The chronology
The land through time
Every documented event, from the property outward: Beloit, Rock County, the region and the world. Each one links to the page of the source that records it. The record so far covers 1820–1864; more years are being added.
1838
The property
- 1838 The reminiscence's narrator took his first lessons raking and binding wheat in Caleb Blodgett's wheat field near Beloit during the harvest of 1838.
- December 30, 1838 The First Congregational Church of Beloit was organized at a meeting in the Blodgett house.
- Winter 1838 Little was heard of the Thebault family at the foot of Lake Koshkonong until towards spring, and the absence of the head of the Thebault family was noted.
Beloit
- Spring 1838 S. G. Colley came to Beloit and made a claim of 320 acres in Sec. 21, Range 13, building a little frame house in which eleven lived the first winter.
- 1838 Field & Lusk put up a large store on the corner of State and Race streets in Beloit, generally regarded as the first actual store in the village.
- 1838 The Lawrence family all came out and settled in Beloit; another brother, Clark, purchased land on Turtle Creek.
Rock County
- 1838 Ezra and Matilda (Taft) came to Rock County and settled on Section 2.
- July 15, 1838 James P. Pierce came to Wisconsin and settled in Rock County, his first purchase being eighty acres from the Government on Section 3 of Harmony.
- November 16, 1838 Henry B. and Lucinda Crandall came to Rock County and located on Section 28 [in Milton], claiming 240 acres (a related passage gives 320 acres in all).
The region
- November 26, 1838 R. P. Crane, acting for the Beloit settlers, entered at the Milwaukee land office under his pre-emption claim Lots 6 and 7 in Section 35, Town 1, Range 12 east (78.57 acres), then deeded the lots back to the original owners.
- August 13, 1838 A meeting was held at the house of Ansel Dickinson on Rock Prairie to organize a Congregational church; one passage dates it August 13, another August 16.
- 1838 B. Allyne located on Section 35, in 1837 or 1838 (the passages give both readings).
Nation and world
- June 18, 1838 Congress approved a land grant (the odd-numbered sections on a belt ten miles wide from Lake Michigan to Rock River, 139,190 acres) to aid construction of the Milwaukee–Rock River canal.
- June 16, 1838 A treaty with the Winnebagoes, concluded at Washington City, was proclaimed, by which the Winnebago Nation ceded all their land east of the Mississippi River.
- September 4, 1838 Churchill sold his claim on the prairie to Joseph Goodrich for $125 in goods out of Goodrich's store.