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- Pioneer Settlers Used French Word in Naming
Beloit
- Beloit was derived from "Ballote" says Dr. W.
F. Brown in his history of Rock County
-
- Beloit, the word, the odd name of our city, never heard of
elsewhere before its adoption
- here, has an interesting origin.
- Nearly 75 years ago it was created, a hybrid between two
favorite terms, like each and
- unlike each, to settle the first community dispute ever known
in this vicinity.
- Dissatisfied with the appellations first applied to the little
settlers' hamlet in which the
- present city had its beginnings, the pioneers decided to
put an end to argument in one final meeting. All were to attend
and to stick by until an agreement had been reached.
-
- Met to Name City.
- The meeting was held in the fall of 1838, two years after
the coming here of Caleb
- BLODGETT, the first permanent settler to visit here, and
about a year and a half after Dr. Horace WHITE and others of
the New England Emigrant company had moved their homes here.
- BLODGETT, with [ambitious] dreams of the town's future, had
fastened on it the name
- of New Albany. The Indians called the locality Turtle, after
the mounds and creek.
- The majority of settlers liked neither name. New Albany,
according to the Rev. William
- F. Brown's history, was going "too fast." Possibly,
the New England members of the community, however, did not wish
a New York name imposed on the town in which they predominated.
At any rate, they objected to it, and also to Turtle, as being
"too slow."
- Name after name was proposed and voted down in the meeting.
Citizens present seemed
- to reach the end of resources - so far as names go - so that
in despair it was agreed to appoint a committee of three to recommend
some name and report back.
-
- Committee Retires.
- The committee retired - to an adjacent shanty - for their
deliberations. For a time they
- had no more success than the larger group. Things went so
far that one member suggested that letters of the alphabet be
drawn from a hat and the word used, which the letters in succession
spelled.
- At length, however, a Major Charles JOHNSON, proposed the
word "ballote," a
- French colloquial term, meaning "handsome," because
of the natural beauty of the locality.
- While the term was being considered, L. G. FISHER, another
committee member,
- remarked that "many of the settlers had pleasant memories
of Detroit," and therefore something of that word should
be incorporated. So saying he spoke the words. "Ballote,"
"Balloit," - and "Beloit."
- The idea took hold at once and was unanimously adopted when
presented to the citizens.
-
- [Please note the similarity of this article to the article
of March 18, 1923, from the Milwaukee Sentinel]
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