James Hanchett was an actual “Builder of Beloit.” Born March 31, 1813, in Saratoga County, New York, he migrated to Wayne County, Michigan, where in 1836 he married Caroline Hickox. In 1840 he, Caroline and their two-year old son George, left Michigan for Beloit, Wisconsin by ox cart. Why Mr. Hanchett left New York and then left Michigan is unknown. The reason probably was that he was an industrious man of many interests.

He was a business man, building contractor, speculator, farmer, promoter and tanner and kept seeing greater opportunities in the West. Once in Beloit, he put his many talents to work. The family first settled at the northwest corner of School (East Grand Avenue) Street and Prospect Avenue. He constructed the first dam in Beloit, in about 1844 and also ran an extensive saw mill operation at Dolson Dam, three miles north of Janesville. The mill was reported to be capable of sawing 4,000 board feet of hard wood in twenty-four hours.

In 1856, James Hanchett built Hanchett Hall at the northeast corner of State Street and Broad Street, which for several generations would remain, along with the Goodwin Building, the largest business structures in Beloit. Hanchett Hall stands today, historically significant not simply because of its dura-bility and beauty, but because it was where Abraham Lincoln addressed the citizens of Beloit in 1859, on behalf of the new Republican Party.

In 1857, John Hanchett built and moved his growing family into a newly constructed farmhouse, at what is now 2149 St. Lawrence Avenue, the Hanchett-Bartlett Homestead of the Beloit Historical Society, a community treasure. James Hanchett was commissioned to construct the road bed and lay the tracks for the Racine and Southwestern Rail Road. This later became the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. He invested heavily in this enterprise and when the U.S. Government, because of the expenses of the Civil War, defaulted on the rail road bonds owned by Mr. Hanchett, he was, according to his sons Louis and Fred, “wiped out.” He lost his sizable fortune, but undaunted again ventured West, this time in search of gold in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado.

Although records are not totally clear, it appears that Mr. Hanchett was successful in his search for gold and in 1865 he returned home for a brief stay to regain his health before going on to Washington D.C. to “register his claim”. While pros-pecting in the high altitudes of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Jon had developed a lung illness. He was 52 years of age and the prospecting trip to Colorado had worn him out to such an extent he was unable to recover from his illness and he died on December 8, 1965, shortly after returning home.

The numerous buildings, streets, railroads, dams and other construction attributed to John Hanchett have, over the years, disappeared and have been replaced by newer structures. But John Hanchett left Beloit the historical treasurers of Hanchett Hall and the Hanchett-Bartlett Homestead, which more than justifies his title as a Builder of Beloit. He rests at oakwood Cemetery, marked by a small flat stone, but will be remem-bered by the works he left in our community.