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.
1857
Beloit
- Fall 1857 A man came to Beloit Township and bought seventy-two and one-half acres of land in Section 3.
- 1857 J. Pierron located in Beloit; he brought his family in the fall of the same year.
- 1857 Horace H. Brown came to Wisconsin, locating at Beloit.
- 1857 Anson P. Waterman was elected the second mayor of Beloit.
Rock County
- May 1857 A man came to Rock County and located in Newark Township, buying forty-five and one-half acres in Section 14.
- 1857 A man settled on the farm he now owns of 325 acres in Rock County.
- 1857 Noah Button settled in Rock County, following his trade as tanner and currier.
- December 2, 1857 A man came to Rock County and commenced business, renting a shop from Mr. G.
The region
- December 1857 The secretary of war's agent sold the remainder of the reservation to claimants of lands on the west side, and the section in Wisconsin known as the Cattle Yard, amounting to 177 acres.
- 1857 The Winnebagoes suffered considerably from chronic diseases, scrofula and consumption.
- 1857 The Milwaukee & Mississippi railroad was built to a village (later identified as Hanover/Shopiere area).
- 1857 The Galena & Southern Wisconsin Railroad Company was incorporated.
Nation and world
- March 3, 1857 An act of Congress was approved creating the Chippewa land district from portions of the La Crosse and Hudson land districts in Wisconsin.
- April 1857 The secretary of war authorized Hon. H. M. Rice of Minnesota to sell the unimproved part of the reservation in tracts not exceeding forty acres each.
- March 3, 1857 An act was approved appointing James Hall, Ezra Carr, and Edward Daniels as geological commissioners.
- 1857 A church edifice was erected at a cost of about $1,800, with the dedicatory sermon preached by Rev. Thomas Eddy of the Northwestern Christian Advocate.
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