Joe Payne of Monroe brought the first mail to Janesville.

The evidence

• “During the spring of 1837 I was stopping with the Janes' here, who were friends of ours. One evening we heard a man call on the west side of the river, and myself and Aaron Walker came over with a ferry boat; he proved to be Joe Payne, of Monroe, with mail, the first mail ever brought here.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/08-i-t-smith-reminiscences.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 225 / book p. 205

  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