Where the common shops and farms Of the depth and doom of space. For the pathways to the sky Are the trodden roads that lie To the usual hills that bound us, Whence quick Youth come down around us With a passion on their lips. By Beloit's own touch and then Siezing their apostleships. North and South and East and West, Every dusty road is blessed By the treading of their feet And their voices that repeat FAITH and SCIENCE with the sound Of the old-time campus-cheers, Till, like ships, each disappears, On the Ocean of the yearsGone to prove God's earth is round. And whenever they sail in From the voyages they have been The Horizons still they see As she has been from her birth THE BEGINNINGS OF BELOIT. HORACE WHITE, LL. D., CLASS OF 1853. By the favor of our honored President I am permitted to tell you something of the beginnings of Beloit and of Beloit College, most of which I saw and part of which I was. Yesterday you heard of the day of small things. I shall tell you of the day of smaller things. Through the kindness of my early playmate and infant school mate, Hon. Ellery B. Crane, now a member of the state senate of Massachusetts and a resident of the city of Worcester, I have been enabled to examine an old account book, hitherto unpublished, much of which is in my father's handwriting and the rest in his father's hand-writing. This book contains the business transactions of the New England Emigrating Co., which was formed in Colebrook, New Hampshire, my native place, in October, 1836, and of which Dr. Horace White, my father, was the agent. Much has been published about this company and a good many guesses have been made as to the exact number and identity of the members. The book of which I speak, and which Mr. Crane has rescued from the tooth of time, sets at rest all disputes on these two subjects. It shows that the company consisted of fourteen members and that their names were Cyrus Eames, O. P. Bicknell, John W. Bicknell, Asahel B. Howe, Leonard Hatch, David J. Bundy, Ira Young, L. C. Beech, S. G. Colley, G. W. Bicknell, R. P. Crane, Horace Hobart, Horace White and Alfred Field. The book shows to a cent how much each man con tributed to the funds of the enterprise, the whole amount being $7,067.27, and how the lands and other property were distributed, how much and what kind of work each one did and what credits he received for the work done. These fourteen names and no others appear and reappear as copartners in the enterprise, although others are found in other relations to it. These men were not speculators. They did not belong to the roving class. They had no thought of taking up claims on public land and selling out to somebody else at a higher price. They intended to create an agricultural community like the New England village from which they sprang, and new homes like the old ones which they still loved. They were the kind of stuff that enduring communities are made of, as this fair city today attests. It was the principal duty of the Company's agent to select and purchase a site for the new homes of the Emigrating company. In pursuance of his duties as such agent, my father left Colebrook in the winter of 1836-7 on his westward journey. He was then in his 27th year. The book says that he was to receive $100 per month and all of his expenses, and that the Company was to furnish him a horse and cutter. With this conveyance he set forth as soon as there was a good fall of snow and drove through Canada, taking that route for the reason that the sleighing was better on the north than on the south side of the lakes. He arrived at Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the 25th day of January, 1837, where he found Mr. R. P. Crane, the father of Mr. Ellery Crane, who was a member of the Company, and who had started westward somewhat earlier. Mr. Crane had arrived at Detroit by steamer from Buffalo in company with Otis P. Bicknell and they had set out to make the rest of the journey on foot, not knowing exactly where it might lead them, but keeping in the track of the general emigration of the period. Arriving at Ann Arbor Mr. Crane found his funds exhausted and took a job of finishing a partly-built house at that place for which he received the sum of $100. It was here that my father overtook and passed him, taking Mr. Bicknell in his cutter as far as Calumet, Illinois. Mr. Crane was one of those benefactors of the human race who "keep a diary" and it is fortunate for us that the historical spirit has descended to his son. From this diary his son gives me the following extract: "On reaching Rockford, March 3, 1837, Dr. White was there, stopping with Harvey Bundy, who was employed as clerk by George Goodhue, who was proprietor of a small store or trading post. The doctor had been up to the Turtle but had not purchased yet. Had already been to Des Moines, Ia., and Quincy, Ill., but did not like it there. The doctor wanted Otis and myself to see the location at the Turtle before deciding, although he thought well of it. We (Otis and I) arrived at the Turtle Thursday, March 9, and Dr. White came up the week following and we three went out three miles northeast to see the landscape. We liked it so well that we (Otis and I) encouraged the doctor to secure an interest here if he could." This was on the 13th day of March. The only person here at the time who could be called a settler was Caleb Blodgett who had arrived the previous year and had bought for $200 a claim from a Frenchman named Thibault who was living with one or more squaw wives in a construction of logs near the junction of Turtle creek and Rock river. A bargain was struck with Blodgett on the following day (March 14) for one-third of his claim. In those days claims to public land were rather indefinite. That of Blodgett was as far-reaching as those which excited the ire of the elder Gracchus in old Roman days. His own idea was that it embraced about 7,000 acres. Purchasers of claims took their chances of being able to hold what they had bargained for. What was paid for in such a case was the chance that the government land office would eventually recognize the claim as valid under the pre-emption laws, and give a patent for it, on receiving the price of $1.25 per acre. A bargain was struck with Blodgett for one-third of his claim for the sum of $2,500, and patents were issued in my father's name which are now in my possession. This included 100 acres of land already under the plow and ready for a crop, this fact being a moving consideration in the purchase. Blodgett retained one-third of the claim for himself and sold the remaining third to Messrs. Goodhue, Jones and Johnson. The name of Goodhue is an honored one in the history of Beloit. Mr. Goodhue came from Canada. He erected the first saw mill in the place. He was living at that time in Rockford but the mill was already under construction and it began to deliver boards on the 15th of April, 1837. Dr. White returned to Colebrook immediately after the purchase was made from Blodgett, to report progress and to dispose of his own property, leaving Crane and Bicknell in charge. Blodgett had built a double log house on the river bank near the foot of Broad street. In putting the logs in place he had been assisted by a band of Indians who were encamped on the west side of the river under charge of army officers. Until the saw mill was completed, so that boards could be obtained, the ground served as the floor of this house. My earliest recollections of Beloit, or of anything, are associated with this old log house, in which Dr. White's family was installed and where they lived until better accommodations could be provided. This was a double house with a door in the center and was generally occupied by two families or more. The south end, which we occupied, consisted of one square room which served as kitchen, diningroom, bed-room, sitting-room and doctor's office. The joints in this establishment had not been very carefully closed and hence it was not unusual in the winter time for my parents to find themselves in the morning under an extra counter |