Historical account of Caleb and Chloe Blodgett, first white settlers in Beloit in 1836. Read and compiled by their granddaughter, Mrs. C. A. Emerson, at the unveiling of the tablet erected on the Blodgett graves, September 17, 1931.

The Blodgett’s were of English origin and trace their name in England as far back as 1563. All the Blodgett’s in America are descended from Thomas Blodgett. The Custom House records give the departure on the ship Increase from London to Boston, on April 18, 1635, of Thomas Blodgett, aged 30, his wife Susan and their two small boys, Daniel and Samuel. Thomas was one of the original members of the Reverent Thomas Shepard’s Company which founded what is now the Shepard Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Caleb Blodgett whose memory we are honoring today, is of the seventh generation in America. He was the son of Caleb Blodgett, a Revolutionary soldier and was born in Randolph, Vermont on April 15, 1786. He moved with his parents to Alexandria, New York and married in 1807, Chloe Kidder of Sutton Massachusetts. They moved later to Coneaut, Ohio, where he built a mill, which was destroyed by fire. They had a family of ten children born in New York and Ohio.

In the fall of 1835, this Caleb Blodgett, my grandfather, came to what is now Beloit and selected the place to make a settlement. He went back for his family and returned early in the spring of 1836. He brought with him his wife, who was Chloe Kidder and several of his sons, including my father Daniel, a boy of nineteen. The youngest child was a boy five years old. The girls were left in school in Ohio. All the family came later and nearly all settled either in Beloit, or on farms in this vicinity. Selvey, Daniel and one daughter, Cordelia, who married John Hackett, spent their lives here and are buried in this cemetery.

The first house built by Caleb Blodgett was on the east side of the river a little to the right and back of the Gordon Hardware Store. He died in 1840 at the age of 55, having been a resident here only four years.

From my father I learned he was a man of strong character, very determined and always upright and honorable in his business dealings.

His wife, Chloe Kidder, was the daughter of John Kidder, a Revolutionary soldier and was born in Sutton, Massachusetts as early 1650. Chloe married Caleb Blodgett in 1807 and when he came here to what was a wilderness, she came with him. She was thus the first white woman to make a home in Beloit and shared with her husband all the hardships and privations of a pioneer life.

She, like him, was a strong character and a good Christian woman. The First Congregational Church was organized in 1838 in the Blodgett kitchen, the scripture being read from the Caleb Blodgett family Bible. This Bible is still in good condition and in the possession of Frank H. Blodgett of Janesville. One daughter, Cordelia Blodgett Hackett, was one of the first members of this church. The Methodist Church and the first school were later organized in that same kitchen.

Chloe died in 1838 at the age of 55, two years before her husband. Both were first buried in what is now City Park, but were later moved to this cemetery.

A number of the descendants of Caleb and Chloe Kidder Blodgett are here today. Ella Hackett Adams and myself, as far as I know, are the only grandchildren living. We represent the families of Cordelia Blodgett Hackett and Daniel Blodgett. There is quite a group of the next generation of the Selvey Blodgett family, including Elmer and Selvey K. Blodgett and Sister Cordelia Blodgett Wallace and Fred Fenton, all of Beloit.