Jacob Beard

 (29 August 1762 - 27 March 1839)

 

Jacob 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 living with his father Zacharias.  He continued to live with his father, on the family farm, until his father’s death about 1797.  A marriage bond in Shenandoah County is dated 8 April 1792 for his marriage to Mary Stockslager.[1]  The bond, and an attached note signed by Esther Reese and witnessed by Simon Harr, identify her as the daughter of Esther Reese (the widow of Alexader Stockslager and then of Joel Reese).  The bond shows Jacob's signature as “Jacob Beard”.  His uncle, 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 land for nearly twenty years before the marriage.

 

Jacob continues 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 pounds.[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 personal property tax lists in 1799, taken a few months after his sale of the family farm, and probably moved to Frederick County that year.  Nor did he stay there the 12-13 years he stated.  The 1800 census for Virginia is lost, but he appears to be the Jacob Beard in Strasburg, Shenandoah County in 1810.  [There are two “J. Beard”s in the 1810 Frederick County census, both 26-45.[4]  Neither matches what we know about our Jacob Beard.  The “Jacob Baird” in Shenandoah County is more likely to be him,  He was in Strasburg within four names of brother-in-law Martin Zea, and aged over 45.[5]]  He was a chain carrier for a survey for his mother-in-law in 1814[6], the only citation found for him during this decade.

 

On 19 September 1818, Mary Beard’s mother, Esther Reese, wrote her will. [She was twice-widowed, once by Mary’s father Alexander Stockslager and then by Joel Reese.]  It 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.”   

 

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]  A later accounting shows she was paid $20 in 1818 and $457 sometime in 1819.[9]   By 1820 Mary Beard was dead and her children appear as legatees of the 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 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 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 his deceased son Jacob Beard Jr.'s interest in Esther's estate to Joseph Stover.[10]  Joseph Beard sold his interest to Stover on 13 Mar 1826[11] and apparently did so again on 7 February 1835.[12]  On 7 August 1829, both Elizabeth Dull (wife of John Dull) and Esther Floyd (wife of Lewis Floyd) sold their interests to Stover.[13]  Isaac Beard sold his interest to Stover on 13 November 1833.[14]  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.  Whatever other children there may have been had either predeceased their mother or had died unmarried by 1826. 

 

Mary Beard was alive as late as August 1819, but died sometime before the 1820 census.  Jacob Beard (who was then 58) remarried to a 31-year old widow, Rosanna Wendel Wisman.  The bond is dated  2 September 1820.[15]  Her name in this bond is written “Rosanna Windle” with “Windle” struck out and “Wiseman (widow)” substituted.  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 church.”[16]  She was the daughter of John Wendel, whose will dated 27 July 1814 mentions both his daughter “Rosina” the widow of Paul Wisman, deceased, and his granddaughter Juliana Wisman, “being a lame child of my daughter Rosina Wisman.”[17]   It is not clear what became of the daughter Juliana, nor why Rosina waited so long to remarry.[18]

 

Jacob Beard was in the 1820 Shenandoah census aged over 45 with two females under 10 and one female aged 16-26, located in or near Hawkinstown, several miles south of Strasburg.  There is no indication of the date on which this census was taken.  It would seem the date must have been prior to the remarriage, with Esther Beard being the elder female.  However, there is reason to suspect that Rosanna was pregnant by May 1820 and thus might be that female.[19]  The younger two females are therefore uncertain.  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.  There seems to be no sign of Rosanna’s daughter Julianna. 

 

On 28 May 1828, Jacob bought his first land since 1799, two town lots in Hawkinstown.[20]  He had been in the 1820 census there, so had probably been living in that area for at least ten years.   He was enumerated in the 1830 census in Hawkinstown as well (see above).  He and his wife “Rosina” sold both lots on 11 August 1831, evidently in anticipation of moving.[21]  By the following year, they were in Clinton County, Ohio.

 

Exactly when he arrived in 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.[22]  Jacob's pension application states he moved to Clinton County in December 1832.  Rosanna’s obituary states they moved in 1831. 

 

In 1832 Congress made any regular-army Revolutionary soldier with six months of service eligible for a pension.  On 12 November 1833, Jacob Beard applied for a pension.[23]   In the application he stated he was a resident of Vernon Township, Clinton County, Ohio, and was born 29 August 1762 in Shanadore (sic) County, Virginia.  He further stated that he was “born and raised in Shanadore County”. He declared that he was drafted in Shenandoah County for a tour of six months on 15 April 1781.[24]   His battalion went to Fredricksburg, then Williamsburg, and then to Yorktown where he was discharged a few days before the surrender of Cornwallis.[25]  The deposition also states he returned to Shenandoah County and lived there until about 1802 or 1803 when he removed to Frederick County for 12 or 13 years until returning to Shenandoah, where he lived until he removed to Clinton County about 2 December 1832.[26]  Ohio pension #25719 was granted at the rate of $20 a year.

 

Although he declared a very precise birth date in this document, he mentioned his age in two other places in the same application.  The precise birth date was probably provided to the court in a document prepared earlier that year.[27]  When questioned at the 12 November 1883 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 died testate 27 March 1839 in New Vienna, Clinton County.[28]  He was probably ill, as this will is the only document he signed with a mark rather than a signature.  His will, dated five days earlier on 22 March 1839, names Rosanna but not the children.   He left to Rosanna a lifetime estate in “...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.”  He specified that, at Rosanna's death, the property remaining would be split among the children that belong to Jacob Beard and Rozanna his wife.[29]  Rosanna was named executor.  None of the children by his first wife were mentioned.  Apparently he felt his first set of children had already benefited from the estate of his first wife. 

 

Rosanna is 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.

 

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.[30]  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.

 

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. [31]  The Clinton Republican carried her obituary:  “Rosannah Beard, wife of Jacob Beard, died July 15.  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.”[32]  Luckily, Clinton County began keeping death records in 1867 and one of the first entries states Rosannah Beard died at New Vienna July 15, 1867 of congestive lungs...aged 78 years 5 months 29 days. [33]

 

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 by Amos Beard in a biographical sketch published in 1886.[34]

 

Jacob Beard had five or six children by Mary Stockslager and six by Rosanna Wendel:

 

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. (See separate page.)

 

2.      Esther Beard (c1797 – 6 December 1873)   She is evidently the female aged 10-16 in the 1810 household and the female 16-26 in 1820.  Esther Beard was a purchaser at the estate sale of Esther Reese on 18 November 1818[35] and was paid $1.36 “for housework” by the estate the following year.[36]  She married Lewis Floyd  in Shenandoah County by bond dated 14 October 1823.[37]  The Esther Reese settlements note $210.92 paid to “Esther Floyd heir of Mary Beard”.[38] She was apparently the only child of Jacob’s first family to accompany her father to Ohio – and preceded him there by a few years.  Other settlements of the Reese estate mention a letter from Lewis Floyd dated 8 June 1828 and a letter from Esther Floyd dated 9 December 1829, both apparently written from Ohio.[39]  Lewis Floyd is in the Clinton County 1830 and 1840 census.[40]  Lewis Floyd was one of Jacob Beard's sureties for his pension application in 1833, and Lewis and Esther Floyd are in the 1850 census six doors away from Rosanna Beard, with her younger half-brother Samuel Beard in their own household.  In the early 1850s, they and some of their children moved to Linn County, Iowa.  Esther’s age is given as 52, 62, and 73 in the 1850-70 censuses.  (Her husband is 57 and 67 in 1850-60.)  Esther Floyd 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 das.”  I don’t know who their children were.

3.      Jacob Beard (c1800 – 1824/5)  He was apparently under 10 in 1810, and not in the household in 1820.  He may actually have been a few years older than the 1810 census suggests – in fact, I note the possibility that Isaac Beard had left the household by 1810 and Jacob could have been the older male.  As “Jacob Beard Jr.” he was paid a small amount from the Esther Reese estate in 1820.[41]  Jacob Beard was appointed administrator of the estate of Jacob Beard Jr. on 7 February 1825.[42]   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. [43]  A settlement recorded on 1 February 1828 shows payments and receipts as early as March 1825.[44]  An 1854 letter (see letters pages) says 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 must have returned to Shenandoah if his father was his administrator.   Note that Jacob Beard Sr. named another son “Jacob.”

4.      Joseph Beard (c1800-1803 - ?)  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.[45]   Nine years later on 7 February 1835 Joseph Beard and his wife Martha Ann, of Rockingham County, Virginia, conveyed the same interest again, apparently to perfect Stover’s title.[46]  His location in 1820 is unknown.  He may be the Joseph Beard in the 1830 Rockingham County census, aged 20-30.[47]  An 1854 letter (see letters pages) says he remained in Virginia.  However, two conflicting family group sheets suggest he went elsewhere: one claims he married Martha Ann Rice, daughter of Edward Rice, in Rockingham County, the other claims he married Martha Ann Henness.  What evidence I have is inconclusive.[48]

 

5.      Elizabeth Beard  (c1810? - ?)  It is unclear to me if she was one of the older daughters or a younger one.  She may have been one of the females under 10 in 1820, since she was unmarried in 1824 when Martin Zea advanced her five dollars of her legacy from her mother.  She was married by 7 August 1829 when John Doll (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.[49]  There is no record of a marriage in Shenandoah County.  A settlement of the Reese estate in 1831 mentions an undated payment to “John Dull and wife”.[50]  I have not pursued this line.

 [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, and the writer perhaps confused his sister with his mother.  There is no indication that there was a third daughter.]

 

6.      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 Wiseman was pregnant when she married Jacob Beard.  Lucinda married George W. Floyd in Clinton County on 19 October 1848.[51]  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 about 1854, according to several records.  In 1860 they were living in Linn County, Iowa, with George (32) and Lucinda (39) having three children in the household.  Both are in the 1870 and 1880 censuses of Linn County as well, Lucinda’s age being given as 49 and 59.  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. 
 

7.      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.]

 

8.      Jacob Beard  (c1823 – ?)  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 and 1860 Clinton County censuses (age 26 and 37, respectively, born in Virginia), with a wife named Permelia (age 24 and 35).  A marriage record for Jacob Beard and Permilia Gaskill in Clinton County is dated 25 February 1847.  Jane Gaskill, age 46 and 50, was in his household in both censuses.   He was apparently remained after the death of his older half-brother Jacob.

 

9.      Samuel B. Beard  (17 October 1826 - 22 November 1898)   He was listed in the 1850 census as a farmer with a wife named Sophia (age 21, born Virginia).  They were evidently newly married as there were no children.  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. 

 

10.  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. 

11.  Amos G. Beard (1 October 1830 - 11 July 1890)  His birth and death dates are from his gravestone in the New Vienna IOOF cemetery, as are his wife’s.  He was in his mother's household in the 1850 census, listed as a grocer aged 19.  By 1860 he was listed as a merchant and had $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, Ohio.[52]  This biography names the six children of Jacob and Rosanna 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 was listed as a grocer, age 19, in the 1850 census.)  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, Charles, Oscar, Leroy, Judon, and Hattie.  Homer and Alzora , twins born in 1870, both died in 1872.