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.
1856
Beloit
- 1856 A Connecticut-born settler came to Beloit and bought Henry Waterman's property.
- November 5, 1856 Comstock came to Wisconsin, locating at Beloit.
- 1856 Messrs. Wright and Merrill established the Beloit Paper Mills Company, the first paper mill in Beloit.
- February 16, 1856 P. Miller came to Wisconsin, locating at Beloit.
Rock County
- April 6, 1856 A family arrived in Rock County and settled on land purchased from Benjamin Riddle.
- 1856 Mr. Guernsey wrote the first history of Rock County (350 pages), published with Joshua F. Willard under the auspices of the Rock County Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute; the signed pioneer letters were first published that year.
- Spring 1856 A New England-educated settler came West and settled near Emerald Grove, Rock County.
- 1856 The Hugunin family moved to Rock County and settled on a farm in La Prairie, three miles south of Janesville.
The region
- October 1856 Property came into the possession of James H. Hanchett (held until 1863).
- 1856 The Galena & Chicago Union Railroad operated the Beloit & Madison road from 1856, in connection with the Milwaukee & Mississippi, reaching Janesville by way of Hanover Junction.
- 1856 The Racine & Mississippi (later Western Union) was graded, with 20,000 ties delivered from Porter to Rockton.
- November 1856 The Fisher case was taken to the supreme court of Wisconsin on a writ of error.
Nation and world
- March 31, 1856 An act incorporating the city of Beloit was approved (chapter 452, private and local laws of 1856); the 1879 history dates the legislature's passage of the act to March 1856.
- October 3, 1856 An act of the legislature granted the unsold congress-granted lands, through the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement company, to trustees.
- October 1856 An act approved "on the nth of the same month" granted a portion of the lands to the La Crosse & Mississippi railroad company.
- 1856 A post office was established, with Mr. William Ranney as Postmaster.
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