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.
1852
Beloit
- 1852 A settler came to Wisconsin about 1852, locating at Beloit.
- 1852 A contractor removed to Beloit and purchased a farm of 444 acres.
- 1852 E. W. Carpenter sold out the Avon water-power and store and returned to Beloit.
- 1852 A La Prairie resident moved to Beloit in 1852 and engaged in the printing business.
Rock County
- 1852 A farmer sold his Dane County land in 1852 and moved to Union Township, Rock Co., buying 243 acres.
- 1852 A machinist removed with his family to Rock County and settled on a new farm in the township of Janesville.
- 1852 A settler came to Wisconsin in 1852, locating in the town of Rock.
- 1852 A Roxburghshire Scot landed at New York in 1852 and came to Rock County the same year.
The region
- April 17, 1852 A law was approved granting Peter Myers the right to maintain a building in Rock river.
- February 18, 1852 The Beloit and Madison Railroad Co. was incorporated.
- Spring 1852 The mill (upper dam establishment) was re-built and enlarged after flood damage.
- 1852 A resident represented Rock County in the state legislature in 1852.
Nation and world
- 1852 The Beloit and Mississippi Railroad Company was chartered in 1852, with a capital of three millions of dollars.
- July 30, 1852 An act of congress was approved creating the Stevens Point land district.
- 1852 The Racine, Janesville & Mississippi Railroad Company was chartered in 1852 and organized the same year.
- April 1852 Town officers were elected.
Faces from the record
Engraved portraits from the county histories of 1879 and 1908. A different dozen each day.
