From 1840 to 1845 the growth of the town and the development of the farming community round about exceeded the expectations of the most optimistic and the need of a more complete village organization was felt by all. To this end a measure was introduced in the territorial legislature during the winter of the last-named year. February 24, 1846, that body passed an act incorporating the village of Beloit, and on Monday, April 7, next following, was held the first election of village officers…
The tax list that year, at one-quarter of one per cent tax levy, returned as the amount of taxes collected $205…
At that time the village contained all told 191 dwelling houses and a population of 569 males and 575 females, of whom only two of each sex were past sixty years of age. There were three public schools, a seminary for males and one for females, a branch of the American Bible Society, a Congregational, an Episcopalian and a Methodist church, and one literary association, two hotels, five lawyers, five doctors and one drug store, fifteen dry goods stores and a clothing store, one scale and pump, and one fanning-mill factory, two large grist mills and two sawmills. The village contained one hatter, five milliners and dressmakers and five tailors, two watchmakers, two millwrights, twenty masons and thirty carpenters, two tinsmiths, one gunsmith, a harnessmaker, a cabinetmaker, two stonecutters and one cooper, two stove stores, two groceries, an oil mill, a brick yard … a lime kiln, three paint shops, one carding mill and two iron foundries.
Of the population 340 were natives of New York, nearly 200 were born in Wisconsin, while Vermont contributed 177 and New Hampshire 195. Forty were born in Massachusetts, 24 in Connecticut, 6 in Rhode Island and 28 in Maine. Illinois furnished 21, Pennsylvania 32, Indiana 12 and Virginia 8. Sixty-eight were natives of England, 41 of Canada and 10 of Scotland. Ireland was the birthplace of 14, 4 came from Germany, and a few were natives of different southern states.From William Fisk Brown’s History of Rock County, 1908