The Beloit school board engaged Herman Belden (or Belding) to excavate the cellar for a new brick school house at nine cents per cubic yard.

The evidence

• “Merrill and H. Hobart as a finance and building committee, and March 10, 1851, engaged Herman Belden (or Belding) to excavate the cellar for a new brick school house at nine cents per cubic yard. The site chosen was in the city park, about in line with the south side of Public avenue, and four or five rods east of Cellege avenue. Gates & Company built the stone basement walls at nine dollars per cord and, with Stephen Downer, laid up the three story red brick walls at $1.80 per yard. October 29, 1851, the late board of Union District No. 1 were complimented for having erected a school building with only one-half as much of a debt for borrowed money as they had been authorized to incur. The whole cost was $4,312.71.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/11-beloit-schools.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 270 / book p. 247

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources