1858 Beloit Business Directory

WELCOME
Welcome to the 1858 Beloit Business Directory page of the Rock County Genealogy Society. Here you can view a listing of company names, business types and partners' or proprietors' names exactly as shown in the 1858 Rock Co., WI Plat Map (published by A. B. Miller and Orrin Guernsey, Janesville, 1858). Originals of this nearly 150 year old plat map are found in varying states of decay; the specific source for this index is the nearly pristine wall size plat found at the Beloit Historical Society.

USING THE 1858 BELOIT BUSINESS DIRECTORY
Like Yellow Pages of today, 19th Century publishers of directories relied on the subscription fees from participants wishing to be listed. For this reason, this 1858 Directory, while included in its entirety below, is an incomplete roster of all 1858 Beloit businesses. If you don't find your ancestor's business listed, he or she probably elected not to pay the subscription fee in order to be included.

Several enhancements have been added to the format, including:

1. Alphabetizing of all surnames found in the 1858 Directory
2. Dissassemby and individual listings of business names with multiple partners (example: Wright & Newcomb Book Store will be found listed under both Wright and Newcomb in the index). All trailing names are cross-referenced with the original business name entry (example: Newcomb... see Wright & Newcomb Book Store).
3. Where possible, illegible directory surnames have been clarified using the names and occupations listed in the 1860 US Federal Census whose enumeration occured less than two years later. When minor differences in spelling were found, the first entry is the 1858 Directory's version with the bracketted 1860 Census spelling shown immediately afterward (example: Morsh [sic, Morsch]),
4. Remaining illegible names are shown alongside their most probable spelling variations, and each variation is listed uniquely within the index (example: Condon [London?] and then listed again as London [Condon?].

VIEWING IMAGES OF THE ORIGINAL 1858 BELOIT DIRECTORY
You can view a high resolution digital image of the portion of the 1858 Plat Map containing this directory at Beloit Directory Image. After opening this page, you can take a closer look by clicking in the lower right corner on the image and looking for the "zoom" icon.

SURNAME INDEX TO THE 1858 BELOIT BUSINESS DIRECTORY