Rock County, Wisconsin - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 3 of those read), 1908 (part 4 of 11)

(Dr. White soon moved to a board house on the west side of State street, about midM^ay between Broad and School streets, and that was their family home until he died there, December 23, 1843. This graphic incident of Horace White's childhood in Beloit is historic. Where the central bridge was built in 1842 the crossing of Rock river was provided for, several years before 1840, by a self-acting ferry. A large tree, jutting out from the bank at the north end of the public landing, north side of Public avenue, held the east end of the ferry rope, which was fastened at the other end to a similar tree on the west side of the river. The rectangular, flat-bottomed ferry boat was attached at both ends to this rope by two similar arrangements of rope and pulley and grooved wheel, one for each end of the boat, both wheels moving easily on the long ferry rope and affording a kind of moveable anchorage. When the west end attachment was shortened up, making that end of the scow point diagonally up stream, the force of the current would slowly push the boat across to the west bank. Then, after the wheel rope at the west end was lengthened and that of the other end shortened, causing the east end of the boat to point up stream, the current of the river flowing southward would gradually work the boat back to the east bank. This was a New England way of harnessing the stream, reproduced by the New England men here. One day when the ferry boat had been left at the east bank, unattended but duly arranged for return, little Horace jumped aboard and unexpectedly began to move out from shore. Our Horace, viewing that prospective voyage to foreign parts, felt something of the apprehension with which his Roman namesake contemplated a near voyage across the Adriatic, only instead of "'tomorrow we cross the great deep," with our Horace it was "right now." The future journalist, however, with instinctive appreciation of the value of a want ad, well published, at once raised his voice in unmistakable expression of desire for help. His ad was answered promptly. When the ferry boat reached the west bank a gentleman there, who had noticed the situation, met him with soothing assurances, readjusted the boat ropes for his return and, persuading him to stay on board, started it back. In a few minutes the friendly current had pushed the ferry boat to the east bank and little Horace, springing ashore after his foreign travel, no doubt ran home a happier and wiser lad.

One summer evening, in that same earliest era of Beloit life, another little boy, Webster Moore, about sunset was sent on an errand from his home (now 537 Public avenue) to the isolated and distant house of Alexander Douglass (now about 820 Park avenue) and lost his way. As he did not return the family and friends became alarmed, a large number of men searched for him through the woods with lanterns, and long after midnight he was found crying in despair on the thickly wooded bank of Turtle creek, about a mile northeast of his home.

During the editor's own boyhood here (1845-55) all that region of Beloit northeast of the corner of Chapin and Church streets was quite generally covered with a forest of burr oak and hickory as far as to the location of Clinton Babbit's Turtle creek farm, called Hemdoka, and indeed for half a mile north and northwest of that. Where Mr. Babbit 's house was located, about three-quarters of a mile northeast of Beloit college, Bradford CoUey claimed to have seen at an early day several Indian tepees or frames for wigwams, standing as the Indians had left them, and told Mr. Babbit they had belonged to some of Black Hawk's Indians, who called that place Hemdoka, "the camp on the bluff.")

Those early villagers, disliking the Indian name, Turtle, as too slow, and Blodgett's name for the settlement, New Albany, as too fast, in the fall of 1838 held at the Beloit house several public meetings for the purpose of choosing something better. As no agreement could be reached the matter was finally left to a committee of three. Mr. R. P. Crane, then in Florida, wrote to the Beloit "Journal" in February, 1878, that this committee consisted of Johnson, Hobart and himself. L. G. Fisher, Esq., of Chicago, in a letter published by the Beloit "Journal" March 28, 1878, said that the committee chosen were Major Charles Johnson, Horace Hobart and L. G. Fisher. Mr. William Jack, who was present when the name was reported, personally stated to the editor in Beloit in the year 1899, that Mr. Fisher was certainly a member of that committee. (There may have been two committees, appointed by different votes or parties of settlers.) L. G. Fisher states that the committee retired to a shanty nearby and, at first, one of them suggested that a name be made with letters of the alphabet drawn by lot. Major Johnson proposed Ballote, hinting that it was the French for beautiful. As many of the settlers had pleasant remembrances of Detroit, Mr. Fisher wanted a name which would sound like Detroit, and spoke the words, Balloit, Beloit. The latter name, approved in committee, was reported to the assembled settlers by Major Johnson and unanimously adopted. Rock county, formed by act of the Wisconsin territorial legislature December 7, 1836, derived its name from the famous "Big Rock" on the north side of Rock river at Monterey, in Janesville, which rock marked a fording place and was an old Indian landmark.

Our record of those earliest pioneers of Beloit, prior to the purchases of the New England Company, includes besides Caleb Blodgett and family and John Hackett, Major Charles Johnson, John Doolittle and the Goodhues, father and son William (our first mayor), also a family whom Blodgett persuaded to come from Meacham's Grove in January, 1837, Chauncey and Mrs. Tuttle with four sons, Chester, Frank, William and George. The last, who was then ten years old, is now living in his residence at the northeast corner of Church and Chapin streets, Beloit, hale and active yet. There were also a Mr. Delamater, Z. Jones and brother, and James Carter, a millright. The first members of the New England colony to arrive after R. P. Crane and 0. P.

Bicknell, who both came March 9, 1837, and Dr. AVhite. March 13, were Henry Mears and wife, April 15, with her sister Maria and brother Horace Clark coming a little later; Dr. George and Edward Bicknell, who arrived together in July, 1837, followed in the same month by Mrs. John Hackett, Alfred L. Field and Ira Hersey, who with their four ox team brought welcome supplies of meat and flour. Others sent out by the company and arriving that year were August 9. Horace Hobart (afterwards a deacon), Benjamin I. Tenney, Asahel B. Howe, wife and daughter, James Cass and wife, Mr. Israel C. Cheney and Mrs. R. P. Crane and her infant son, Ellery, coming with Thomas Crosby, wife and infant child, mother and brother. On his first arrival Mr. Crosby built himself a log cabin, the third house of the place, on the east bank of Rock river, where the east side paper mill afterwards stood, but soon moved with his family to the New England company's boarding house, which Mr. and Mrs. Crosby conducted during its first year. Mr. Crosby entered land about five miles directly east of Beloit, became a successful farmer and lived there on his farm to the age of eighty-seven. He was one of the early trustees of the First Presbyterian church of Beloit, of which his daughter, Cornelia, is still a member. His name was represented in the Wisconsin legislature of 1875 and for nine years in the chairmanship of our Rock County Board of Supervisors by his son, George H. Crosby, who is yet a member of that body.

In a twelve by sixteen shanty, which had just been built by Crane about five rods east of the northeast corner of present State street and St. Paul avenue, on Sunday, August 13, 1837, Horace Hobart conducted the first public religious service held in this community, a prayer meeting, the singing being led and the first prayer offered by Ira Hersey. One week later there was another religious gathering in the same place, at which Mr. A. L. Field read a sermon and led the singing. Similar services were held there August 27 and September 3, and then followed, the first public preaching service held September 10, in another place as described later.

During that same year, 1837, appeared other settlers, not connected with the New England company, among them Walter Warner, Benjamin Cheney, David Noggle, William Jack, Charles M. Messer, surveyor, and Bradford Colley with his widowed sister, Mrs. Ann Jane Atwood, skilled nurse of most of the pioneer babies (iiK-ludii)g the editor, boni here in 1845), aud who lived in Beloit until her death. December 7, 1903, at the age of ninetytwo years.

Early in 1838 came Samuel B. Cooper and family and John P. Houston (father of John E.), and Alfred Field's father, Peter R. Field, deacon of the church at Colebrook, N. H., with his wife, Hannah, and her sister, Mrs. Nancy Crane, mother of Robert P., also Samuel G. C^olley and wife and John Burroughs, teacher. In that year also Israel Cheney brought here his wife and five daughters, one being Mrs. Moore, carrying her infant son. Webster, and becoming next year the mother of Abbie, who is now Mrs. William B. Strong. The four blooming girls, Caroline (Mrs. Hill), Azuba (Mrs. Carr), Lovisa (Mrs. Dyer, of Chicago), and Lucena (Mrs. Rice Dearborn), while yet in their father's wagon, starting out from New England, were seen (he has told us), by young D. K. Pearsons as the teams stopped for a few moments at his father's door; their beauty made such an impression on his youthful mind that he afterwards inquired and learned where they had gone and so was first led to take that interest in Beloit which has been manifested since he became the wealthy Dr. Pearsons of Chicago, in such generous gifts to Beloit college. November, 1838, came Mr. and Mrs. 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. It was manifestly based, however, on the Kelsou survey, herein pictured, which had been started and probably finished in the fall of 1837. (I have learned that Hopkins used a somewhat worn chain, while the later surveyor. Rice, measured with a standard pole. This may explain the unpleasant fact that the two surveys do not perfectly agree, often differing several feet in a long block.)

Then in 1840 came the first pastor of the First Congregational church, Rev. Dexter Clary, who will be mentioned further in the account of churches, and in October arrived Benjamin Brown, of Framingham, Mass., with his bride of the same birthplace and her little daughter, Lucy, by a former husband. (As one illustration of that Puritan descent, which so many of those Beloit pioneers could show, we give here their full family record.)

[Benjamin BrowTi was of thoroughly New England and Puritan stock, derived from John Brown of Watertown, near Boston, who, April 24, 1655, married Hester Makepeace, of Boston, Mass. Their grandson, William Brown, of Lexington, Mass., 1723-1793, in 1747 served in the French and Indian war and that same year purchased a slave, Crispus Attucks, who having run away to Boston in 1760, was killed in the Boston massacre of March 5, 1770, the first blood shed in the Revolution.

In 1746 William had moved to Framingham, Mass., bought the outlet of Cochituate lake and built there a saw mill, a grist mill and one of the earliest fulling mills of New England. In 1772 and 1775 he was chairman of the Framingham Committee of Correspondence. He was a member of the First Provincial Congress, which at Concord, Mass., October 26, 1774, provided for enlisting companies of minute men ; was also a member of the Second Provincial Congress, meeting in 1775, and was elected annually as Framingham 's representative to the general court of Massachusetts from 1777 to 1785. In 1752 he had been made deacon of the second church of Framingham and was continued such until his death there in 1793.

Of his twelve children the eleventh, Ebenezer, married in 1788, Keziah Nixon, daughter of Captain (afterwards General) John Nixon, and their eighth and youngest child, born in Framingham, June 8, 1803, was this Benjamin.

His mother trained up her children to a strict keeping of the Sabbath from sundown of Saturday to the sunset of Sunday. Often on a hot Sunday afternoon in summer little Benjamin was' given Watt's Hymns and Pilgrim's Progress and ordered to his chair with a strict injunction to not get off it until the sun went down. The average New England boy of those times was a reversed Joshua with reference to the sun on that day. The instant that luminary disappeared in the west the boys would all rush

It is worthy of note that Benjamin's maternal grandfather, Jolui Nixon (1725-1815), eaptain of the Sudbury minute men, led his company and was wounded at the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1774, and as colonel led the Middlesex regiment at the battle of Bunker Hill, where he was wounded again. July 8, 1776, from a platform near the AValnut street front of the State House in Philadelphia, John Nixon read the Declaration of Independence to a vast concourse of people, the first public reading. He was made a brigadier, and also a salaried member of the first Continental navy board, November 6, 1776. At the battle of Saratoga, or Bemis' Heights, where he commanded a brigade, the near passage of a cannon ball impaired his hearing, but he continued in commission until 1780. One of his daughters married a farmer, named Warren, a relative of that celebrated patriot. Dr. Joseph Warren, the General Warren who was killed at Bunker Hill.

Deacon William's eldest son, Roger (born September 12, 1749), a Revolutionary captain, and a colonel, by commission from Governor John Hancock, dated July 12, 1790, married Mary Hartwell, of Lincoln, Mass. Their son, James, farmer, and captain of minute men (1784-1875), was married November 4, 1807, to Nancy Fiske (1789-1858), and lived his long life at Framingham. Mass., village of Saxonville. Their second child was Lucy Ann (November 20, 1809 - September 1, 1869), who first married Augustine Leland, a graduate of Brown university, 1834, and then, as a widow with a daughter, Lucy, was married May 14, 1840, to Benjamin Brown.

Note. - On a pleasant afternoon in June, 1812, when Captain James Brown and his man were ploughing on the home farm at Saxonville, twenty miles from Boston, a galloping horseman suddenly drew up in the road beside the field, shouting, "War declared with England! Minute men, turn out! The governor orders you to report to him on Boston common by noon tomorrow!" and rushed on. The captain took his horse from the plough, and with traces dangling rode him around to the different members of his company, directing them to gather at his house immediately after supper prepared for a march. They came as called, marched all night, and he reported to the governor at Boston before breakfast next morning, the first company

In the eighth year of King John of England, A. D. 1208, the name of Daniel Fise, of Laxford, is appended to a document issued by that king, confirming a grant of land from the Duke of Loraine to the men of Laxfield, a town about eighty miles northeast of London.

In the time of Henry VI. (1422-1-4G1), Symond Fiske, probably a direct descendant of Daniel, held lands in Laxfield parish. He was Lord of the Manor of Stadhaugh. (A haugh was a cleared field, and Stad, or Stead, means an established home. Hence our word homestead.) The Fiske armorial bore three gold stars with the significant motto, "Maete virtute sic itur ad astra" (Good doing leads upward), evidently derived from Virgil's ^neid, book IX., lines 640-641 (Literally: Forward with manliness. So one goes toward the stars). Below the shield is the name, Ffiske. Above it is a helmet in profile, which signifies that he was simply an Esquire. In the parish register of Laxfield, which begins with the sixteenth century, one of the earliest names recorded in 1519 is Elizabeth Ffyske.

The fourth in direct descent from Symond. Robert (and Sibil Gold) Fiske, lived at Broad Gates, Laxfield, eight miles from Framlingham, Suffolk county, England. (The termination, ingham, means "home of one clan.") Their son, William Fiske, born 1614, came to America with his brother John in 1837 and settled at Watertown, Mass. (John, who heads a separate group, located at Wenham or Salem.)

The Fiskes w^ere noted for their strong religious proclivities, inherited from English ancestors who had to flee from their native land to escape being beheaded or burnt at the stake.

At Laxfield in the evil days of "Bloody Mary," Rev. John Noyes was burned at the stake, and Foxe's Book of Martyrs says that he was visited on the evening before execution by his brother-in-law, Nicholas Fiske, an act which required more than ordinary courage. Another ancestor, John Fiske, after being hunted for nearly a year, escaped to America in disguise. Being a reverend graduate of Emmanuel college, Cambridge. England,

The second William Fiske (1642-1728), was for forty years a deacon in the Congregational church, of which Rev. John Fiske became the first pastor in 1679. William's son, Ebenezer, was a deacon, and his grandson, the third William Fiske, was a staunch Puritan, who moved to Amherst.

The eighth generation in direct descent from Symond was Nathan Fiske, of Watertown, Mass. ; the ninth, Nathaniel ; the tenth, John (1682-1740); the eleventh, Isaac (1714-1800), a weaver of Framingham, Mass.. who November 11, 1736, married Hannah Haven, of the same place. Their third child, John, 1741- 1819, a justice of the peace and representative, married Abigail Howe, and had ten children, of whom the eighth was Nancy, the mother of Lucy Ann, who became wife of Benjamin, mother of William Fiske Brown.

Note. - The youngest sister of Lucy, Nancy or Anna Fiske (later Mrs. Charles Washburn, of Worcester, Mass.), taught Greek and Latin and fitted young men for college. One of the boys whom she so taught in Worcester was Benjamin D. Allen, the very efficient choirmaster and professor of music in Beloit college, in 1900. Another was George W. Smalley of the London Times.

Miss Fidelia Fiske (a missionary at Ooroomiah, Persia), says that it explains our word fiscal. Much of the Danish government dues Avas collected in dried fish, and in Denmark quintals of fish were once used as currency. The revenue officer was therefore called "the Fiske." and the government revenue "Fiscal."

Note 3. - The one exception to the Puritan record of this family was Benjamin's older brother, William (1797-1846), a sea captain, who had two ships plying between New York and Vera Cruz, Mexico. He was a Free Thinker, and became a Roman Catholic Avhen he married a Spanish lady. Donna Maria Guardero, of Tabasco, Mexico, in which province he lived and died.

Note 4. - But from the Revolutionary record and loyalty of the family there has not been even one exception. The twelfth child of Benjamin's older brother, Joseph, of Saxonville (1793-1882), Captain William Henry Brown, of Natick, Mass. (born 1834, who served through the Civil War and led his men in twenty-three battles), furnishes me the following autograph letter of General John Nixon to General Heath, Avritten in September, 1776. Nixon was in command of Governor's island, in New York bay, but on the approach of the British fleet (August 30) had withdrawn his little garrison. This letter was evidently written when he was at Harlem Heights and about September 10, 1776, and is inserted as a part of authentic but unpublished American history:

My Dear Sir : You have no doubt observed that the enemy decamped last night from the heights to the northward of Flushing bay. About three or four regiments are now encamping on the hill to the westward of the bay, and opposite to the island which forms Hell Gate. Whether this body is that which decamped or one marched from Newton, we cannot determine. Certain it is their movements indicate an intention to land near you or at Harlem. Four boats were sounding the channel between Little Hell Gate and the opening to Harlem. Those appearances render it necessary that post should be taken on Morris hill this night, for reasons too obvious to be mentioned. (Morris' hill was near Harlem river at the present 169th street, New York city.) If you have not strength (of which advise us), we -yvill post some regiments there tonight, although it will weaken the middle division if a landing should be made below this evening. Whatever may be your determination, pray advise us of it in time. I have the honor to be your humble servant.

Note 5. - Captain William H. Brown's younger brother, Rev. John Kittridge BroAvn, a graduate of Harvard (born 1843, ordained at Stearns Chapel, Cambridgeport, Mass., October 16, 1872), has been for the last thirty-six years, and still is, a successful missionary of the American board to the Armenians at Harpoot, Turkey. During the terrible massacres there he and his family Avere providentially in this country, but they bravely went back to Harpoot the next year, and he is there now, 1908.

History of Framinghain, ]\Iass., by J. H. Temple, published by the town, 1887. Also, Report of the Brown Association, 1868, and the Fiske Genealogies, all the Historical Society Library, Madison, Wis. - "Seribner's Magazine," July, 1876, pages 289 and 300.]

Soon after his arrival in 1840 Benjamin Brown started a brick yard east of the village and opened a general store on the east side of Turtle (now State) street, about number 321, where he sold almost anything wanted except fresh meats. One day that winter a customer rushed into his little place, calling out, "Have you a pair of specs?" jMy father had one pair and handed them to him. Trying them on, he remarked, "I have just come through Freeport and Rockford and couldn't find a pair of spectacles in either village. But they told me that perhaps a Mr. Brown at Beloit might have them and here they are, exactly what I want." (In 1883 a farmer, having his plough sharpened in Beloit, said, "I bought the steel and iron for that plough forty years ago from a storekeeper here, named Brown, who made me pay high for it, but my plough is good yet.")

In that same year (1840) came also Horatio Burchard, farmer, from NcAv York, who located with his large family on the east bank of Rock river, a mile north of the village (where now the interurban line extends across.) He was one of the original trustees of Beloit seminary, begun in 1844, by Rev. Lewis H. Loss, which later became the preparatory department of Beloit college, and like his friend, Benjamin Brown, was of strong anti-slavery principles, not then popular. Brown, Burchard and Thomas Tuttle, in 1842, amid many jeers, voted the first free soil tickets ever ofl'ered in Beloit. A son, Horatio C. Burchard (1826-1908), studied and taught in Beloit, graduated at Hamilton college, New York, in 1850, became a lawyer, a member of the Illinois legislature, 1862 to 1865, and United States congressman from 1869 to 1879. He was then appointed director of the United States mint, an offiee to which his distinguished services in the interest of a safer currency gave a new degree of honor. His son, Edward L., graduated from Beloit college in 1891.

Then in 1841 arrived Charles Peck, builder, with his large family. May ], 1843. he finished John Hackett's residence, where the high school building now stands, the first house on the west side of the river. And from Michigan, also in 1841, we have

"I came to Beloit in October, 1841. The settlement had then about 300 inhabitants, all on the east side of the river. Through the winter I held a line of singing schools at Whitewater, Fort Atkinson. Milton, Beloit and Eockford. The winter was beautiful, with from six to ten inches of snow, but the next was the hard winter, with sleighing from the 9th of November to the 10th of April, 1843, and upon the 11th teams crossed Eock river on the ice. I was lost on Eock prairie November 17, 1842, in a storm with the snow two feet deep, which increased during the winter to four feet on the level, and cattle, horses, hogs and sheep perished with cold and hunger. 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. Barter became the rule and cash the exception. Wheat sold at 25 cents, corn at 10 to 15 cents per bushel, and oats the same. Work in harvest was from $1 per day to $1.50, according to muscle. Grain was cut with cradles. A good man and team got from $1.25 to $1.50 a day and board yourself. The Beloit & Madison railroad was graded in 1854 to Footville. I put on that road 20,000 ties between Beloit and Afton. The Eacine & Mississippi railroad, now the Western Union, was graded in 1856 and I delivered 20,000 ties for that road from Porter to Eoekton. When Beloit was organized as a

Here may titly be noted some of the first things of Beloit. The first large building erected was a temporary structure, a big lodging and boarding house, made in 1837 for the men who were building Blodgett's mill. It stood on ground now occupied by the Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, next south of where the Beloit house was afterwards built, and in it, September 10, 1837, Professor Whitman, formerly of Madison university. New York, a Baptist minister from Belvidere, 111., conducted the first public preaching service in the settlement, preaching morning and afternoon two most lugubrious sermons from Genesis 47 :9 and Job 4:1. The Beloit house, built by the New England company at the southeast corner of Turtle and Race (now State and St. Paul avenue), and the Rock River house, built by Mr. Blodgett about the same time at tlie northeast corner of Turtle and School streets (now State and East Grand avenue), were completed a little later. The first white woman settler was Mrs. Caleb Blodgett, who arrived in December, 1837, accompanied by her two daughters, thirteen and fifteen years of age. The first death was that of Horace Clark, before mentioned, which occurred, after a four days' illness, December 2, 1837. The first survey of the village, that of Mr. Kelson, was begun October 10, 1837. November 5 of that year Rev. William M. Adams, of Rockton, began regular preaching services here, and continued every two weeks until he organized the First Congregational church in the kitchen of Caleb Blodgett's home, later called the Rock River house, December 30, 1838. There John Burroughs taught the first school of the place during the fall and winter of 1838, though Mrs. Atwood had, prior to that time, taught a few boys at her home on Race street ; Lucian D. Mears, son of Henry Mears, was the first boy, born March 29, 1838, on the farm, two miles up the river, which his father had occupied as a "squatter," later known as the Peck farm. The first wedding was that of Harvey Bevedy and Mary J. Moore, who were married by Samuel G. CoUey, justice of the peace, in the winter of 1839. The first boy born in the village proper was a son of Selvy K. Blodgett; the first girl, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth, at the old Beloit house.

eember 18. 1838. who afterwards became the wife of William B. Strong. John Hackett, our first postmaster, opened the first store in his house at the southeast corner of State and School streets in the fall of 1837 ; the following year a larger store was built and opened by Messrs. Field and Lusk at the southwest corner of State and Race streets. David Noggle opened the first law office, followed by Hazen Cheney. At the first election, held in the fall of 1838, Horace Hobart was elected a justice of the peace. The first locomotive crossed the state line into Wisconsin at Beloit November 4, 1853. The first plate glass store front was that built by Benjamin Brown in the fall of 1871 at 328 and 330 State street.

The lives and characters of those first settlers of this place not only shaped the course of its early development but also in large measure determined its future destiny. Especially is this true of the members of the New England Company and their associates, most of whom were descended from Pilgrim or Puritan ancestors. With reverence, for God, love of home and country, respect for law, and aspirations for all that is enlightening and ennobling, they brought with them and wrought into the fabric and life of the young settlement those innate qualities the fruits of which are seen in the model homes, the college and public schools and various religious organizations, and in the spirit of patriotism and of independence and enterprise, which always have been and today are marked features of the city of Beloit.

From 181:0 to 1845 the growth of the town and the development of the farming community round about exceeded the expectations of the most optimistic and the need of a more complete village organization was felt by all. To this end a measure Avas introduced in the territorial legislature during the winter of the last-named year. February 24, 1846, that body passed an act incorporating the village of Beloit, and on Monday, April 7, next following, was held the first election of village officers.

The following were the first village officers chosen : President, Thomas A. Power ; trustees, Joseph Colley, Thomas Tuttle, Tyler H. Moore, Asahel B. Moore ; assessors, Charles M. Messer, AVilliam Stevens. Henry Mears ; constables, Otis P. Bicknell, Daniel Blodgett ; treasurer, John P. Houston ; clerk. John B. Burroughs.

William Stevens for six days' service as assessor. Thomas Tuttle, for repairing the schoolhouse, received $6.11, and A. F. Cutting, for tuition, $32. Mrs. Atwood's bill for teaching two months was $24. S. G. Colley and A. B. Howe received $1 each for service as judges of the charter election. C. H. and 0. P. Bicknell were paid $3, the record says, ''for hous room." (They didn't waste ink on silent letters.) The trustees were each paid $7 for services, the term not mentioned. The item for "attorney's fees" was $2.75, and $7 was paid T. A. Power for his report of January 17, 1846. The tax list that year, at one-quarter of one per cent tax levy, returned as the amount of taxes collected $205. Several entries of petitions and other papers were also made in the handsome writing of A. J. Battin, clerk pro tera. ("Free Press" of June 19, 1879.)

At that time the village contained all told 191 dwelling houses and a population of 569 males and 575 females, of whom only two of each sex were past sixty years of age. There were three public schools, a seminary for males and one for females, a branch of the American Bible Society, a Congregational, an Episcopalian and a Methodist church, and one literary association, two hotels, five lawyers, five doctors and one drug store, fifteen dry goods stores and a clothing store, one scale and pump, and one fanning-mill factory, two large grist mills and two sawmills. The village contained one hatter, five milliners and dressmakers and five tailors, two watchmakers, two millwrights, twenty masons and thirty carpenters, two tinsmiths, one gunsmith, a harnessmaker, a cabinetmaker, two stonecutters and one cooper, two stove stores, two groceries, an oil mill, a brick yard started by Benjamin Brown in 1841, a lime kiln, three paint shops, one carding mill and two iron foundries.

Of the population 340 were natives of New York, nearly 200 were born in Wisconsin, while Vermont contributed 177 and New Hampshire 195. Forty were born in Massachusetts, 24 in Connecticut, 6 in Rhode Island and 28 in Maine. Illinois furnished 21, Pennsylvania 32, Indiana 12 and Virginia 8. Sixty-eight were natives of England, 41 of Canada and 10 of Scotland. Ireland was the birthplace of 14, 4 came from Germany, and a few were natives of different southern states.

being of brick and stone construction. Notable among these was the beautiful home of Benjamin Brown, father of William F. Brown, D.D., who still lives here, which stood on the south side of the public landing at the southwest corner of Turtle and School streets (a couple of rods back from Nos. 328 and 330 State street fronts, as now built up), at the west end of School street, facing east. It was built in 1845, solidly of brick, two stories and attic, 44x24 feet in ground dimensions, having a conspicuous front portico suported by four tall Corinthian columns, and in all its appointments was for that date a model of artistic taste and architectural skill. The first Presbyterian Society was formed within its walls in 1849, and the hospitalities of its owner and his New England wife, a pure-minded Christian lady, were there dispensed with unfailing generosity until the house and surrounding stores were all destroyed by fire in 1871.

Of the church edifices that of the Congregationalists, built in 1842 and 1843 at the northwest corner of Broad and Prospect streets, was the most imposing, being constructed of hammered limestone, covered with a simple bell tower and having in front, as it faced south on Broad street, a spacious portico adorned with four Ionic columns, and steps the whole width of the front, leading directly up from the sidewalk. In the basement rooms of this building, entrance down several steps from Prospect street, Beloit Seminary, chartered in 1837, was housed from the time of its practical organization by Rev. L. H. Loss in 1844. There also the seminary was reorganized in 1846 by Sereno T. Merrill, who in 1847 taught there the first freshman class of Beloit College. That seminary was the school of Horace White and Horatio Burchard and of the editor when, at five years of age, he spoke his first "piece" there in 1850, the year when the First Presbyterian church edifice was finished, southeast corner of Broad and Pleasant streets. And, far more important fact, in the "old stone church," as it was called, August 7, 1844, met the first convention held to consider the question of organizing a college here.

The village had prospered, but there were now to be met and overcome grave difficulties pertaining to land title. In 1837, when the village was first platted, the land had not yet been even placed on the market by the government. Stringent laws prohibiting the preemption of lands for other than farming pur- poses, and especially for speculation in village lots, had been passed by congress, and the new settlers in their haste had gone ahead in direct opposition to these laws. To obviate this difficulty the leaders of the settlement conceived the idea, to which all interested readily assented, of having all join in a deed quitclaiming to Mr. R. P. Crane, in whom everybody had absolute confidence, all the land of the village, he to preempt it in his name and, after perfecting his title, reconvey to the others their several interests. This was done, and on November 26. 1838, Mr. Crane at the land office in Milwaukee entered under his preemption claim, lots 6 and 7, the southeast fractional quarter in section 35, town 1. range 12 east, containing seventy-eight and fifty-seven one-hundredths acres, as per government survey, and without waiting t(^ receive from the government his patent, deeded to the various parties their several lots and interests according to what was known as the Kelson survey, made in 1837 under direction of Dr. AVhite and others. Later it was discovered that a certain piece of ground bordering on the river, that had been set apart in the interest of navigation for a public landing, had not been reconveyed and the title, supposedly, remained in Mr. Crane. After the first bridge, a toll bridge, was built over the river by a private company in 1842 and given to the village in 1844. it was found advisable to lay out a street forming the approach to this bridge, across the northeast corner of lot 6, block 59, Hopkins' survey, property belonging to Benjamin Brown ; in exchange for the land thus taken, which Brown deeded to the village in 1846, the trustees of the village at the same time conveyed to him by warranty deed a portion of the public landing, that small corner of it which adjoined his land and was south of the new street, extending from what is now No. 356 East Grand avenue westward to the river, a rough guUey through which all the storm drainage of School street rushed down to Rock river. Later Mr. Brown filled it up with logs and about a thousand loads of gravel and on the land thns made built a row of small store buildings, facing the new bridge street and extending to the bridge, among them our first separate postoffice building, Mr. Bastian postmaster, 1852.

It was discovered soon after this date that the village had no title to the landing, it not having been reconveyed by Crane, and that he had^ quit-claimed it to a man named Gardner for

$50. Out of this arose the ejectment suit of Gardner vs. Tisdale and Tondro, the defendants being tenants of Brown. The case is reported in the second volume of Wisconsin Reports, page 153. In the supreme court Mr. Matthew H. Carpenter appeared for the plaintiff, while the defendants were represented by Messrs. Joseph A. Sleeper and John M. Keep; that tribunal held Brown's title invalid, the village having no authority to alienate land dedicated to public use, and that because of the irregularity of the dedication, and Crane's quit-claim to Gardner, the latter 's title was good. Mr. Brown then had a clear case of recourse on the trustees of the village of Beloit, yet for some reason never pressed his claim.

But this was only the beginning of troubles respecting the titles. As before stated, Mr. Crane had entered lots G and 7 November 16. ]838; the government patent was issued to him May 9, 1842, and before receiving the patent he had reconveyed the lands to the respective parties in interest.

From this fact it Avas argued by Mr. Carpenter, who discovered the irregularity while engaged in the case cited, that the title to lots 6 and 7 was invalid and consequently the titles of all concerned were clouded and jeopardized. On January 22, 1855, Mr. Crane executed a deed to one Samuel B. Cooper, who in turn conveyed the village property to Jared L. Demmon, and he executed a deed to Mr. Carpenter's father-in-law, Governor Paul Dillingham of Vermont, the last conveyance being dated April 23, 3855. At that time Mr. Lucius G. Fisher held the title to lots at the northwest corner of Public avenue and Pleasant streets under a deed from a Mr. Kearney, to whom Crane had deeded them before receiving his patent. To test the validity of the title to these lots the suit of Dillingham vs. Fisher was started and tried in the circuit court of Rock county, resulting in a victory for Fisher. It was then, November, 1856. taken to the supreme court of AVisconsin on a writ of error. Governor Dillingham being represented by Mr. Carpenter and Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan, Rufus Choate preparing the complainant's brief and Mr, Fisher being represented by James R. Doolittle, assisted by Daniel Cady, a celebrated authority on real estate law, of Johnstown, N. Y., and Abraham Lincoln, who prepared a brief for the defendant. Judge C. J. Whiton of the Wisconsin supreme court affirmed the finding of the lower court (5 Wis. 475).

Dillingham promptly carried the case by Matthew H. Carpenter to the supreme court of the United States, whence it was afterwards withdraAvn by the complainants without trial on account of a decision by Judge David Davis of that tribunal adverse to Mr. Carpenter's theory, in a case involving the same question, which was brought thither from Louisiana.

Naturally there was intense anxiety during this period of suspense on the part of all whose titles were involved and who were awaiting the outcome of these proceedings ; several citizens bought new titles to their lots from Dillingham, and a great relief was felt throughout the community when his claim was abandoned and the property holders at last felt themselves secure in their possessions. Nor was it to be wondered at that a general feeling of bitterness, that found expression in threats of personal violence, prevailed against the lawyer who was held responsible for all the trouble.

Journalism in Beloit will be treated in a separate chapter, but we may say here that it began with the publication of the Beloit "Messenger" by Cooley & Civer on September 4, 1846. The first issue of the Beloit "Journal" was issued by Stokes & Briggs June 28, 1848, their office being on Broad street east of State ; ten years later it was edited and issued by our well-remembered editor, B. E. Hale. The "Free Press," founded in February. 1866, by Cham Ingersoll, first appeared as a daily February 1, 1879. The city editor from the beginning, and still in harness, is Albert F. Ayer.

According to No. 24 of the Beloit "Journal," dated December 6, 1848, Mr. George Stearns then reported the population of the village alone as being 1,678, of whom 1,131 lived on the east side of the river and 547 on the west side. There were 271 dwelling houses, eighty-eight of which were of brick or stone.

The ten years next succeeding the incorporation of the village were marked by a steady increase of population, a corresponding substantial growth in commercial, industrial and manufacturing enterprises, and a forward movement along all lines looking to the development of the educational and moral interests of the place. There were now - 1855 - in Beloit, according to the census taken by James W. Strong, 4.241 inhabitants, 2,235 on the east side of the river and 2,004 on the west side of the river; the number, of churches had been doubled to six; two college buildings had been erected; the dwelling houses numbered 583 ; and during the year ending with June, 1855, the output of manufactured products amounted to $418,812 in value.

The question as to the advisability of taking on the dignity and powers of an incorporated municipality, which for some time had been discussed among the people of the village, now began to assume definite shape ; and finally in March, 1856, the state legislature passed an act incorporating the city of Beloit. Under the powers thus given its corporate existence began on the first Tuesday of May of that year, the city government being vested in a mayor and common council, comprising twelve aldermen. These, with a city treasurer, a public magistrate and two justices of the peace, were chosen at the first election under the charter, held on the first Tuesday of April, 1856, and annually thereafter; at their meeting next succeeding this election the council elected a city clerk, a nmrshal and one constable for each of the four wards of the city. The first mayor was Mr. W. T. Goodhue, who served one year. S. 0. Humphrey was the first city treasurer, and W. H. Sherman was elected by the common council as the first city clerk. The corporate seal adopted bears in the center the figure of a locomotive within a triangle formed by the words "Industry," "Enterprise" and "Prosperity," this in turn being encircled by the words "City of Beloit, Incorporated March 31, 1856."

The Goodhue family did much for Beloit and should be remembered with respect. The Hon. Charles Frederick Henry Goodhue was for many years a member of the Canadian parliament and lived at Sherbrooke, Quebec, with three sons and two daughters. In the summer of 1835 or 1836 the oldest son, George, with his uncle, Tyler H. Moore, came west by lake to Chicago, where they purchased the present site of the Tremont House, going thence to Belvidere for a short time. George's father, being wealthy, sent money to him and to the boy's uncle to invest in western property, and in 1837 himself came West and joined them. William, being then fourteen years old and having just recovered from scarlet fever, was advised by the family doctor to go also. In May, 1837, he made the trip around the lakes alone and met his brother George on the wharf at Milwaukee, whence both went to Chicago.

then to Roekford, 111., where his father and uncle had made investments, and thence in August, 1837, came with them to Beloit, where they built the first store block, and William, as clerk, sold the first yard of calico ever offered in Beloit. In Beloit the Goodhues built (with Blodgett) a sawmill and soon after a framed flouring mill, just west of it on the race, the first built in the then territory of Wisconsin. During the panic of 1837 they permitted their Chicago property, located as they said in a mudhole, to be sold for taxes.

In the fall of 1838 the rest of the family moved to Beloit and William's mother and his sister Clarissa, later Mrs. Dr. Evans, were the first communicants of the Beloit Episcopal church, while his father belonged to its first vestry. The firm of Goodhue & Co., consisting of the father and his three sons, was at one time considered one of the strongest firms of the Northwest. They OMmed much pine land in northern Wisconsin, and while Beloit was the home, their business extended from the pinery all the way to St. Louis.

After leaving his clerkship William T. Goodhue became the financial manager of the firm, constantly engaged in journeys Lip and down the river. When the father died in November, 1855, the three brothers continued the firm and, though the panic of 1857 involved them in loss, kept on imtil 1869.

In 1856 William T. Goodhue was elected first mayor of the new city of Beloit. March 17, 1859, he was married to Miss Carrie Pond, of Buffalo, N. Y. In later life, while engaged in the grain and flour business, he was largely influential in securing to Beloit the early opening of railway connection. He sold to both railroad companies the lands on which their depots were built and was for many years one of the directors of the Western Union railway. George Goodhue, of Stevens Point, and Mrs. Dr. Bicknell, of Beloit, were the last survivors of the original family who came in 1838.

Mayor "Bill" Goodhue, as he was familiarly and affectionately called, died April 19, 1879, and among the throng of attendants at his funeral were eleven ex-mayors - A. P. Waterman, Charles H. Parker, Henry P. Strong, S. J. Todd, R. H. Mills, B. C. Rogers, S. J. Goodwin, D. S. Foster, H. N. Davis, C. F. G. Collins and 0. C. Johnson. He was a Free Mason, and that fra-

The second mayor of Beloit, elected in 1857 and reelected for 1858, was Anson P. Waterman, w^iose benignant countenance we present herewith. Beloit was .started as a "no license" city, and we needed a man of his high principle and staunch character to maintain that stand. Anson P. Waterman was born at South Ballston, Saratoga county, N. Y., January 15, 1819, of David and Phoebe Hollister Waterman, both parents being devoted Christians. His father, a farmer, served in the War of 1812. and his grandfather, of English descent, was a lieutenant colonel in the Revolutionary War, commissioned by Governor George Clinton of New York June 16, 1778. The boy, Anson, attended public school until he was twelve, worked in a store five years, clerked in another store, hardware, at Schenectady, N. Y.. until 1840. and then had a hardware business of his own at Phelps. Ontario county, N. Y.. until his removal to Beloit, Wis., in 1854. December 81. 1840, he married Miss Jennie A. Hubbell, and their children - Belle (Mrs. B. D. Lee) and Annie (Mrs. C. E. Whitman), both of St. Louis, and Jennie S., wife of C. S. Gregory, Beloit - are still living.

Mr. Waterman continued his hardware business here, with John B. Gordon partner after 1866, until 1880. His interest in a heavy hardware business in St. Louis took him to that city and kept him there most of the time from 1876 to 1889, when he came back to Beloit to stay. He was the second mayor of Beloit and served for two years, being elected on the Republican ticket for the years 1857 and 1858. Although the liquor interest was quite strongly intrenched just across the state line in Illinois, Mr. Waterman gave us a vigorous administration and duly maintained and increased the city's character for temperance and good order.

For more than twenty years Mr. Waterman served on our board of education. He was one of the original members of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, now of Milwaukee, but organized in 1861 at Janesville, Wis., and was a trustee from the beginning and as long as he lived. Of Beloit College he was a trustee from 1856 to 1902 and was its treasurer from 1869 until his departure from Beloit in 1877. On his return in 1889 he was again elected and later served as assistant treasurer of the college up to the last year of his life. In the First Presbyterian church of Beloit his memory is and always will be cherished as that of a Barnabas, rich in good Avorks. He was a member of the session of the church, reelected as elder term after term for about thirty-seven years, and during most of that time served also as treasurer of the society. It is not too much to say that in various critical periods of its life the continued progress if not the very existence of that church was due to his wise counsels and his personal generosity and devotion. His earnest religious feeling, staunch Calvinistic faith and constant liberality made him in the Westminster church, which he started, and also in this First church, the most valued, the leading member.

In 1890 Mr. and Mrs. Waterman celebrated their golden wedding, and in 1900 their sixtieth anniversary, in comparative health and comfort. Mr. Waterman enjoyed the full powers of active life up to almost the end of it and after only about a week's real illness quietly passed away at his residence, 516 College avenue, Beloit. January 8. 1902.

The main business street of that Beloit of our first mayors is well portrayed in a paper written December 25, 1907, by Hon. Ellery B. Crane, of Worcester. Mass., son of our pioneer, R. P. Crane. Mr. Crane is secretary of the Worcester Society of Antiquity and has a collection of Beloitana which he has been gathering for forty years and which should be adequately published while he is living to supervise the work. His paper, slightly corrected and condensed by the editor, is here given under its title :

The sober-minded, cautious New Englanders who established the settlement drew to themselves chiefly those of their kind, or at least persons thought to be in harmony with themselves in attempting to build up an honest, industrious, moral community.

During the period of early Beloit the main business thoroughfare was Turtle street, later known as State street, and fifty years ago all the mercantile trade centered there. And it may be of interest to some people wishing to contrast the present with the past to know, who were doing business on that street fifty or more years ago.

Beginning at the south end, where members of the New England Emigrating Company first made their entrance to the place, there was almost continuously a blacksmith shop either on one side or the other side of the street, and near the old millrace. Among those in business fifty years ago were Charles and Isaac Bates. On the west side there had been a saloon for many years, with of course different managers.

[That saloon was evidently just across the line in Illinois. Fifty years ago Beloit was a temperance city and did not allow any saloons within its borders. Another of those early blacksmiths was Hiram Hill, of whom the First Presbyterian church bought their church lot. One of his workmen was Comrade Charles G. Turney. who came to Beloit in May, 1841. and is living here yet.]

Now that the visitor has been introduced, let us proceed northward on the east side of the street. Not far from the millrace stood Goodhue's boarding house. Then came John C. Burr's tinshop; this building had various occupants. Next came the home of Mrs. Crandall, who kept a millinery store in the front room. A little more than fifty years ago she removed to the old schoolhouse on Race street, now St. Paul avenue.

William Russell, the painter, lived and had a shop in the rear of the Burr tinshop. But all these buildings mentioned as once standing on State street have been removed and the grounds used for railroad purposes. Next in order came the old Beloit House, long known as one of the best public houses in the then Far West. Fifty years ago it was kept by E. N. Lewis, southeast corner of State and Race, or St. Paul avenue.

At the corner, north side of Race street, was the residence of R. P. Crane, the home for many years of the writer of this article. Next north was the office of Dr. George W. Bicknell; then Crane's stone block, where Matthew Carpenter first had his law office in Beloit. Then we had C. 0. Greene's billiard rooms.

Knickerbocker Ice Company, of Chicago, recently told me this story about that building: His father, Spafford Field, suspecting that his two step-sons, the Cooper boys, might be playing billiards there, would send Johnny to find out. He would go, thrust his head inside the door with his eyes shut and, returning to their home just around the corner on the north side of Broad street, would report that he hadn't seen them. Then if Spafford himself came to investigate the boys would pass out by a side door to an outside stairway leading down to the top of a onestory house next south and by another stairway to the street, and so would be at home when the old gentleman returned. I have a cut showing that stairway and all those buildings in 1855. On the first floor, said Mr. Field, was the fruit store and ice cream restaurant of J. K. Armsby, who afterwards removed to Chicago and became one of its largest and wealthiest fruit dealers. This Mr. Armsby came to Beloit in 1862. Later he traveled for a Madison firm until 1873, when he went to Chicago and through his own firm, the J. K. Armsby Company, handled canned fruit and did more than any other man in placing California fruit on the world's market. Before he died in 1894 their trade amounted to several million dollars aniiually. His motto was "Pluck wins." After the San Francisco earthquake and fire that firm's building was the first business house rebuilt and occupied. - Ed.]

Then a tailor shop, once occupied by Dud Brown, who after a long respite has returned to clothe the needy; then Carey & Gordon's drug store. Next came Hoskins' shoe shop, then Hollister's grocery, and I think that Tibals & Stocking were there also. George Stocking's harness shop carried us to the southeast corner of Broad street.

[Hanchett's block, begun in October, 1856. was finished in 1857 and stood on the site of Mr. Battin's house, yard and peach trees at the northeast corner of Broad and State streets. One day ]\Ir. Battin asked J. B. Dunbar to buy his place for $4,000. Mr. Dunbar replied that he would think of it. Next day he said to him, "I'll take it." "But I sold it last evening." replied Battin: "sold to L. G. Fisher for .$9,000 in Racine railroad bonds." Mr. Battin lived to regret many times that he had not taken the $4,000 in cash, for those railroad bonds proved the ruin of almost all who invested in them. Mr. Battin among the number. In

In a one-story wooden building north of the corner of Broad street was a store which I think was that of Webster & Rogers ; north of that came the shoe store of William H. Allison, which was later carried on by Liberty Rawson and Isaac Thayer and others. Pentland & Harmon began their grocery business on State street about 1849, and Mr. Pentland is with us yet. (Strong & Bishop, early grocers, were on Broad street.) Several small one-story wooden buildings stood along that side of the street, one a printing office for a while, and a book store. Then came the stone block of stores extending to School street. In early days these stores were occupied by Mr. Poole, Manchester & Wadsworth, N. Powell, A. Baldwin and others. On the opposite side of School street stood the Bushnell House, Pierson & Janvrin proprietors. This house was built by Prof. J. J. Bushnell on the site of the old Rock River Hotel, which was made by adding on to the house built by Caleb Blodgett and to which he removed when he left the log house the Indians helped him to erect in 1836.

[That Rock River House was moved to the southeast corner of State street and Public avenue and carried on as a hotel by Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Dunbar during the two years, 1853 and 1854, when the Bushnell House was being built. Then Mr. Dunbar for the next two years kept the Bushnell House. After he had left the old Rock River House it was occupied by B. E. Hale as a paper warehouse. There young Lucius G. Fisher (now of Chicago and president of the famous $27,000,000 paper bag and box combine) first learned that business. Still later that old Rock River House was used as a seminary for girls.]

Crossing to the west side of State street, proceeding south, we have Benjamin Brown's block of stores, occupied, I think, by W. H. Calvert, Mr. Thayer, grocer, and the shoe firm of Merriam & Eaton. This J. W. Merriam is now a resident of Worcester, Mass. Benjamin Brown's fine residence stood a little back from the street, about three rods, and at what is now Nos. 328 and 330 State, that block of wooden stores being north of his front yard. Next south of that yard was a two-story wooden building in which, 1 am told, he carried ou a general mercantile trade (his second place of business) until he closed up his storekeeping about 1848. Later it was Simm's drug store, and Dexter 's watch repairing occupied one front wdndow. Then 'came A. P. Waterman's hardware store and T. W. Laramy's grocery, and next Day & Andrew's fruit and candy store, with those well-remembered ice cream parlors in the second story; and south of that W. H. Sherman's jewelry store, still occupied with the same business by Mr. A. L. Howard ; then came Wright & Newcomb, book and stationery dealers, the former being the father of Prof. T. L. Wright, now of the college here; C. Thompson's grocery store; H. R. Moore & Son, dry goods; David J. Bundy and Alfred Field's drug store; then the Stone block of stores reaching to Broad street, in the latter being Clinton Babbitt, Fisher, Bundy & Cheney, also L. G. Fisher and A. O. Winchester, hardware dealers.

Crossing Broad street, we come to Thomas McElheny's tailor shop, later C. F. G. Collins' drug store, Nelse Howard's restaurant, Smith & Rust, grocers; E. D. Murray, dry goods; Benjamin Selleck, hats, caps and furs; A. W. Peters and Jones' Photograph gallery ; old store of Howe & Willard, which stood next south of that of Benjamin Durham. Then came the office of W. C. Spaulding, p]sq., and it was the postoffice when he was postmaster; it was also where L. C. Hyde started in the banking business. At the corner of Race street was A. P. Willard 's watch and clock repair shop. Mr. Willard was in Beloit as early as 1841, and for a time lived in the house of Samuel B. Cooper, Esq., on School street ; later Mr. AVillard removed to the Hopkins house on Race street, at that time the next one east of R. P. Crane's liouse. This one-story building was used in after years for the sale of groceries, lunch-room, etc.

On the corner south of Race street was E. D. Murray's stone block. This corner had been since the beginning of the settlement the business center for trade. On this site once stood the store of Messrs. Field & Lusk, who as early as 1841 kept the largest stock of goods for sale in the town. Mr. Field was the second postmaster in the town and during his administration the postoffice was there. For many years Mr. Murray furnished the principal hall open to the public. In the hall on the top floor of his block all the great concerts and parties were held fifty or more years ago. Next south were Collins & Son, druggists ; then A. B. Carpenter's residence adjoining his store; next came John Hauser, the baker. When Mr. Hauser first came to Beloit he worked for a baker named Borngesser, who had a shop just west of the building known as Brooks' mill, east of Mechanics green. Borngesser went away with a party bound for the gold fields of California in 1849. Dr. G. W. Bicknell, a Mr. Hackett and Mr. Thomas were members of that party. Borngesser was killed on the way while crossing the plains. John Hauser about 1848 started in business for himself in the south basement of R. P. Crane's stone block, where he established a bakery. After a few years he removed to the location assigned him on the Avest side of State street, where he passed the remainder of his life.

Next south was the Goodhue block, and the store, a wooden building early built by the Goodhue family. William T., son of Charles, was the first mayor of Beloit, elected in 1856.

Frank Salisbury's cofl:ee house was the last place on the west side of the street, with the exception of one or two saloons or a blacksmith shop, to which attention was called at the beginning of my story. At Frank Salisbury's coffee house patrons were usually well treated, and the genial Wash Salisbury was ever in good spirits, and he could handle the snare drum quite well - not, however, equal to "Old Wilk."

As population increased the city affairs in all departments grew in number, size and complexity, and need for more complete protection against local crime was everywhere felt. To meet this want an amendment to the city charter was secured in 1868 authorizing the establishment of a police court with both criminal and civil jurisdiction, the latter being the same as that of justice of the peace. This, however, was changed by act of legislature in 1869 limiting the civil jurisdiction to cases involving not to exceed $100. Mr. Alfred Taggart, a Beloit College alumnus and a graduate of Harvard Law School, was elected first police magistrate in the spring of 1868 and filled that office by reelections till his resignation in the early summer of 1874,

Situated in the heart of a rich farming community, peopled with intelligent, progressive and resourceful men, and surrounded with wellnigh limitless natural resources, Beloit early became the home of numerous industrial and manufacturing enterprises that have thrived and developed Avith the passing years until some of them have attained a world-wide influence and reputation. Without giving full details w^e may here fitly mention the origin of several that have entered largely into the industrial life of the place, leaving the record of latest development to the chapter on Manufactures.

For nearly half a century the manufacture of paper has been a prominent and leading Beloit industry. As early as 1856 Messrs. Wright and Merrill established the Beloit Paper Mills Company, which was followed two years later by the Rock River Paper Company, the tw^o continuing separately until 1868, when they were consolidated under the corporate name of the Rock River Paper Company, with Mr. S. T. Merrill president, A. L. Chapin vice-president, H. F. Evans treasurer and J. M. Cobb secretary and superintendent. This plant was on the east side of the river.

About the same time Messrs. T. L. Wright and S. T. Merrill started at Rockton, 111., what became widely known as the Northwestern Paper Company, Mr. Wright president, with headquarters at Beloit, W. H. Wells vice-president and J. C. Newcorab secretary and treasurer, with offices in Chicago, which city was made the chief distributive point of both these concerns.

In 1871 was established the wholesale paper mill establishment of Booth, Hinman & Co., east side, which in a few years grew to large proportions. The F. N. Davis Manufacturing Company came into existence in 1875, and its products, comprising building paper, waterproof paper boards, pails, barrels, carpeting, etc., soon became widely known. Then there was the Beloit Straw Board Company, whose large product of building paper found ready market throughout the Northwest. Their buildings were at the west end of the dam.

The Merrill & Houston Iron Works, organized as a stock company in 1873. was the outgrowth of a business established by Mr. 0. E. Merrill in I860; besides paper mill and other machinery of a similar nature these works turned out the celebrated Houston turbine water-wheel, an invention of George Houston, as a special product.

As early as 1849 Messrs. Parker and Stone began the manufacture of farming implements in connection with general jobbing work ; the business steadily grew and in 1855 Avas incorporated as the Parker & Stone Reaper Company, which came to rank among the leading manufacturing industries of the city, a special product of the business being the Appleby twine binder, invented by a Beloit man.

As a manufacturer of paper engine roll bars, combination and regular sheet steel plates, and nearly every description of cutters and knives, R. J. Dowd was the pioneer in the West ; and the business formed here by him in 1877 under his masterful management has grown to large proportions.

In 1860 Mr. John Thompson, carrying on a general blacksmithing trade, manufactured three plows ; this was the beginning of the business of J. Thompson & Co., manufacturers of the Norwegian plows, sulky plows, riding cultivators and kindred products in that line, whose superior quality and extensive sales gave the firm high rank among the city's substantial industries.

The factory established by Mr. James Gray for making sash, blinds, doors, moldings, etc., passed into the hands of Mr. W. J. McDonald in 1878 and filled an important place in the industrial life of the city.

As early as 1844 Mr. N. B. Gaston began here the manufacture of scales, coming from New York, where he started in 1842. The preceding six establishments were also on the west side.

The John Foster Company, east side, an outgrowth of the business established by Messrs. Foster and Chapman in 1870, has shown a marvelous advance and its product of ladies' fine shoes has attained a more than national reputation for substantial worth and artistic merit.

The glove and mitten factory of Messrs. H. J. Leonard & Co. was begun on a small scale by Mr. H. K. Leonard; but in 1866 the business was reorganized and equipped with facilities for making every kind of fur, kid, buck, sheep, calf and cloth gloves and mittens, and then took its place among the prosperous manufacturing concerns of the city. It is now the Beloit Glove and Mitten Company, conducted by G. Elmer Thompson, manager.

Nothing better illustrates the progressive spirit that has entered into the industrial life of Beloit than that shown in the development of what was formerly the Eclipse Windmill Company. As stated in the sketch of Rev. L. H. Wheeler, published elsewhere in this work, this industry originated with him while yet living at the Odanah Indian mission in northern Wisconsin. There in the year 1865 Mr. Wheeler contrived a rude self -regulating pumping windmill for raising water, to obviate the necessity of carrying it by hand from the nearby ravine. The history of this invention was marked at first by failures and partial successes and struggles with poverty; but after Mr. Wheeler's removal to Beloit, whither he brought his family, in 1866, on account of its superior educational advantages, his sons and others formed the Eclipse Windmill Company, w^ith Mr. S. T. Merrill president and Mr. Charles B. Salmon secretary and manager. This was in 1873, and bj'^ 1876 the business had made a successful start and was prominently advertised at the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876. In 1880 Messrs. Merrill and Salmon retired from the company, Mr. W. H. Wheeler became president, and the scope of the business was greatly enlarged and the name changed to Eclipse Wind Engine Company. The friction clutch business and engine-making were added and the name made, Williams Engine and Clutch Works. Between 1880 and 1890 the plant was twice rebuilt, Beloit citizens contributing $10,000 towards the improvement. Before 1893 Mr. Charles H. Morse, of Chicago, became prominently identified with the work and, after adding several important lines of manufacture, in 1893 and 1894 finally consolidated the various interests as Fairbanks, Morse & Co., of which company the various buildings and yards now cover fifty acres of land.

Then mention might be made of the flour and feed firm of Messrs. Blodgett & Nelson, west side, which was organized in 1857, succeeding to the business of Mr. Hackett, who built his mill in 1848: also the old Brooks mill, built on Turtle creek about 1859, called the stone mill, and later owned by W. J. Mc- Donald ; the Racine Feet Knitting Company, South Beloit, which turns out 500 pairs of hose and Racine feet per day; the Berlin Machine Works, described later, which employs about 1,000 men, has an annual payroll of more than $600,000. and turns out annually machinery valued at nearly $2,000,000; the Beloit Iron

Works, which holds the world's record in the buildiug of papermaking machines; the Mattison Machine Works, being one of the two concerns in the United States which manufacture special machinery for turning table legs, columns, spindles, balusters, etc. ; the Beloit Foundry Company, a comparatively young concern, with prospects of a bright future; the Beloit Concrete Stone Company ; Lipman Manufacturing Company ; Davis Sand Company; Atwood-Davis Sand Company; Warner Instrument Company ; Barrett ^lanufacturing Company ; C. H. Besley & Co. ; and scores of other manufacturing concerns and firms, any of which would furnish material for a chapter of interesting reading.

Of Beloit 's public utilities, comprising the gas, water and electric light service and plants, all of which, unsurpassed in the character and quality of their modern equipments, have recently been merged in one company, only words of commendation can be spoken, and nothing more fittingly represents the enterprising and progressive spirit of the city. The Hendley family were the pioneers in gas and the Salmons in Beloit waterworks.

Of the banks of Beloit a full presentation is made in the general chapter on Banks and Banking. It is enough to say that we have three strong banks besides our millionaire Beloit Savings Bank.

FVom the time of its early settlement down through all its periods of change and growth the matter of education has been of paramount interest to the citizens of Beloit, who have always willingly made the sacrifices and provided the money required in order to supply schools suited to the times and to the needs of the community. Associated with the early establishment of the public schools and with their oversight and conduct through all the varying vicissitudes of the early and later years are the names of men and women whose very lives were inwrought with the material and educational development of the city ; and though most of them have passed away, their works endure and their lives and names are held in memory as those of the city's public benefactors. We consider them in a separate chapter on Schools. Nor has this educational spirit, even outside of our famous college, failed to keep pace with the marvelous material development of the city during recent years, as is evidenced by the magnificent monuments of brick and stone, models of architectural beauty, in which, out of 4,438 children of school age, 3,256 are enrolled and 2,700 boys and girls are daily receiving instruction from as able a body of teachers as can be found anywhere ; to say nothing of the commodious kindergarten buildings connected with various schools, in which are trained those too .young to enter the primary grades. We are just now (1908) building a $130,000 addition to the high school; but this subject is more fully presented in the chapter on Schools and Colleges.

Eeferring, however, to the educational spirit that has always prevailed, it may not be out of place to speak here of early influences other than the regular school course that have wrought to this end. Chief among these was the Archaean Society of Beloit College, organized by students of that institution in the fall of 1848 with the purpose, as expressed in the preamble of its constitution, of improving its members in public speaking and composition, of upholding right principles and promoting the general cause of literary improvement. How well it served these ends is seen in the lives of many of its early members and the high places they have assumed and ably filled; as, for example, Stephen D. Peet, editor of the "American Antiquarian," Chicago; Lucien B. Caswell, who went to congress from the Second Wisconsin district ; Harlan M. Page, who became editor of the "Wisconsin State Journal"; Edward F. Hobart, for seven years editor of the "Western Magazine," and Horace Hobart, now editor of "The Railway Age," Chicago; Peter McVickar, who became president of Washburn University, Topeka ; John B. Parkinson, who was made professor of political economy in the Wisconsin State University ; Jonas Bundy, editor the New York "Mail and Express"; Emerson W. Peet. president of the National Life Insurance Company of the United States; 0. A. Willard, who edited the Chicago "Evening Post"; George E. Hoskinson, connected with the Green Bay "Gazette" and later United States consul to Jamaica; E. C. Towne, a noted Unitarian minister; R. J. Burdge, state senator; J. A. Johnson, congressman from California; Horace White of '53, famous editor of the Chicago "Tribune" and later of the New York "Evening Post"; Charles W. Buckley, who went to congress from Alabama; James W. Strong, president of Carleton College, Minnesota, for twenty-five years; Alexander Kerr, professor of Greek in the State University,

Madison, Wis. ; later, Thomas C. Chamberlin of '66, who became president of that university, is now dean of geology in Chicago University and has recently been elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ; Arthur H. Smith, '67, noted missionary in China ; Thomas D. Christie of '71, president of St. Paul's Institute, Tarsus. Asiatic Turkey; Edward D. Eaton, president of Beloit College; E. M. Hill, principal of Congregational College of Canada, Montreal; C. Frank Gates, president Roberts College, Constantinople ; Booth M. Malone, '77, judge, Denver. Colo. ; George B. Adams of '73, professor of history, Yale, and now president of the American Historical Association ; also Louis E. Holden of '88, president of Wooster University, Ohio; Von Ogden Vogt, assistant secretary for U. S. Presbyterian Home Missions ; and scores of others who have taken honorable places in the various professions and walks of life, as the record of Beloit College shows. The plan of the society was changed in the winter of 1859 to comprise two organizations known as the Delian and the Alethean, and the name was changed to Archiean Union. From the first a part of the society's plan was to establish a library, and in furtherance of this idea there was gathered a large and valuable collection of the best works in all departments of general literature.

This society through its members and library, and through its annual courses of lectures given by noted speakers and literary characters, was largely instrumental in fostering a love for books and molding the literary tastes of the early community and in leading the way to that high standard of excellence which the city has since attained as a center of learning and of literary and social culture. (My remembrance of boyhood especially recalls that course of their lectures which introduced to Beloit Bayard Taylor and John B. Gough.) And when a noted philanthropist sought locations worthy the bestowal of his gifts it was but natural he should be attracted hitherward; so the (Carnegie) Free Public Library building and the College (Carnegie) Library building, both magnificent homes for books, are added to the educational and culture forces of the city.

Then, too, among those earlier influences mention should be made of the Beloit Reading Club, which came into existence in the fall of 1878 and embraced in its membership a large number of the cultivated people of the community; and of the Phil» harmonic Society, organized in 1879 with the object of cultivating and developing musical taste. There also sprang up numerous other organizations, more especially ministering to the religious needs of the people, such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was started in the spring of 1874 and whose benefits in behalf of those to whom it has ministered are beyond computation ; and the Beloit Bible Society, which has been in existence since the spring of 1841 and whose special mission has been to distribute the word of God among those who were without it.

Of churches fuller mention is elsewhere made, but we note briefly that the First Congregational was organized December 30, 1838. Following this, on April 24, 1841, the First Baptist church of Beloit was founded with fourteen members and Rev. Alvah Burgess as pastor. During that same year, on February 28, St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal church was established with Rev. Aaron Humphrey rector, C. H. F. Goodhue and G. W. Bicknell wardens, Otis C. Bicknell, John C. Burr and Leonard R. Humphrey vestrymen, William H. Plobart secretary and David J. Bundy treasurer. The Methodist Episcopal church was formed by Rev. William Lovesey October 15, 1842. Rev. Lewis H. Loss, of Rockford, 111., conducted the formal organization of the First Presbyterian church, with forty-six members, March 21, 1849. The St. Thomas Catholic church began as a congregation in May, 1853, with Rev. Father McFaul in charge. The Westminster Presbyterian church, Old School, was organized January 5, 1859, west side. The Second Congregational church, also west side of the river, was organized September 11, 1859, with fortyone members, of whom thirty-five brought letters from the First Congregational church. On May 23, 1869, Pastor Jacob Kolb organized the German Presbyterian church with thirty-one members. The German Lutheran church was organized in 1872 with ten members and Rev. Mr. Sysner as pastor. In the following year the Norwegian church was established, and in that year, 1873, the Methodist Protestant church, called the Bridge Street church, west side, was started by George Craven, Dr. J. L. Brenton, Eddj'^ Crandall, J. L. Jewett and H. J. Fine, their first pastor being Rev. Henry A. Heath. Their building, southwest corner of Bridge and Bluff streets, was the former home of the Westminster church, which in 1865 had been merged in the

First Presbyterian. The English Lutheran congregation is of more recent origin. A Beloit branch of the Young Men's Christian Association has also been developed, is growing in members and influence and under excellent management is rapidly becoming one of our city's strong forces for good. We have also had the Salvation Army on our streets for twenty years or more, and there is a Christian Science hall.

Secret societies have flourished in Beloit since the beginning of its existence as a city. Of the Masonic order Morning Star Lodge No. 10, F. and A. ]M.. Avas organized December 2, 1846, under dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Ohio, John W. Bushnell, W. M. Beloit Chapter No. 9, Royal Arch Masons, organized November 29, 1851, received its charter February 12, 1852. Beloit Council No. 1, R. and S. M., was organized February 24, 1857. Then on April 18, 1864, was chartered Beloit Commandery No. 6, Knights Templar.

Myrtle Lodge No. 10, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted as E-ne-we-shin-e-gras Lodge No. 10 on August 11, 1846, the name being changed to Myrtle in 1847. Beloit Encampment No. 7 of this order was instituted December 17, 1850.

Temple Lodge No. 42. Ancient Order United Workmen, was established August 26, 1868; Fidelity Temple of Honor No. 37 was organized January 22, 1876. and Beloit Division No. 38, Sons of Temperance, was organized January 20, 1874. Of more recent date are numerous fraternal organizations, some admitting to membership men only, others only women, and still others mixed. Some of these are the Royal Arcanum. G. A. R. Post No. 54, Royal League, Columbian Knights. Elks, Daughters of Columbia, Beavers. Beaver Queens, Equitable Fraternal Union, Fraternal Reserve Association, National Fraternal League, Mystic Workers, Modern Woodmen, Red Men, Eagles, United Spanish War Veterans, Brotherhood of American Yeomen, Fraternal Aid Association, Court of Honor, and White Shrine ; all of which are loyally supported and fully supply the needs they are intended to serve.

Our Beloit fire department really began in 1854. The business center was then E. D. Murray's store, southwest corner of State and Race. When that building burned down on the morning of April 6 in that year your editor, then nine years old, from the diagonally opposite corner saw Mr. A. J. Battin, an old New

York city fireman, standing at the very edge of the fallen and blazing store with nozzle in hand, directing the tiny stream of water from a small garden engine upon Mr. Murray's safe, which lay in the midst of the fire, until by that means, and with a bucket brigade he organized, the flames were subdued. The same effort saved Mr. A. B. Carpenter's house, which stood near the store on the south, and afforded a narrow escape for Mrs. Carpenter, who was then quite ill, and also for her very young infant daughter, Addie, now Mrs. Charles B. Salmon. The little fire company which Mr. Battin then formed was the real beginning of our Beloit fire department. A little later, in 1855, there was organized on the east side an engine and hose company known as Water Witch Company No. 1, and a small hand-brake engine was bought by private subscription. On those brakes I helped pump at every fire Avhich occurred in Beloit until 1867. That company became disorganized soon after the opening of the Civil War in 1860, owing to members enlisting in the army; but the organization was reestablished after the close of the war and continued until 1869. when the company disbanded. In 1872 a new organization was perfected with fifty-five members and a full corps of officers installed.

Another company, known as Ever Ready No. 2, was organized on the west side in 1856 and was ready for service in February, 1857, when it received its engine. Connected with this was Tiger Hose Company No. 2. Both those organizations rendered valuable service at home and in neighboring towns, being ably seconded in their work by Beloit Hook and Ladder Company, which came into existence in the spring of 1875. It is worthy of note that for many years these fire companies owned and cared for the only public libraries in Beloit. To these the public had access by payment of a small fee, which, with contributions from insurance companies and individuals, was sufficient to keep the libraries in good condition, replenish the shelves with a large number of desirable works and so supply the best reading matter to all who cared to avail themselves of it.

To realize the isolation of the settlement and town in early days one need but refer to the postal facilities. At first the near«- est postoffiee was ninety miles away, in Chicago, and communication was by means of any person who might happen to be going that way; next an office was established at Belvidere, 111., twen- ty miles distant, followed by the establishment of one at Roscoe, six miles away, whence a post boy on horseback brought the mail once a w^eek ; and finally a post route was arranged between Belvidere and Janesville, and an intermediate office at Beloit, the entire receipts of this office during the first quarter amounting to $60 all told. But little more than half a century ago a tri-weekly line of mail stages passed through the village, running between Chicago and Janesville, while a semi-weekly mail stage plied between here and Southport, now Kenosha, furnishing our principal means of communication with the outside world. What a contrast between those meager public accommodations and conveniences and the splendid postal and transportation service of today, by means of the great steam railways with their numerous trains daily; the interurban electric line, furnishing easy and rapid communication with neighboring cities and towns, and all the marvelous triumphs and achievements of electrical and mechanical science that enter so largely into our daily affairs ! And now we have the assurance of a new government postofifice building here, the site having been chosen and bought, northeast corner of East Grand avenue and Pleasant streets, and the appropriation of $75,000 for a modern structure having been at last duly voted by the government. Within the last three years also three modern, beautiful church edifices have been erected by the Methodist Episcopal, Second Congregational and First Presbyterian societies respectively, buildings which have cost in the aggregate about $120,000 and which are all well appointed for the many forms of service connected with modern church life and work.

Although we have a separate chapter on Military History, something should be said here of Beloit in war time, 1861-1865. The comparatively recent war with Spain enlisted a few of our young men and awakened in our county and state some popular interest. But the present generation have not felt and indeed cannot fully know that burning excitement of patriotism which overflowed all our hearts during the Civil War. Then the Union, the very existence of this nation, was in danger, and men, women, children and ministers all had the war fever. The first company of men to volunteer and enlist in Rock county were the Beloit Guards, April, 1861. The first man to put down his name (at a meeting held in Hanchett's Hall) was Dick Adams. After those early three months' men had served their terms most of them reenlisted for three years. In July, 1861, a company was recruited mainly in Beloit as Company K, Seventh regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, which later became a part of the celebrated "Iron Brigade." The captain was Alexander Gordon and the first lieutenant Frank W. Oakley, a nephew of A. P. "Waterman. August 23, 1862, while standing up to encourage his men, crossing a river in the face of the enemy, brave young Captain Gordon, but recently married, was killed almost instantly by a sharpshooter. Lieutenant Oakley was wounded at Rappahannock Station, Va., August 23, 1862, losing his right arm. With genial face he goes about his duties today in Madison as clerk of the United States court for Wisconsin, but his empty sleeve recalls the dread realities of that war. James E. Ross, enlisting in 1862, at the age of twenty-five, in Company B, Twenty-second Wisconsin Infantry, was captured and saw the inside of the notorious Lib.by prison in March, 1863. Exchanged and transferred to Fighting Joe Hooker's army corps, the Twentieth, he was wounded, on recovery made first lieutenant of the 123d U. S. Colored Infantry, and served through the war until September 30, 1865. (See Military chapter.) Josiah Horace Leonard, a Beloit boy, enlisted in Company L, First Iowa Cavalry, June 13, 1861, and served continuously without ever being wounded or ill or in the guardhouse, as he used to say, until April 1, 1866. This four years and nine months' service, with five battles and many skirmishes, is believed to be the longest term served by any man from Beloit or from Rock county. When I was studying under Mr. Childs in the third room of Union school No. 1, in 1853, the young principal of the second room was Louis H. D. Crane. He enlisted, became a lieutenant, and died in the war, and the existing G. A. R. post, No. 54, is named after him.

When the war time had passed friends of the soldiers and of Beloit College contributed $30,000 and built that solid stone structure near the southeast corner of the campus called Memorial Hall, the cornerstone being laid July 9, 1867. At present this is used on the second floor by the college musical department and the first floor is occupied by the magnificent Logan collection of ancient Wisconsin implements of war and peace. In the front vestibule of this building are two marble tablets bearing the names of the eighty-eight Beloit city and college men who died during that terrible struggle. The south tablet reads : "Their death made way for liberty. Men of Beloit, who fell for their country." Alexander Anderson, Daniel Barry, Adney F. Bibbins, John V. Blasser, George L. Bostwiek, Barney Cannon, Alexander Clark, Martin L. Cochran, James L. Converse, Christopher Cramer, Louis H. D. Crane, Gordon P. Doud, Milo P. Doud, Augustus S. Dresser, Edward A. Goddard, William S. Graves, Joseph Hackett, George AV. Harwood, Die Ilellick, Benjamin F. Hoey, Jabez A. Hyatt, John Jacobson, Sidney Knell, Charles M. Long, Jacob Lund, Charles A. Macot, Charles W. Mead, William S. Miller, Michael Mooney, Charles Oleson, Horace Ormsby, William F. Parker, Samuel Plomteaux, Daniel W. Porter, Daniel A. Sears, Nathan Sebring, George Sedgwick, Hubbard Smith, Louis Tamson, John Timmons, James AV. Vandeventer. (42)

(Shumaker died in the night and in the dark on the cot next to mine in a hospital tent at the camp of the Fortieth regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, near Memphis, Tenn., in August, 1864. He was a faithful soldier and a good man. - Ed.)

The casualties of the late Spanish war added to this list the following nine names of soldier boys who enlisted at Beloit, the home of most of them, and who died in or because of the service, and all of typhoid fever: Mace Mollestead, August 13, 1898. Clark Osgood, September 8, 1898. Frank Chipraan, September,

The Stephen A. Eollins, above mentioned, was color bearer of the Ninety-fifth Illinois Infantry. In the famous battle of May 22, 1863, before Vicksburg, he charged so far ahead of his regiment that his colonel, T. W. Humphrey, also in the above list, called to him to bring the colors back to the regiment. "Colonel," shouted Rollins in reply, "The colors never go back. Bring the regiment up to the colors." The colonel did so and the regiment held that position to the 6nd of the siege. In June, 1864, at the battle of Gunton, southeast of Memphis, south of Lagrange (sometimes called the battle of Brice's cross roads), where the Federals were defeated by Forrest, both Humphrey and Rollins were mortally wounded, the latter with three bullets. A comrade from Belvidere, 111., took care of him, but he only lived three days. His last words were, "Tell my mother that I still belive in my country because I believe in God." (After the surrender of Vicksburg this Sergeant Rollins had organized among the federal soldiers in that city a literary and Christian association of a high order, the secretary of which was Sergeant T. D. Christie, who told me of him. - Ed.)