Ira Mersey, John Atchley and another began building a dam across Rock river at Beloit.

The evidence

• “The central bridge at Beloit had been built in the summer of 1842. In April, 1844, I moved to the west side of the river and built a stone house there, the second residence on the west side, at the northwest corner of Third street and E (now St. Lawrence avenue), later owned and occupied by Charles Hanson. From May 10, 1844, rain fell almost continually for fifty days and in July a steamboat came up the river, going on up to Jefferson. During that spring Ira Mersey, John Atchley and myself started building a dam across Eock river, but soon sold out to Hanchett and Lawrence, who chose the present location several rods further down stream, and completed a dam of logs and stone late that fall. I helped build Gaston's scale factory in November, 1844. Bennett Wooster came in 1844 and began farming about three miles east of Beloit. On farms winter wheat was the staple product, yielding from twenty to forty bushels per acre ; soon that began to fail and spring wheat took its place ; then followed the noted days of Hedgerow, which, with basswood lumber rafted from Watertown by John Hackett, was next to legal tender.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/06-history-of-beloit.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 166 / book p. 150

  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