Jacob Beard (29 August 1762 – 27 March 1839)

 

Jacob Beard served in the Revolution in 1781 (more on this later), but does not appear in Shenandoah County, Virginia records until the 1785 tax list, when he is found taxed to his father Zacharias Beard.    He apparently lived on the family farm until after his father’s death about 1795.

He marries Mary Stockslager

Jacob Beard married Mary Stockslager, the daughter of a neighbor, by Shenandoah County bond dated 1 April 1792.1   An attached consent signed by Esther Reese and witnessed by Simon Harr, identify her as the daughter of Esther Reese who was the widow of Alexander Stockslager.   The bond shows Jacob’s signature as “Jacob Beard”.   His brother-in-law Simon Harr solemnized the marriage on 4 April 1792 (sic) according to the return.   Jacob and Mary had likely known each other since childhood, since Zacharias Beard and Alexander Stockslager had owned adjoining farms for nearly twenty years.

Jacob continued to appear in the tax lists through 1798.   After the death of Zacharias Beard, the other heirs sold their interests in his original 180-acre grant to Jacob.2   Two years later, on 4 April 1799. Jacob and his wife Mary sold the same land to his mother-in-law, Esther Reese for £275.3   What he did for a living, and exactly where he lived, is something of a mystery.   He does not appear to have owned any land in Shenandoah County for the next three decades.

In his pension application, Jacob stated that “about the middle of the year 1802 or 1803 (he) removed to Frederick County, Virginia where he resided for 12 or 13 years, (then) removed back to Shanadore County…”   He actually disappears from the Shenandoah personal property tax lists in 1799, taken a few months after his sale of the family farm, but does not appear on tax lists in Frederick County until 1802.   Nor did he stay there quite as long as the 12-13 years he stated.   The 1800 census for Virginia is lost, but he appears to be the same Jacob Beard who was enumerated in Strasburg, Shenandoah County in 1810.  [Although there are two households headed by a “J. Beard” in the 1810 Frederick County census4 he was surely the “Jacob Baird” in Shenandoah County living in Strasburg within four names of brother-in-law Martin Zea, and with a household composition that matches his known family.5] He was a chain carrier for a survey for his mother-in-law in 1814, the only citation found for him during this decade.6

Esther Reese’s estate records identify the children of Jacob and Mary

On 19 September 1818, Mary Beard’s mother, Esther Reese, wrote her will.  She was twice widowed, first by Mary’s father Alexander Stockslager and then by her second husband Joel Reese.  The will was produced for the court a month later, on 12 October 1818.7  The will named all her children, one of whom was “my daughter Mary wife of Jacob Beard.” The will directed that Mary Beard’s share “shall be vested and paid to Martin Zea in trust for her during her natural life and after her death the balance if any remaining to be equally divided amongst her children then living and the heirs of such as may be dead.”   Esther Reese was protecting Mary’s inheritance from her husband, and a later court case suggests the reason.

Both Mary and Jacob Beard are mentioned in later records of the estate. At an estate sale held 18 November 1818 Mary Beard bought several items and at another sale on 18 August 1819 bought six milk pots.8   An estate accounting shows that she was paid a legacy of $20 in 1818 and $457 in 1819.9   By 1820 Mary Beard was dead and her children appear as legatees of her mother’s estate.   Due in part to a dispute over disposition of the land, it took fifteen years to finally settle the estate during which time her children are mentioned frequently in the estate records.   Mary Beard’s children also sold their interest in the Reese land to Joseph Stover, who had settled on the “Beard tract” which Esther Reese had purchased of Jacob and Mary Beard in 1799.

Five children of Mary Beard are named in the settlement records. When the dispute over Esther’s land was finally settled, the children of Jacob and Mary sold their shares to Joseph Stover beginning in 1826.   On 5 January 1826 Jacob Beard sold the interest of his deceased son Jacob Beard Jr. to Joseph Stover.10   Joseph Beard sold his interest to Stover on 13 Mar 1826 and apparently did so again on 7 February 1835.11   On 7 August 1829, both Elizabeth Dull (and her husband John Dull) and Esther Floyd (and her husband Lewis Floyd) sold their interests to Stover.12  Isaac Beard sold his interest to Stover on 13 November 1833.13  These records account for five children of Jacob Beard and Mary Stockslager.   Jacob Beard Jr., though deceased, was alive at the time his mother died and therefore was a legatee.

His second wife Rosina Wendel, widow of Paul Wisman

Mary Beard was alive as late as August 1819, but died sometime before the 1820 census, and Jacob Beard wasted little time marrying again.   Jacob, who was then 58, remarried to a 31-year old widow named Rosina Wendel Wisman.  The marriage bond, executed on 2 September 1820, shows her name as “Rosanna Windle” with “Windle” struck out and “Wiseman (widow)” substituted.14  The marriage return by Jesse Smith states that Jacob Beard and “Rosana Wendel” were married on 3 September 1820 “according to the rules of the Presbyterian [meaning Lutheran] church.”15

Rosina was the daughter of John Wendel, or Windle, whose will dated 27 July 1814 and proved 13 February 1815 leaves a share of his estate to “my daughter Rosina, widow of Paul Wisman dec’d”.16  The will also left a legacy to his granddaughter Juliana Wisman “being a lame child of my daughter Rosina Wisman.”  John Windle had been a neighbor of the Beards, operating a mill and living on Toms Brook about six miles south of the town of Woodstock.

Rosina Wendel had married her first husband sometime after 5 March 1808 when she was still single and a witness for the baptism of her brother George Wendel’s son Wilhelm at the St Paul’s church.17  According to her son Amos Beard’s biographical sketch, her first husband died in the War of 1812.  Her daughter Juliana was alive in September 1815 when she was paid her legacy of $33.33 from John Wendel’s estate, but may not have lived long enough to see her mother remarried; she was definitely deceased by 1824 according to testimony in an 1831 chancery case.18

Jacob Beard was in the 1820 Shenandoah census aged over 45 with two females under 10 and one female aged 16-26, living in or near Hawkinstown, several miles south of Strasburg.   The 1820 census was supposed to reflect household compositions as of 7 August, thus prior to the remarriage, meaning that Esther Beard would have been the elder female.   However, there is reason to suspect that Rosina was pregnant by May 1820 and thus might be that female.19   By the 1830 Shenandoah census, Jacob Beard’s first family was out of the household and the second family was nearly complete. His household consisted of two males under 5 (Samuel and Jacob Jr.), one female under 5 (Catherine), and females 5-10 and 10-15 (Lucinda and Susanna). Note that the two older girls don’t match their birth dates from other records.

“Thriftlessness and intemperance”

Jacob was apparently plagued by debts.  Esther Reese’s will in 1818 took the somewhat unusual step of placing Mary Beard’s legacy in trust for her and her children, a device typically employed to protect a wife’s inheritance from the debts of her husband.

His second wife’s inheritance was similarly protected.  The estate of Rosina’s father took some time to settle.  In 1824 the executor, Laurence Pittman, took $190 of the $300 legacy allotted to Rosina  Beard and purchased a house and three half-acre lots in the town of Hawkinstown (then called Hawkinsburg) in trust for Rosina’s children.20   Several years later in 1831 Jacob and Rosina initiated an unsuccessful chancery suit to have the trust set aside and the deed reissued in fee simple.  Pittman testified that Jacob Beard was “an intemperate, thriftless man” and that he and Rosina had consented to placing the property in trust but “long afterward they both admitted that they… did not expect to have as many children”.   Pittman further offered  his opinion that had the property been conveyed outright to Jacob and Rosina “it would have been dissipated by his thriftlessness and intemperance.”

As proof, he stated that Jacob had earlier been due money from the estate of his son Jacob Beard Jr. which he used to buy a house and lot in Hawkinsburg.   Jacob “soon mortgaged it for his debts” and was eventually forced to sell the property in partial payment of his increasing debts.  Yet “he is still in debt.”

This apparently refers to Jacob Beard’s purchase of a house and two lots in Hawkinstown on 28 May 1828.21   He and his wife Rosina sold both lots on 11 August 1831. 22

Jacob moves to Ohio

By the following year, they were in Clinton County, Ohio.  Since Jacob was by then 70 years old, it seems likely that he was motivated to join the westward movement more by a desire to escape his creditors than by any sense of adventure or opportunity.

Exactly when he arrived in southern Ohio is uncertain.  An 1882 county history contains a statement by Amos Beard that his parents, Jacob Beard and “Rosanna Windle”, came to Ohio about 1832.23  Jacob Beard’s pension application states that he moved to Clinton County in December 1832.  Rosanna’s obituary states they moved in 1831.

His Revolutionary War pension application

In 1832 Congress authorized pensions for Revolutionary soldiers who had served in any unit for at least six months.   On 12 November 1833 Jacob Beard, a resident of Vernon Township, Clinton County, applied for a pension.24   He stated that he was born on 29 August 1762 and was “born and raised in Shanadore County” Virginia.   He declared that he was drafted in Shenandoah County for a tour of six months on 15 April 1781 under Captain Jonathan Pugh (who commanded the Shenandoah County militia during the war.)25   His militia company was attached to a battalion commanded by Major Booth and Colonel Andrew (sic) Byrd26 that marched to Fredricksburg, then Williamsburg, and then to Yorktown.  He was then transferred to another Shendandoah militia company commanded by Captain Awl attached to a regiment commanded by Colonel Dark that served in the siege at Yorktown.  He was discharged “about 6 or 7 days” before the surrender of Cornwallis (on 19 October 1781) having served his full term of six months.  He stated that he returned to Shenandoah County and lived there until about 1802 or 1803 when he removed to Frederick County.  About 12 or 13 years later he returned to Shenandoah, where he lived until he removed to Clinton County about 2 December 1832. (In a related paper in the pension file, he gives this date as 2 December 1831.)   Ohio pension #25719 was granted at the rate of $20 a year.

Although he declared a very precise birth date in this document, he also stated that he had no record of his birth.  He mentioned his age in two other places in the same application.  When questioned at the 12 November 1833 court, he says “to the best of his recollection he is now upwards of 69 or 70 years old” rather than 71.  When asked his year of birth, he responded, “I believe in the year 1762.” Two neighbors deposed that they believed him to be “69 or 70 years of age”. [This date fits with what other records we have. He would have been over 16 when drafted in April 1781, not yet 21 for the 1783 or 1784 tax lists, but over 21 by the 1785 tax list. If we assume he had the month correct, these records would put his birth either in August 1762 or August 1763. Since he doesn’t appear on the 1784 tax list, he may have been off by a year.]

Jacob dies in 1839

Jacob died on 27 March 1839 in New Vienna according to documents in his widow’s pension file.27  His will, dated five days earlier on 22 March 1839, and probated on 17 June 1839, was very straightforward.28  It left a life estate “to my loving wife Rozanna Beard all the livestock, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and etc. by me now owned and kept on the premises where I now reside, also all the household furniture and also one tanning mill and other items not particularly named.”   At Rosanna’s death, the property remaining was to be split among “the children that belong to Jacob Beard and Rozanna his wife.”  Rosanna was named executor.   None of the children by his first wife were mentioned, apparently because his first set of children had already benefited from the estate of his first wife.

Rosanna’s Final Days

Rosanna was enumerated in the 1840 Clinton County census with her three sons and three daughters. (The ages of the two older daughters again do not match their birth dates given below. The three females are listed as one 5-10, one 10-15, and one 15-20. Lucinda and Susanna would both have been in the last range, and there was no known daughter young enough to have been in the first range.) In 1850 she is head of a household consisting of her daughter Catherine and youngest son Amos.  The 1860 census shows her living with her daughter Susannah Garrison and her husband.

In 1855 Congress made widows of Revolutionary soldiers eligible for pensions and land.   On 14 May 1855, Rosanna applied for a widow’s land warrant based on Jacob’s service.29  She stated they were married on 15 May 1819 (missing the mark by fourteen months) and that Jacob died on 27 March 1839.  Warrant #24989, for 160 acres, was granted to her on 15 May 1856.  On 19 June 1855 Rosanna applied for a widow’s pension, giving the same information as in her application for the land warrant.  The pension was granted at $20 per year.  Among the papers in the pension file is a copy of the 1820 marriage record from Shenandoah County (with the correct date).

Rosanna died in 1867. Her gravestone at The IOOF Cemetery in New Vienna, Clinton County reads “Rosanna Beard born 1-19-1789 died 7-14-1867.”30  The Clinton Republican newspaper also carried a brief obituary: “Rosannah Beard, wife of Jacob Beard, died July 15 (sic).  She emigrated from Shenandoah County, Virginia in 1831. Her first husband was killed in the War of 1812. Her second husband was a Revolutionary War soldier and died about six years after coming to this County, leaving her with six small children.”31   Luckily, Clinton County began keeping death records in 1867 and one of the first entries reads: “Rosannah Beard died at New Vienna July 15, 1867 of congestive lungs…aged 78 years 5 months 29 days.”32

She did not leave a will, nor could any probate records be found. This, I assume, is because she owned no property other than her lifetime interest in Jacob Beard’s estate. I note that Rosanna had listed only $50 of personal property in the 1850 census. The six children are named in both the 1831 chancery suit and in a biographical sketch of Amos Beard published in 1886.33

Jacob Beard’s five children by Mary Stockslager:

  1. Isaac Beard (c1793 — c1834)   He was probably the eldest.  Isaac served in the War of 1812, enlisting in Kentucky in 1814, and moved to Tennessee about 1817.   He married a woman named Ferguson, had one son named George Washington Baird, and disappeared from the records after 1833.  Reasonable evidence exists that he died shortly after 1833.

    For much more detail see the separate page: Isaac Beard.

  2. Elizabeth Beard (22 May 1795 — 10 November 1854)   She was one of the two females aged 10-16 in her father’s 1810  household.  According to a graveyard survey, her gravestone in the Mt. Tabor Church Cemetery in Augusta County, Virginia reads “In Memory of Elizabeth Dull – Born May 22nd 1795 – Died Nov. 10th 1854 – Aged 59 Years, 5 Months & 18 days.” 34  She was apparently still unmarried in 1824 when Martin Zea advanced Elizabeth Beard five dollars of her legacy from her mother.   She was married by 7 August 1829 when John Dull and Elizabeth his wife “the late Elizabeth Beard and one of the heirs of Mary Beard” sold their rights to Esther Reese’s estate.35  A settlement of the Reese estate in 1831 mentions an undated payment to “John Dull and wife”.36    There was no record found of a marriage in Shenandoah County; it is possible that she had left her father’s household and was living in Augusta County, .   John Dull was enumerated i Augusta County in 1830 heading a household of ten.  He apparently died sometime in the 1830s, as Elizabeth Dull headed a household of eight in 1840.   She was living in the household of her son Cornelius Dull and three other children in 1850, her age given as 56.

    Among the earliest preserved marriages of Augusta County, Virginia is that of Michael Meyerhoeffer Dull to Mary Elizabeth Hasler on 10 May 1855 which lists his parents as John Dull and Elizabeth Beard. 37   A year later when his sister Frances E. Dull married, the record listed her parents similarly.  When Michael M. Dull died in 1906, an obituary declared him to be the “last of a large family of John and Elizabeth Dull”. 38  There is also an extensive chancery case file in Augusta County that lists the members of that large family.  John Dull’s brother Jacob Dull died intestate, unmarried, and childless in 1855 and a lengthy court case ensued in which the heirs of his brothers and sisters sued the estate.   The case dragged on from 1856 through 1879 and consumes more than 1700 pages of records, only a few of which I read.  That chancery case identifies the heirs of John Dull as of June 1856 as:  Michael M. Dull, Amos Dull, Cornelius Dull, George Dull, Jacob Dull, Enos Dull, William Dull (“of Indiana”), Peter Dull (“of Iowa”), Sarah wife the Elijah Teaford, Mary the wife of Jonathan Hunt, and Ellen Dull (apparently the Frances E. Dull who married in a few months after the bill of complaint which called her “Ellen Dull”).39

  3. Esther Beard (c1797 — 6 December 1873)   Apparently named for her mother’s mother, she was evidently the other female aged 10-16 in Jacob Beard’s 1810 household and the female aged 16-26 in 1820.   Esther Beard was a purchaser at the estate sale of Esther Reese on 18 November 1818 and was paid $1.36 “for housework” by the estate the following year.40   She married Lewis Floyd in Shenandoah County by bond dated 14 October 1823.41   She was evidently Lewis Floyd’s second wife, as later records suggest that he had two children born a few years prior to the 1823 marriage.42

    She was apparently the only child of Jacob’s first family to move to Ohio, preceding him there by a few years.   Other records of the Esther Reese estate mention postage paid for letters from Lewis Floyd dated 8 June 1828 and two letters from Esther Floyd in 1829, all apparently written from Ohio.43  An 1834 accounting of the Esther Reese estate records show a settlement of $210.92 paid to “Esther Floyd, heir of Mary Beard”.44  Lewis Floyd was enumerated in Vernon Township in the Clinton County 1830 and 1840 censuses and was one of Jacob Beard’s references for his pension application in 1833.  Lewis and Esther Floyd are enumerated in the 1850 census six households away from Rosanna Beard, with Esther’s half-brother Samuel Beard in their household.

    In the early 1850s, they and some of their children moved to Linn County, Iowa where Lewis Floyd appeared in the 1854 state census heading a household of a total of three males and one female (their third son Jacob, said by a Linn County  history to have arrived in 1852, was separately enumerated.)   In the 1856 state census Lewis (age 69) and Esther (age 59) were enumerated together with the sons maintaining their own households.  Esther’s age was given as 52, 62, and 73 in the 1850-70 federal censuses, thus we estimate a birth about 1797.   Esther is buried in the Center Point Cemetery in Linn County where her stone has only her date of death. Her husband’s gravestone reads: “d. April 10, 1868 aged 75 yrs. 2 mos. 4 days.”  They had three sons named George W. Floyd (1825-1904),  who married his mother’s half-sister Lucinda Beard, Jacob Lemuel Floyd (1826-1905), and Joseph Floyd (c1828-?).  A William Floyd, aged 20-30, enumerated adjacent to Lewis Floyd in 1840 may have been a child of his first marriage.  (Numerous internet postings claim that the couple had another child born five years before their marriage, which seems most unlikely.)

  4. Jacob Beard (c1800 — c1824) He was apparently under 10 in 1810, and was out of his father’s household by 1820. He may actually have been a few years older than the 1810 census suggests – in fact, I note the distinct possibility that Isaac Beard had left the household by 1810 and Jacob could have been the older male.  As “Jacob Beard Jr.”, a son of Mary Beard, he was paid a small amount from the Esther Reese estate in 1820.45   He was dead by 7 February 1825 when his father was appointed administrator of the estate of Jacob Beard Jr.46   He left no heirs of his own, as on 5 January 1826 Jacob Beard of Shenandoah County “one of the heirs of Esther Reese decd in right of my son Jacob Beard Jr. decd” sold his son’s interest in the estate.47  An estate settlement recorded on 1 February 1828 shows payments and receipts as early as March 1825.48  An 1854 letter (see letters pages) says that Jacob Beard Jr. went to Tennessee in 1819 and died in Reynoldsburg.   He is not in the 1820 census of Humphreys County (where Reynoldsburg was), and no record of him in west Tennessee was found.   Most records of Humphreys County in this time period were lost in courthouse fires.   Note that Jacob Beard Sr. named another son “Jacob” who was born about 1823 or 1824, after the death of the first Jacob.

  5. Joseph Beard (1 December 1796 — 6 March 1858)  Joseph was apparently one of the males under 10 in the 1810 census, but was not in the 1820 household. He must have been of age when Joseph Beard of Shenandoah County “one of the heirs of Mary Beard decd” sold his interest in his mother’s estate to Joseph Stover on 13 March 1826.49  He was living in Shenandoah County at the time, as he recorded a mortgage of his household furniture on the same day. 50  Nine years later on 7 February 1835 Joseph Beard and his wife Martha Ann, now of Rockingham County, Virginia, conveyed the same interest again, apparently to perfect Stover’s title.51  His location in 1820 is unknown.  He may be the Joseph Beard in the 1830 Rockingham County census, aged 20-30.52  An 1854 letter (see letters pages) says that Joseph “remained in Virginia.”

    However, a manuscript written in 1920 by his granddaughter tells us that he was a traveling boot and shoemaker who married a teenager named Dorcas Raines, by whom he had three children named Mary Frances, Jacob and Samuel.  After her death he eloped with  Martha Ann Rice, the teenage daughter of Edward Rice and Catherine Luker, by whom he had several more children

    See the separate page for much more detail: The Mystery of Joseph Beard

[The 1854 letter (see letters pages) says that Isaac Beard “had two sisters and one of them was named Mary.” The two sisters were clearly Elizabeth and Esther.  Perhaps the writer, who would only have gotten the information years earlier from Isaac Beard, was confusing his sister with his mother.  There is no indication that there was a third daughter.  I note that one entry in teh Esther Reese estate file mentions a payment to “Mary Dull”.  It is possible that the daughter Elizabeth was either named Mary Elizabeth or was sometimes known as Mary.]

The following children were by his second wife Rosanna Wendel:

  1. Lucinda Beard (19 February 1821 — 13 January 1889) Her birth date, which is on her gravestone and is consistent with later censuses, suggests that Rosina Wendel Wiseman was pregnant when she married Jacob Beard.  Lucinda married George W. Floyd in Clinton County on 19 October 1848.53  George Floyd appears to have been the son of Lewis Floyd and Esther Beard, who were living only six houses away in 1850. [So Lucinda married her half-sister’s son.] The 1850 census shows George (23), Lucinda (28) and one child. They moved to Linn County, Iowa with his parents about 1853, according to several records and were enumerated there in the 1854 and 1856 state censuses.   The 1860 Linn County census shows George (32) and Lucinda (39) with three children in the household.  Both are in the 1870 and 1880 censuses of Linn County as well, living in Marion, with Lucinda’s age being given as 49 and 59 respectively.  The Oak Shade cemetery has a single stone for her and her husband (1826 – 19 Jul 1904) with their birth and death dates.  A descendant, Doris Schneider of Davenport, Iowa, wrote me in 1983 and said their children were: Lewis, Susan F., Amos A., Louisa, Charles, and Mary Catherine.  These children are either in their census households or died s infants with gravestones in the same cemetery.
  2. Susanna Beard (27 January 1822 — 27 July 1898) She married George W. Garrison (1817-1900) in Clinton County on 1 January 1841. I did not find them in the 1850 census, but they appear in the 1860 Clinton County census with Rosanna Beard the only other member of the household. Susannah gave her age as 38. Susanna’s birth and death dates are from a Garrison family record. [Note that the 1830 and 1840 censuses do not show the ages of Lucinda and Susanna. Since Lucinda’s birth date seems to be corroborated, I suspect that Susanna’s may be incorrect.]
  3. Jacob Beard (c1824 — aft1880) He was the second son in the family to be named “Jacob”. The 1830 and 1840 censuses are inconsistent – he appears to be under 5 in 1830 but 15-20 in 1840. He was probably the same Jacob Beard who appeared in the 1850 through 1880 Clinton County censuses (age 26, 37, 46, and 56 respectively)   with a wife named Permelia.  A marriage record for Jacob Beard and Permilia Gaskill in Clinton County is dated 25 February 1847.  Jane Gaskill, age 46 and 50, evidently her mother was in the household in 1850 and 1860.   He was apparently named (or re-named) after the death of his older half-brother Jacob.
  4. Samuel B. Beard (17 October 1826 — 22 November 1898) The 1831 court case lists Rosina Beard’s children in birth order and this child was listed in two documents as “Joseph Beard”; while on a summons “Joseph” was crossed out and “Samuel” written over.   He was listed in the 1850 census as a farmer with a wife named Sophia (age 21). They were evidently newly married, as there were no children in the household. A Henry McCollister (age 20) was in the household.   Sophia was apparently Sophia Pitzer.  Both Samuel and Sophia (as Sophia P. Beard) are buried in the IOOF Cemetery. His birth and death dates are from his gravestone. Sophia’s stone gives her birth date as 24 February 1829 and her death as 24 August 1919.
  5. Catherine Beard (18 October 1828 — October 1925) She was called “Catherine, now widow Oxley” in Amos Beard’s 1882 biography. She married Lewis B. Oxley in Clinton County on 25 March 1856. She was in her mother’s household in 1850, age 21. She and Lewis had three children listed in 1860, but by 1880 Catherine is widowed, listed as the head of household. Her gravestone in the IOOF Cemetery gives her birth and death dates and her name as Catherine Beard Oxley.
  6. Amos G. Beard (1 October 1830 — 11 July 1890)   He and his wife are both buried in the New Vienna IOOF cemetery.   He was in his mother’s household in the 1850 census, listed as a 19-year old grocer.  In 1860 his occupation was listed as a merchant with $3,000 in land and $4,000 in other property.  He was prominent enough to rate a biography in the 1880 history of Clinton County.54 This biography names the six children of Jacob and Rosanna Beard but provides no further information except for Lucinda and Susanna.  The article says Amos entered the mercantile trade — “second to none in the hardware and grocery trade” — and had been in business in New Vienna since 1855.   He married Rachel A. Brown (26 December 1836 – 15 July 1906), the daughter of Augustus and Sarah Brown, on 25 October 1855.   They had eight children, six of whom survived childhood: Frank Beard, Charles Beard, Oscar L. Beard (1866-1933), Leroy Beard, Judon Beard, and Hattie Beard.  Twins named Homer and Alzora ,born in 1870, both died in infancy in 1872 and are buried in the same cemetery as their parents.

  1. Loose Marriage Bonds of Shenandoah County, filed in courthouse.  I have a photocopy.  Mary’s name is spelled Stroatzlager in the bond but her mother’s consent spells it Stockslager.  The bondsman was her brother Daniel who signed as “Stockslagar”. [↩]
  2. Shenandoah County Deed Book L, page 40. [↩]
  3. Shenandoah County Deed Book M, page 28. [↩]
  4. Frederick County 1810 census, p219: J. Beard 21010-40010. And on p239: J. Beard 20010-10100. [↩]
  5. Shenandoah County 1810 census, p256: Jacob Baird 20101-02010. [↩]
  6. Northern Neck Surveys Book “A”, page 211. [↩]
  7. Shenandoah County Will Book L, page 3. [↩]
  8. Shenandoah County Will Book M, page 411.  Both estate sales are recorded on this page. [↩]
  9. Shenandoah County Will Book M, page 474. [↩]
  10. Shenandoah County Deed Book EE, page 201. [↩]
  11. Shenandoah County Deed Book EE, page 224 and Shenandoah County Deed Book OO, page 8. [↩]
  12. Shenandoah County Deed Book HH, page 272. I did not read this deed as including the Floyds, but a correspondent, Daniel Bly, tells me that this or a following deed involves them. [↩]
  13. Shenandoah County Deed Book NN, page 184. [↩]
  14. Loose Marriage Bonds of Shenandoah County, filed in courthouse.  A certified copy is also included in Jacob Beard’s pension file. [↩]
  15. Ibid. [↩]
  16. Shenandoah County Will Book 1, page 184. [↩]
  17. This was her only appearance in the St. Paul’s records. [↩]
  18. Shenandoah Chancery Case #1887-0054. [↩]
  19. Their daughter Lucinda was born 19 February 1821, less than six months after the marriage, according to her family records and gravestone. We don’t know for sure that she was Jacob Beard’s child, but we have to consider the possibility that Jacob and Rosanna were living together in 1820. [↩]
  20. Deed dated 14 October 1824 from Henry and Christina Leonard to Laurence Pittman, trustee, included in chancery file.  See Shenandoah Chancery Case No 1832-013. [↩]
  21. Shenandoah County Deed Book GG, page 291. The deed refers to the town as “Hawkinsburg”. [↩]
  22. Shenandoah County Deed Book KK, page 499. [↩]
  23. The History of Clinton County, Ohio, (W.H. Beers, Chicago, 1886; reprinted 1971 by Unigraphic, Evansville, Indiana), page 978. [↩]
  24. This and related material from pension file, #W25224 and Ohio pension record #25719. [↩]
  25. The Virginia Military Act of 1775 provided for a draft of males aged 16 and over. If Jacob was, as he states, drafted then he must have been over 16 by April 1781. [↩]
  26. He probably meant Abraham Byrd, who was a colonel of militia in Shenandoah County. [↩]
  27. David Hardin and Samuel A. Sewell deposed in Rosanna’s pension file as to the date of death. Rosanna, in a separate document, gave the same date. [↩]
  28. Clinton County Court of Common Pleas, Wills Volume 2, page 258. Photocopy of will in my possession. [↩]
  29. Photocopy of file from National Archives. [↩]
  30. All IOOF Cemetery stones read by Homer Williams in 1979. [↩]
  31. Clipping courtesy of Homer Williams. [↩]
  32. Birth and Death Records 1867-1908, (manuscript on film). Clinton County Courthouse, Wilmington, Ohio. [↩]
  33. The History of Clinton County, Ohio, (W.H. Beers, Chicago, 1886; reprinted 1971 by Unigraphic, Evansville, Indiana), page 978. [↩]
  34. Survey Report, Mount Tabor graveyard, dated 11 August 1936 by Scioto M. Herndon, Library of Virginia Archives. Also reported in at least three different online databases with apparent transcription errors. One online posting has the years as 1793 and 1854, which would be a 61 year span, not 59.  Another has the date fo death as 1855 rather than 1854, and the third has the day as 16 November rather than 10 November. [↩]
  35. Shenandoah County Deed Book HH, page 272. [↩]
  36. Shenandoah County Will Book R, page 39. [↩]
  37. Augusta County Marriage Book 1, page 5. [↩]
  38. Lexington (Va.) Gazette issue of 6 June 1906, page 2.  The article says his last sister, Mrs. Joseph A. Miller, had been buried in Lexington just a week earlier. [↩]
  39. Augusta County Chancery Case File #1879-042. [↩]
  40. Shenandoah County Will Book M, page 411 and page 474, respectively. [↩]
  41. John Vogt & T. William Kethley, Jr., Shenandoah County Marriage Bonds 1772-1850 (Iberian Publishing, 1984), page 240. [↩]
  42. He may be the Lewis Floyd shown in the 1820 census of adjacent Hampshire County with a male under 10 and a female 10-16 in the household.  The 1830 census household included a male aged 10-15 and a female aged 15-20. [↩]
  43. Shenandoah County Will Book O, page 472 and Book R, page 39. [↩]
  44. Shenandoah County Will Book M, page 474. [↩]
  45. Shenandoah County Will Book M, page 474. [↩]
  46. Shenandoah County Will Book N, page 60. [↩]
  47. Shenandoah County Deed Book EE, page 201. [↩]
  48. Shenandoah County Will Book O, page 234. [↩]
  49. Shenandoah County Deed Book EE, page 224. [↩]
  50. Shenandoah County Deed Book EE, page 224. This was dated three days earlier and recorded the same day as the sale of his interest in his mother’s legacy. [↩]
  51. Shenandoah County Deed Book OO, page 8.  It is possible that Joseph Beard conveyed the rights again to perfect Stover’s title, since the 1826 deed had not specifically mentioned the land in question. [↩]
  52. 1830 Rockingham County census, page 195: Joseph Beard 20002-1001. [↩]
  53. Clinton County Marriage Book 4, page 123. [↩]
  54. The History of Clinton County, Ohio, (W.H. Beers, Chicago, 1886; reprinted 1971 by Unigraphic, Evansville, Indiana), page 978. [↩]