Beloit had been named by Blodgett “New Albany.” He with a large family of sons had located there in 1836 and built their house that fall and had claimed some three miles square by ploughing a furrow around and putting up several shanties. The Government was surveying the land; and as it was not in the market, no title could be obtained except a so-called squatter’s title, which was obtained by a settlement upon the land and which gave the settler the right to preëmpt 160 acres when it came into market. In February, 1837, Dr. Horace White visited Beloit as the agent of a New England company from Colebrook, New Hampshire, that had sent him out to select a home for them in the new West. He left Colebrook in January in company with R. P. Crane and O. P. Bicknell, who stopped in Michigan while White continued west exploring the Rock River valley and the valley of the Des Moines River, all then in the territory of Wisconsin. At Beloit he found Blodgett and sons (six of them) and John Hackett, a son-in-law, and being pleased with the place, he purchased one-third of all the interest or claims of Blodgett and sons, the interests being undivided. Blodgett had before bought Thibault’s interest for $500, who with his squaw removed to Koshkonong Lake, where I saw them both on my first voyage down the river and on a subsequent one in September. The following winter he was murdered by his squaw and her family.
The following are the names of the colony for whom White acted: Horace White, Otis Bicknell, George W. and Charles Bicknell, their father, Captain Bicknell, R. P. Crane, Messrs. Beach, Eames, and Alfred Field, and Israel Cheney, and one other whose name I forget, but who never came west.[108] In March, White returned east and O. P. Bicknell
and Crane came to Beloit and built a shanty and occupied it. That spring a Major Johnson from Newburg, Vermont, and John Doolittle from Holley, Lower Canada, had reached Beloit and purchased 2⁄12ths of Blodgett’s claims and lived in the Thibault shanty. Charles Goodhue from Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, and his brother-in-law, Tyler H. Moore, had purchased 3⁄12ths before and had begun the race and a saw mill on Turtle Creek when I reached the place. The interests were as follows then: Blodgett and sons 3⁄12ths, New England Company (so-called) 4⁄12ths, Goodhue and Moore 3⁄12ths, Johnson & Doolittle 2⁄12ths. I found there Blodgett and sons, Johnson & Doolittle, Cyrus Eames, Bicknell & Crane. The lower bench of Beloit or between the bluff and river was still covered by heavy timber and underbrush, but little having been removed. The owners had broken some acres on the bottoms and were breaking 160 acres where Slaymaker now resides and 100 acres on the high ground south of him. On Monday after my arrival I purchased of Goodhue and Moore one-fourth of their interest for $400 and I paid for my share of the ploughing which was to be cultivated in common until a division of claims was made. I did not expect to locate there but bought on speculation.
On Tuesday, the seventeenth, I embarked in our canoe with Mr. Goodhue and son George, Mr. Frink, and Mr. Eames for Rockford, leaving Mr. Blood there. We remained at Rockford over night at the log hotel of Mr. Miller. There were several families there. Mr. Goodhue’s son Charles met us there with his team and took us to Belvedere where he had a little store and where half a dozen families had settled. It was called Squaw Prairie and a Mr. Doty kept a hotel or tavern. We left our canoe to the citizens of Rockford. After a night’s rest at Belvidere, Frink, Eames, and I started on foot for Chicago, stopping the first night at Spencer’s Grove. The next day I was quite sick and reached Tyler & Raustead’s house, four miles west of Elgin, about six P. M., and
was so sick that I felt that I could go no farther and proposed to stay over night, but they would not keep me, fearing that I should be too sick to leave in the morning. They reluctantly gave me a cup of tea and I moved on, being virtually dragged by the arms the four miles by Messrs. Frink and Doolittle.
Here let me correct a mistake in dates and facts. Cyrus Eames was not at Beloit at this time, and it was not Eames who left Beloit in the boat with us, but John Doolittle, who returned to Canada with Mr. Goodhue at this time. We reached Elgin after dark, where I learned that I had an aunt and her husband and three children living four miles above Elgin on Fox River, and in the morning I parted with Frink, who started for Ottawa, and I hired Mr. Kimball, the landlord, to take me in a wagon to my Aunt Tyler’s, I being yet a sick man. Elgin had about ten families. I found my aunt and husband with three sons on a farm of 400 acres which George Tyler had squatted upon in 1835 and before the government survey. Aunt Tyler was the youngest sister of my mother, and married Noah Tyler of Claremont, New Hampshire, about 1803 and by him had eight children, four sons and four daughters. The family became Catholics and the four daughters became abbesses or superiors. The oldest son, George, went in early life to Georgia and emigrated from the South to this state and sent for his father, mother, and two brothers, who came to him. He married here at the age of fifty and is now a resident of Texas. The second son, William, died Catholic bishop of Rhode Island and Connecticut, in 1854, I think. The third son died at Dundee and the youngest is living at Elgin and has a large family of nine children. His name is Calvin. He was educated for the Catholic priesthood. One daughter, Sallie, is living in Detroit at the head of a Catholic nunnery.
LUCIUS GEORGE FISHER
From a daguerreotype in the possession of the Fisher family
My good aunt nursed me well and in three days I was quite well and was sent for by Mr. Goodhue to meet him at Elgin, which I did and he took me to Chicago with his team.