James Strong served as Janesville's first city superintendent of schools.

The evidence

• “Strong, notwithstanding many absences caused by sickness and outside work, graduated in 1858 at the head of his class. While at college, James was home chore boy, prep, tutor, college monitor, telegraph operator, town clerk (as such taking the town and village census in 1855), member of two quartettes, church chorister, ' secretary of the Choral Union, of the Library and State Teachers Association, and in 1856 was our first city superintendent of schools.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/34a-biographical-1.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 296 / book p. 795

  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