A school was started in the basement of the Congregational church, in 1843 or 1844.

The evidence

• “He was followed by Hiram Hersey, Alfred Walker, Henry Brown and Samuel Clary in succession. In 1843 or 1844 a school was started in the basement of the Congregational church. This building had been erected in 1842, mainly by my father's efforts.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/11-beloit-schools.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 267 / book p. 244

  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

  

• “e of Beloit’s founders, Dr. Horace White, commissioned a planning map, known as the Kelsou Survey, which imagined the new city as he and other pioneers hoped it would be. Nestled among “Canal Street” and “Hydraulic Street,” appeared a “College Street.” Pioneers moving west from New England wanted familiar institutions, including mills, mercantile establishments, churches, and schools. The best Eastern cities also had colleges. Why not Beloit? The Beloit Seminary began instruction in 1843, housed in the basement of the Congregational Church, then located on the northwest corner of Broad and Prospect. It was an excellent preparatory school but it wasn’t yet a college. In June of 1844, a “Convention of Western Ministers and Churches” met at Cleveland, Ohio. Returning west on Lake Erie, some of the delegates gathered in a tiny stateroom on board the steamer, “Chesapeake,” including Stephen Peet and Aaron Lucius Chapin, later elected first president of Beloit College. Chapin recall”

  https://www.beloit.edu/live/news/2884-fridays-with-fred-the-building-of-beloit-college

  beloit.edu, https://www.beloit.edu/live/news/2884-fridays-with-fred-the-building-of-beloit-college

  Grade B: Found on an institutional web page