Statewide County WI Archives History - Books .....Successive Stages Of Advance 1900
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Tina Vickery tsvickery@gmail.com October 25, 2007, 8:53 am

Book Title: PAST MADE PRESENT - Presbyterians In Wisconsin.  1830 - 1900.

Successive Stages of Advance.

Our successive stages of advance shall be four:

First, the circumstances which preceded and produced this
church.

Second, it organization and first building.

Third, a prompt progress through the successive pastorates,
giving most attention to the earlier men.

Fourth, and last, a general glance at the church record with
group sketch of the twelve pastors, and conclusion for the
children.

As the way is rather long I want to remember their four
roadmarks, so that just when you are getting tired out and
hungry you may know that we are near the tavern.

March back first to the times and circumstances which
immediately preceded and also produced this organization.

The early history of this church is so closely interwoven
with that of the community that a complete account of either
much include much that is common to both, because the
pioneers of this church were also pioneers of the
settlements.

The Vermonter, Stephen Mack, who in 1821 started a trading
post on the Rock river, four miles south of the Turtle, was
undoubtedly familiar with the whole region.  The first
recorded visit of white men to this locality, however, was
that made by soldiers of the Black Hawk war under General
Atkinson, including Private Abraham Lincoln, June 30, 1832.*
On that day they marched through this Turtle village, then
deserted by its Indian Şinhabitants and camped during the
afternoon on the prairie about two miles north.  The Indian
scout whom the soldiers saw when they started on the next
morning, openly watching them from a high bluff on the west
side of the river was very probably standing on the brow of
the Big Hill.

The next white man's visit occurred July 19, 1835, when
William Holmes, Jr. and John Inman, prospectors who had lost
their ponies, walked south across the prairie to the mouth
of Turtle creek, and found here a solitary wilderness.  They
left the same day, and my July 23d had returned to
Milwaukee, which had then only two white families.  In the
same month of July, 1835,  soon after their departure, a
French Canadian squatter, Joseph Thibault (pronounced Teebo)
came here, and his log cabin was our first building.  At
this cabin, as they passed through the place on March 9,
1836, the family of Judge William Holmes, including two
women and two girls, stopped a few minutes to warm up.  That
was the first recorded visit of white women.  The youngest
girl, Catherine Holmes, born August, 1819, now Mrs. Volney
Atwood of Janesville, Wisconsin, says she remembers well the
dirt floor of Thibault's cabin and its big fire place, built
of sticks plastered over, with a large log burning on it.
The Frenchman's two Indian wives took their children and
went out the doors, giving up the whole cabin to their
visitors.  Thus the history of Beloit virtually begins with
an act of hospitality.

*Wis. Hist. Collections, Vol. XIV, p. 128

ŞMy father, Benjamin Brown, several times pointed out to me
the locality, having himself seen the signs of the camp in
1841.

Additional Comments:
The First Fifty Years of the First Presbyterian Church and
Congregation of Beloit, Wisconsin.  Comprising also a
variety of experiences in our connected with the lives of
its member during the times of peace and of war; together
with

A History of Presbyterianism in our State up to the Year
1900.

In Two Parts --- Amply Illustrated.

Part I. Presbyterians of Beloit, Wis.
Part II.  Presbyterianism in the State and Synod of
Wisconsin.

For sale by

The Presbyterian Board of Publication, 37 Randolph Street,
Chicago and by Foster and the College Book Store and the
Author, in Beloit, Wis.

Copyright, 1900. by William Fiske Brown.

Printed and bound by the Marsh and Grant Company, Chicago,
Ill.

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