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.
1849
Beloit
- 1849 Benjamin Willford came to Beloit and bought 109 acres in Section 17.
- 1849 A Beloit family built their home (the father being the first drayman in Beloit).
- 1849 A biographical subject came to America and to Beloit, settling on a farm of 576 acres in the towns of Rock and Beloit.
- July 5, 1849 A Hanaford came to Wisconsin, locating at Beloit.
Rock County
- 1849 A father left his native land and came to the United States, settling in Section 33, Johnstown township, Rock county.
- 1849 A settler came to Rock County (from Walworth County).
- 1849 Harvey Frost came with his family to Wisconsin, locating in Union, Rock Co.
- September 1849 A biographical subject came to Wisconsin, locating in Fulton Township, Rock Co.
The region
- November 1, 1849 A meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Beloit & Taycheedah Railroad was convened at the Planters' Hotel, Watertown, for the purpose of organization.
- 1849 The (Jones) mills were completed.
- 1849 Mr. Hugh Lee made the first survey, of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad, from Chicago to Fond du Lac.
- 1849 Hamilton Richardson purchased the starch-factory property and converted it into a flouring-mill.
Nation and world
- 1849 A post office was established at "The Grove," called "Evansville" in Dr. Evans's honor.
- 1849 A brick house of worship was erected (during 1849 and 1850; dedicated Oct., 1850).
- 1849 Isaac P. Walker was re-elected to the United States senate for a full term of six years from March 4, 1849.
- January 1849 L. Kimball was removed from office (through a change in the administration) and C. S. Jordan was appointed in his place.
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