acres ; L. Burdick's neighbors ; a Rhode Island man located in the town of Lima ; Abram Caufman emigrated to Center ; an 1837-born resident came to Wisconsin ; E. Footville-resident moved to what is now Footville ; a settler located on his present homestead in Center ; families emigrated to Wisconsin ; a Bennett came to Wisconsin and taught school in Union ; Leonard Bullard's family settled in Union Township ; a Hancock Co., Me., man located in Union Township ; the Hubbard family settled on land entered in 1840 in Union Township ; a Cortland Co. man located in Union Township ; a settler bought 200 acres and built one of the first log houses in Plymouth Township ; Jacob Fisher came to Plymouth Township about 1845 ; a Steuben Co. man located at Darien ; a New York man came to Wisconsin locating at Johnstown ; a Scotland-born man came to America in 1845 and settled on a farm in Harmony ; A. Douglas entered forty acres of land settled in 1843 ; Johnstown settlers from New York located there, purchasing farms [B156]; G. came to Rock County and bought a farm of forty acres of government land ; M. Wilcox located and bought 100 acres in Harmony ; the Miller family came to Harmony Township, buying 240 acres ; families from Ohio settled in Milton township ; a father settled on a 1,000-acre farm in Lima township ; the Marquart family moved from Ohio and settled in Wisconsin ; an Irish couple (Clinchy) came to Wisconsin and bought a farm northwest of Beloit ; a family settled in Milton township ; Thomas bought eighty acres in section 6, Bradford township ; the Moore family located near Milwaukee ; the Bradley family settled on a farm in Turtle township ; Mr. Fifield's brothers later joined his lumber business ; a resident came to Janesville prior to January 1845 and served as probate judge for Rock County in 1845 and 1846 ; Carpenter engaged in general merchandising in Beloit .
- Spring 1845 A Norwegian family (Keesey) came to the United States and purchased and settled on a farm in Rock County.
- October 1845 A Freeborn came to Wisconsin and wintered in Cooksville, Rock County.
- Spring 1845 Guy Stoughton contracted with Mr. Hanchett to build a dam at the foot of Lake Koshkonong; the dam was completed during that year and a saw-mill built.
The region
- February 24, 1845 Prior to this date Rock and Walworth counties constituted one election district; the territorial legislature of 1845 passed an act dividing the district and constituting Rock County an election district.
- 1845 Charles C. Cheney, Henry Chesebro (Cheesebro), William Loyd, Adelmon Sherman and Ephraim Leach, Jr., made their land purchases (in 1844 and 1845).
- 1845 The first church organization on Rock Prairie was made by Diedrichson; Lars H. Skavlem was one of its members.
- 1845 Prevost was appointed marshal of the Territory in place of Daniel Hugunin.
Nation and world
- April 8, 1845 Henry Dodge was appointed governor of Wisconsin Territory; the 1908 history gives his term as beginning May 13, 1845, a discrepancy with the April 8 date.
- July 6, 1845 The First Congregational Church at Johnstown Village was organized by Rev. Stephen Peet.
- 1845 Other events outside Rock County dated 1845: admission to the bar of Orange Co., Vt. (spring term) ; admission to practice in New York ; graduation from Hamilton College ; admission to the Supreme court of New York at Utica, July 18, 1845 ; fall of 1845 entering the law office of Judge Charles M. Baker at Geneva ; David R. Platts's family settled in Green Lake county ; a father returned to his native state, married, and brought his bride to Milton township ; a family's removal in 1845 ; removal to Manchester, N. H. ; the Wisconsin lawyer moved to Indiana in 1845 ; increase of the father to Wisconsin since 1845 ; the editor of the 1908 history was born in Beloit in 1845 ; Caswell's canoe trip on Lake Koshkonong in the fall of 1845 ; Milwaukee grain exports commenced in 1845, amounting to 213,448 bushels ; lead production attained its maximum in 1845, nearly 25,000 tons ; land sales 1835–1845 inclusive totaled 2,958,592 acres ; the wheat crop of 1845 commenced the blight ; the founder of the Milwaukee female college died May 29, 1845 ; Uriah Goodrich died September 2, 1845 ; Lewis Cass was in 1845 the Democratic nominee for president ; parts of the "pretentious city" (Milwaukee townsite area) were sold for taxes in 1845 ; since 1845 the townsite has been sold as farming lands ; the state constitutional convention delegates assembled 1845-47-48 ; Grant farm sold in 1845 ; and the first saw-mill lumbering operations on the Oconto were begun by David Jones ; moose tracks seen on the Montreal river in the summer of 1845 ; an epidemic malarial fever of a bilious type visited in 1844 and 1845 .
- April 1, 1845 The first town election of Lima was held at the schoolhouse in District No. 9; Prosper Cravath was made chairman of supervisors.
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