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.
1847
Beloit
- Fall 1847 A man came to Beloit and bought eighty acres in Sec. 15.
- Fall 1847 Deacon Samuel Hinman moved to Beloit from Prairieville (now Waukesha).
- Fall 1847 A man came to Beloit, Wisconsin, and was interested in land speculations for eighteen months.
- Fall 1847 George Carey came to Wisconsin and located at Beloit.
Rock County
- Fall 1847 A family came to Rock Co. and bought a farm of eighty acres in Sec. 25, Newark Township, and 80 acres in Sec. 30, Beloit Township.
- Fall 1847 Settlers arrived in Rock County townships in 1847: D. I. Daniels, Royal Wood, John Nichols, W. Cator, I. Woodle, Frank Wheeler, A. Lawrence, John M. Keep.
- December 1, 1847 A census of Rock County was taken, showing Janesville at 2,587 and Beloit at 1,851 (the county total from P3 being 14,720).
- Spring 1847 James Sutherland and his wife emigrated to Rock Co. and took up temporary residence in the town of Rock.
The region
- Fall 1847 The cholera (superinduced by misery and starvation) occurred among the Winnebago people.
- Fall 1847 A grist-mill on Bad Fish Creek (built by John Shepard) was completed.
- Fall 1847 A man helped haul stone for the foundation of Middle College.
- March 3, 1847 An act was approved creating an additional land district in the territory (the Chippewa land district).
Nation and world
- Fall 1847 A man was appointed by Gov. Dodge and confirmed by the Legislative Council as Attorney General of the Territory.
- Summer 1847 Mr. Smith, a Democrat, was elected to the first convention to frame a State constitution.
- October 27, 1847 The members of the legislature, having met on October 18, passed an act providing for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention.
- Fall 1847 A stone church edifice (40x60 feet) was finished late in 1847.
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