- Beloit Invented as Name of City
- Pioneers Voted Down All Known Words in Making Final Choice
- BELOIT, WIS. - (Special) - Beloit, the word, the odd name
of our city, never heard of else-
- where 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 given the hamlet,
the pioneers decided to put an end to
- argument. A meeting was held in the fall of 1838, two years
after the coming of Caleb BLODGETT, Beloit's first permanent
settler; Horace WHITE and others of the New England emigrant
company.
-
- Indian Name "Too Slow."
- BLODGETT, with ambitious dreams of the settlement's
future, had fastened on it the name of
- New Albany. The Indians called the locality Turtle, after
the numerous mounds found here.
- The majority of settlers liked neither name. New Albany,
according to the Rev. William F.
- BROWN's history, was going "[too] fast."
At the same time objections rose that the name of Turtle was
"too slow."
- Name after name was proposed and voted down. In despair it
was agreed to appoint a
- committee of three to recommend some name and report back.
The committee retired to an adjacent shanty and for a time they
had no more success than the larger group
-
- Beloit is Compromise.
- At length, however, Maj. Charles JOHNSON, proposed
the word "ballote," a French colloquial
- term, meaning "handsome." L. G. FISHER,
another member of the committee, remarked that many of the settlers
had pleasant memories of Detroit and that something of that word
should be incorporated. So saying he spoke the words. "Ballote,"
"Balloit," - and finally "Beloit."
- The idea took hold at once and was unanimously adopted by
the citizens.
-
- [Please note the similarity of this article to the article
of March 5, 1923, published by the Beloit Daily News.]
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