A union Sunday school was begun in Beloit, with surveyor John Hopkins as first superintendent.

The evidence

• “Smith from Hampshire, England, with their son Henry H., about fifteen years old, who is still living in Rock county. Other influential pioneers, who should be mentioned are, coming in 1839, John C. Burr, tinner, with his mother, Elizabeth ; Rice Dearborn from Vermont, Alexander Gordon from Maine, and John Hopkins, second deacon of the first Congregational church, which had been organized December 30, 1838, also the first superintendent of the first Sunday school, begun as a union school in October, 1839. But he is more widely known and will be longer remembered for his survey of the village of Beloit, which he made, evidently that same year, for Horace White and others, and which is our first recorded survey.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/06-history-of-beloit.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 159 / book p. 143

  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