Memoirs of James J. Beeman

These memoirs, written December 24, 1886 by James Jackson Beeman, were found and copied for the descendants of John Beeman and Margaret Hunter Beeman by Miss Ruth Cooper. Miss Cooper is the daughter of Ruth Myers Cooper, daughter of Sonoma Beeman Myers, daughter of William H. Beeman, son of John Beeman who was a half-brother to James J. Beeman.

I was born in the state of Illinois on the 21st day of December 1816, at the head of the American Bottom in Madison County, about three miles below the city of Alton, about one mile below St. Louis and Alton crossing on Wood River. My father, James Beeman, was raised in North Caroline, Rowen County. He went to Illinois about the year 1800. He moved to Greene County when I was quite small. I was partly raised in Greene County and partly in Calhoun County on the Illinois River, opposite the mouth of Apple Creek.

I was married to Sarah Crawford, daughter of James Crawford, in the year 1836, September 15th. We lived in Calhoun County, and had two children, a son and a daughter. The boy died in Calhoun County, he being the oldest. I left Illinois for Texas September 1840, crossing the boundry line between the U.S. and Texas, the 6th of December 1840. A brother and a nephew, John S. Beeman, came with me. We stopped and rented land in Bowie County on what was known as the Sterling Smith farm about three miles east of the town of Dalby Springs.

In the spring of 1841, the Indians had been depredating on the settlements in the upper counties. A company was raised and went in pursuit of them. General E. H. Tarrant, hearing of the expedition, mounted his horse and went and headed it. They went to an Indian village on Village Creek in what is now Tarrant County, and attacked the Indians. In this fight Col. John B. Denton was killed and Captain Henry Stout was wounded. After the fight the company returned to the settlements taking the dead body of Col. Denton to Denton Creek where he was buried. About six years afterwards Captain Stout went and found the grave, dug up his remains and took them away. I do not know where. The 2nd of March 1841, General Tarrant was the Brigadier General of the District composed of the counties of Bowie, Red River, Lamar and Fannin, with their territories. After the return of this company from the fight, General Tarrant issued an order for the raising of some 400 volunteers to go out on the waters of the Trinity River against the Indians, and that said volunteers rendezvous at Fort English in Fannin county on the 15th of July 1841. Each man to furnish himself with a horse, gun, ammunition and rations. Each of the above mentioned counties had to furnish a certain number of men and organize in due time to be at the rendezvous. The Bowie County men met at the town of DeKalb on the 5th of July 1841 and organized by electing David P. Key, Captain, (who, at this writing lives in Menard County, Texas.)

Alexender Booth was elected Orderly Sergeant. I do not remember the names of the other officers of the company. We then disbanded to meet at Fort Inglish on the 15th where we elected Battalion officer whom I do not consider it of sufficient importance to mention except General Tarrant was Commander-in-Chief, and Jonathan Bird was Sergeant-Major. We immediately were on the march for the Indian Village Creek. When we got there the Indians had left. We found a good deal of signs, as they would come back for such of their crops as were still growing. There was corn, pumpkins and beans. Perhaps here I should relate an incident that began before we left Fort Inglish which is as follows:

An old man living near Fort Inglish by the name of Cox, had a little boy and a grandson near the same size, who were in the habit of both mounting a pony and driving the cows up of evenings. It was late for the cows as usual, and while out, the Indians came on them and captured them and their pony, and carried them off. They were ransomed in the fall of the same year (1841) and they told us that the Indians kept far enough ahead of us to be out of danger and watched our movements. They told the boys that in case of an attack by us, they would kill them. Poor little fellows, they suffered a great deal as the Indians whipped them severely. I dare say if they are still living, they have the marks on their bodies to this day. (December the first 1886.)

On our arrival in the Village we encamped on their fields and helped ourselves to their corn, beans, etc. One of our men made a grater out of an old coffee pot, on which we grated corn and baked it into bread. The first bread I had tasted in a good while. We called it "Bready", as bread was not good enough a name. Up to this time, our rations consisted of flour, bacon and coffee. We waited three or four days for General Tom I. Smith, who was to meet us at the Village. As he had not come up to this time, we continued our march. The first day, while we were nooning, some of our horses stampeded and ran back to the Village, and those who went after them, found General Smith and command occupying the same ground we had left in the morning. This stampede was on Sycamore Creek, about two miles east of Ft. Worth. On the return of the men with the horses, they reported the arrival of General Smith add that he wished General Tarrant to go back and see him, which he did. He got some beef cattle from Smith.

We then continued up the West Fork. On the next day we stopped in a grove to noon and found a pile of wood ready for a fire. This, the little boys said they had prepared when the Indian spies came in and reported our coming. Whereupon they left in haste. The brothers of the boys put fire to the pile and cooked dinner. We continued our march up to a large spring in the upper Cross Timbers. Here Cook had some time before camped on his way to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Not finding the Indians as we expected, we lay by and sent out spies. When they came back, they reported no Indians. By this time our supplies of provisions were nearly exhausted, and the beeves took murrain and died so fast we were afraid to eat the beef. This spring is where Carterville is located in Parker County. So the only alternative was for us to go back to the settlements. We had enlisted for three months service. The time not being out when we got back, Major Johnathan Bird got permission from General Tarrant to raise a company out of the furlowed soldiers and go back to the West Fork and build a fort near the Village. He raised the company, and as I had seen the country, my brother, John, also wished to see the country, so he took my place. They went and built the fort on the North side of West Fork of the Trinity River, about seven or eight miles from the Village, and about the same distance from Birdville. The Fort was named, "Bird's Fort" for the Major. After this fort was built my brother returned to Bowie County, where we were living. It was not long before we had our crops gathered and sold, ready to move to the fort. We got to the Fort some time in November 1841, with our families. We had with us the following named families: A. W. Webb, who was our Captain; Solomon Silkwood; Henry Hahn; John Beeman; John S. Beeman; myself, and family (J.J. Beeman); also some single men.

After our arrival at the fort, we built more houses so as to make comfortable quarters for our families. My cousin, W. H. Rattan took his family there on the first expedition, also one other family went at the same time, by the name of Bogard. On Christmas Day 1841 Captain Webb, Soloman Silkwood and W.H. Rattan left the Fort and went over on Elm Fork to cut another road below the mouth of Denton Creek, so as to avoid the crossing of both streams, which the present road did. They got on Elm Fork the same day they left the Fort and camped on the opposite side. That night it snowed and continued snowing the next day and was very cloudy. This was the 26th of December 1841. While they were going up the river looking for a suitable place to make a ford, they came on a bear track and found it had gone up a big cottonwood tree and had not come down. They concluded they would cut the tree down and have a bear fight between it and the dogs they had with them. They began chopping the tree, and thinking it dinner time, they ate their dinner. After dinner Hamp Rattan, we called him "Hamp", went to chopping, but did not hit many licks until the Indians who were watching them, shot three times at them, the first killing Hamp. After consulting together they deemed it best to leave, as Hamp was now dead. But before starting, Silkwood shot at what he took to be an Indian head. This ended the fight, and they made their way to the Fort without any further trouble with the Indians. On their arrival about 10 o'clock at night, they imposed the task of informing his wife of his death on me. It was hard but I went in the house where she and my wife were both talking and laughing. I said, "Polly, give me your boy", and said I had bad news to tell her. She asked, "What is it?" I said that ... Webb and Silkwood had come back and the Indians had killed Hamp. It was so shocking it seemed that she would go crazy. Shocking indeed.

The next day a detail of men was sent to meet wagons that had gone into the settlements after provisions, and to bring the body of Hamp Rattan to the Fort for burial. It was the purpose of them to find and cut a road, dig the river banks down and notify those with the wagons where to come to cross the river on their return. But this tragedy put an end to making the new road. The detail had to go so far before they met the wagons, so as to put them on their guard against an Indian attack, that from the time Hamp was killed it was nine days before he was buried. When the men found the body, it was guarded by his dog, who had stayed by him and kept the buzzards or anything else from bothering it.

They said the dog was frantic with joy to see them. All the other dogs had left and gone back to the Fort. But poor old Watch died the next summer in Lamar County, near Paris, and Polly with the help of Dow Brown, Hamp's little Nephew, dug a grave and buried him, as a last rite for the faithfulness of the good old dog. This detail consisted of John S. Beeman, Henry Hahn and Heath. Hamp was buried on the hill about 100 yards from the Fort to the North. The Fort was on the banks of a lake shaped like a horse-shoe. A convenient shape for protection from the Indians. About one mile from the West Fork. There was a man died at the Fort after Hamp was buried, by the name of Long. I don't know his given name. He was also buried at the same place. I suppose their bones are still there. Long had a brother, but after his death the brother went back to one of the counties on Red River.

Some time during the month of January (1842) Col. John Neely Bryan came to the Fort and told us he had found a place a short distance below where the West Fork and Elm Fork come together. There was a high bluff on the river which he had located and called it "Dallas", and would lay off a town for the head of navigation. He was very anxious for us to move down, as it was a better country than where we were. Captain Mabel Gilbert and my brother John, went down with Colonel Bryan to look at the country, and were so well pleased they determined to move down. By this time it was February. Captain Gilbert thought he would go by water, (as he was an old steamboat captain), so he hired me and another man. We went into the West Fork bottom and cut down two big cottonwood trees, out of which we dug two large canoes. When done they were launched and lashed together and made quite a boat on which he put his household effects and his old lady, (for such she was) and Jackson—the parrot. He hired a hand to go with him to help navigate the West Fork. They weighed anchor and off they went for Dallas and landed safely.

I have not the date, but think it was not far from the first of March 1842. By this time, we at the fort had been notified that a colony grant had been given by the Congress of the Republic of Texas to W.S. Peters and Company, beginning on Red River and extending south which embraced the Fort, and that we had better get out. The same Congress granted us at the Fort, six miles square, embracing the Fort, but General Sam Houston, who was President of Texas, vetoed the act. It was about the first of April, we loaded out wagons and started for Dallas. We were about three days making the trip, and landed at the edge of White Rock Bottom, on the fourth day. Coming down we nooned at what we called "Turtle Creek". We gave it the name for having seen and caught a large soft-shelled turtle; which name it still bears until this day. We moved from there down the old Indian trail to a post oak grove in the Prairie, which was about one-half mile northwest from where Captain Jefferson Peak built his brick house on the middle branch. This grove has long since been cut down. In this grove we camped for the night. While there some of the boys put Sam Beeman on a yearling, and it pitched with him and threw him, breaking his collar bone.

The next morning we moved to the edge of White Rock bottom, the fourth day of April 1842. Here we began work. Some of the boys soon cut a tree and began to make boards to cover a house. Perhaps, here I should tell of whom our company consisted, which is as follows: John Beeman and his wife, Emily and their children, Elizabeth Margaret, William H., Samuel H., Isaac H., James H., Clarissa, Nancy, John Scott Winfield, Sarah Ann and Caroline; John S. Beeman and wife, Isabella, their children, Alexander W. and Samuel; myself (J.J.) and wife, Sarah, and children, Mary Jane and Emily E.; Landen Walker and wife, (have not her name) and children, Henderson, Henson, Minerva and another son whose name I have forgotten. Single man, James F. Boddin, Thomas P. Ratten, John H. Cox, Geo. W. Cox. Those are all I remember. There may have been others that I don't remember.

By this time the Colony line had been run and it ran through the town of Dallas and included where the courthouse now stands, and a short distance east. This was the eastern boundary of the Colony. So we thought we were out of its limits, but on the 22nd day of July following, it was extended twelve miles farther east. The next day after our arrival on White Rock, the 5th of April, John Beeman went up on Elm Fork to see the Colony agent, Major Browning, and get some letters he had brought from the post office at Fort Inglish. The post office was 80 miles from us, the letters were from Illinois. As he was coming back in the evening, and just as he was crossing the half-way branch, he looked down the branch and saw about fifteen Indians ride out to the thicket in a run to head him off, but his horse was too fast for them, and he outran the Indians. We in camp heard his horse running. Soon he was in sight, bareheaded. When he got within speaking distance, he called out, "Get your guns, boys, the Indians are coming." Such a bustle as we had I never wish to see again. We looked but could not see them. Some went up on the hill and said they saw them going south towards the timber, through the Elm Grove, about one-half mile west of the camp. I had been sick several days and was not able to be up but a little at a time, but those who were able stood guard that night. They had put the wagons in position for protection in case of attack, by setting up the boards and bolts which were on the ground, making quite a breast work. All night, at intervals, the cattle would come running up to camp as if scared. We were satisfied the Indians were prowling around to find out our position and strength.

I think the fuss the boys kept up had the effect of making them believe we were better prepared for them than we really were. As night was cool the boys kept up a big fire all night. The next morning came bright and clear, and no Indians to be seen. As we had but one horse they did not think it worthwhile to risk their lives for him, and left us unmolested. One of the boys mounted the horse and went back on hunt for John's hat and the letters. He soon found them and brought them in. These letters were read with much interest, as they were from kinfolks in Illinois. In these days it was very difficult to get letters from the States. I think the postage was one dollar a letter. I remember that a letter carried as far as it was from Illinois to Texas, to the state line, the postage of the U.S. is 25 cents at the time of which I write. Besides our company, there was only Colonel Bryan and Captain Gilbert and wife at Dallas, in all that country; for when we left Bird's Fort, all had left and those not with us went back to the settlements, and deserted the Fort. Captain Gilbert had a yoke of oxen and a log chain which Colonel Bryan drove at the time Gilbert descended the West Fork in his boat. As soon as they all got to the proposed city of Dallas and the head of navigation they began chopping down trees for house logs, and dragging them with their oxen. They put up a house about 14 feet square, of post oak logs in which they lived.

Now back to White Rock, the next day, after our watching for the Indians all night, was renewed. Some sawing board timber, some tiving boards and some cutting logs, while others drove the teams and went to hauling. So very soon we had a block house up, about 15 feet square, the lower part. The upper part projected some two feet all around. This was to keep the Indians from scaling the walls, also to give us a fair chance to shoot in case of attack. After the house was completed, we moved in. We also broke some land and planted corn, pumpkins, peas, etc.

Shortly after this, I think about the first of May, my cousin, Polly Rattan, came out from the settlements. King S. Custer came with her. King came to Texas from Carrollton, Illinois, with Hamp Rattan and made his home with them, as he was a single man, until after Hamp's death. Their business was to care for Hamp's grave and as the cedar timber was fine and plenty of it at Dallas, so King and myself took a wagon and yoke of oxen and went to where Dallas was to be, after cedar timber to make paling for the grave. Up to this time there had never been a wagon there, not even a road cut through the timber. So I cut the road and King drove the oxen after me. This is why I have said and still say that I took the first wagon into Dallas. Colonel Bryan told us to go to the branch north of the cabin about one-half mile and we would find plenty of cedars. Another road had been cut, so we went to the branch about where the first road ran to the Cedar Springs, which was road No. 2. We got the timber and hauled it to the block house and made palings. King took it up to the Fort where Hamp was buried, but did not put it up, so I learned afterwards, for they thought it would give the Indians the location and they might dig up the remains to get his scalp.

By this time, which was the first of May, our provisions began to get short. Brother John went to the settlements with cousin Polly and her crowd. I don't remember who all of them were, but it was deemed unsafe to travel without quite a number in the company, as the Indians were continually committing depredations on the exposed settlers, who had by this time begun to settle on the West Fork of the Trinity River. In fact, the Indians were worse there than on we who were further out on the frontier. One reason was that they had horses and we did not. The Indians would prowl around and steal the horses and kill all that came in their way before leaving a settlement, knowing the whites could not follow them. All of a sudden Brother John came back without bringing any provisions. He had heard such big stories of what the Indians were doing and going to do to us, and we must flee for our lives. He was so excited that he feared that we could not more than make our escape. What could we do but go, as our supplies were so nearly exhausted that we had a scanty supply on which to live until we reached the settlements. So the only thing we could do was to pull up, which we did and did not stop until we reached Pin Hook, where Paris now is in Lamar County.

After getting back to the settlements, the first thing was to find somebody who would let us have work to pay for provisions, as for money we did not have any. A man by the name of Ty Paul, who had married a cousin of mine, Minerva Rattan, the youngest child of my Uncle Richard, was going to clear off a yard and make brick for the first court house to be built in Paris. He hired me and my nephew, John S. Beeman, to help him at $20.00 a month, each, which he paid in provisions. I worked for him about a month, Brother John about this time wanted to go back to the Trinity country to meet some surveyors who were expected, and get them to survey our land. So I got into an ox wagon with John H. Cox and T. P. Rattan, my cousin, and made the trip. When we got to the block house, there were no surveyors nor no word from them, but we found the country full of buffalo. It was grand to see them for as far as we could see, from White Rock across the timber east of Dallas, as well as far north as we could see was a solid mass of moving buffalo going north.

We stayed there only a short time as our trip proved to be futile, so we went back to our families. After working and collecting a supply of provisions, and an old steel mill to grind our corn with to get meal for bread; I paid $6.00 for it, which was a very big price, in fact, he knew how to charge, and after making other arrangements, I put my wife and children in a two horse wagon with our supplies and started for the block house, and landed there the last day of August 1842. I had two yoke of oxen to the wagon. The day before I got there, to the block house, one of my oxen took the murrain and died very suddenly. But I continued on to my journey's end in the night. The buffalo were still there. I turned the other three oxen loose, but they soon ran away, not liking to be in the same range with the buffalo. I got three men to accompany us on this trip; William Lamer, who settled on Elm Fork in the Farmers Branch neighborhood and the other two were from Arkansas, whose names I have forgotten, both nice men and a good friend to me.

When we got back to the Block House, there was not a half dozen men in the country. Colonel Bryan and Captain Gilbert were in Dallas, all others, what few there were, were transients looking at the country and going back. I had notified John that my oxen were gone, and he came to help me hunt for them, but not finding them, he came on out to where I was. And as it so happened there was a yoke of oxen to be taken into the settlements. We got them and hitched them to the wagon and went back for John's family. This was about the last of September. We got started back and got about six miles from home and stopped to camp on the road of what we afterwards called the McDermatt Branch. We chained the oxen to a wagon wheel. In the night they must have gotten scared at buffalo, they broke the wheel. We then had to go back and mend it, which we did and then made another start. This trip cost me a great deal of uneasiness as I had to leave my wife and two children with only one man to stay with them in day time and Colonel Bryan at night. This name's name was John Pulliam. It took three weeks to make the trip. When I got back home my wife told me that as soon as Pulliam got his breakfast of a morning he would take his gun and go hunting and leave her and the two children alone until night a good deal of the time. But when I got back and found all well, and that they had not been molested by the Indians, I was truly thankful, as I knew they had been protected by God's Providence.

My wife told me that Bryan never failed to be with them at night, but would leave every morning as he had told me he would do. I thought Pulliam treated me badly as he had promised he would stay with them all of the time, but after finding no damage had been done I said nothing about it. We left brother John in Lamar County. He stayed until the next summer then came back. Henry Harter brought his herd of cattle out on this trip. Quite a number of them died with murrain on the way, but he got out with about 100 head. John and I were to take care of them for him. Those were the first cattle brought except work oxen. The range in the river and creek bottoms was all one's heart could wish for. The wild rye was thick and plenty and green as the finest wheat fields could be all winter. John's family and mine lived in the block house until we built another house close by. I had selected me a place about a mile southwest of the block house and built a house in the timber where there was a fine pool of water with plenty of fish in it. By this time we had become somewhat careless and would venture further than we had before, so in order to be convenient to my work I built a camp and moved the place before I built the house.

We had a great deal of rain that winter, 1842-43. One day it rained all day so I could neither work nor hunt, for if we had any meat I had to kill it in the woods. At this time we had none. We had been living on corn bread, corn coffee and hominy with nothing to season it with, but salt, for several days. On this occasion we had been laying up all day, it rained so hard that we had no dinner on account of the rain. About sunset it slackened up and my wife stepped out behind the camp to get a vessel to get dinner with, when she said, "Run Jimmy-which she always called me,- there is a deer right out yonder." I got my gun and shot it. Henry Long, who was living with us helped me set the dogs on its trail. They ran it about 300 yards and caught it. We brought it to the camp and in less time than it takes me to tell this we had its hide off and the wife had the pot ready and soon we were feasting on fine venison, hominy, corn dodger and coffee made of the same material. The deer had two fauns with her. The next morning Long went out and killed one of them, so we had meat at our house. Of course, we divided with Brother John's family. We made our corn meal by grinding it on the steel mill I just told you about buying, or we beat it in a wooden mortar with a spring pole. We did not have any seasoning except salt. My wife sifted the first out for bread and the rest was grits which she boiled for hominy. The bran was browned for coffee, on which we lived many days at a time. The only meat we had was what I killed in the woods, and often I failed to get any. The deer ware very wild and very little other game, except some time a turkey or a stray buffalo, too poor to be good to eat, with an occasional opossum. I went ahead and laid the foundation for my house, and put in a floor made of puncheons out of the post oak that I split and hewed. After I got the floor laid I built the house, or rather, raised it and hewed the logs,—walls—down inside and out. I then lined the cracks with clapboards by fastening them on the cracks with wooden pegs and wedges. I would drive a chisel into the logs and then drive the wedge after the chisel. Such a thing as nails was not to be had in those days. When we covered a house, we used what we called "ribs" and "weight poles", By now, as well as I can remember, it was January 1843. After building the house I cleared a piece of ground on which to raise a crop. And, I grew a fine crop of corn and some garden truck.

Another incident I may relate here is, while my wife and children were sleeping one morning, I got up very early and took my gun and slipped out and went hunting, as we were out of meat. I got about a mile from home and saw a deer busy feeding. I drew on it and at the fire of the gun it fell dead. There was a faun following it and before I went to the dead deer, I shot three times at the faun before I killed it. As soon as I killed it, I gathered it up and started home, but did not get far until I met my wife carrying one of the children and leading the other. Coming to meet me to see if the Indians had killed me. Hearing the shots had made her think I was in a fight with them. We went back to the house and got breakfasted. Then she went back with me to help me bring the deer home, as it was more than I could carry.

I have said that Henry Harter brought his cattle out when brother John moved. He got John and myself to attend to them. The cattle ranged in White Rock bottom. We would drive them home every few days, and as the time went on, they would graze a little farther from home, possible three or four miles up the creek. I often amused myself after getting the bell cow started, by hiding behind a tree and waiting for some of the young ones to come along, so I could jump out and scare them as they passed, or throw my hat at them. This was fun for me and I would laugh heartily while not knowing that at the same time an Indian might dart an arrow through me. I think the first Sunday after we came to White Rock, brother John and nephew John S. Beeman, and we went over the creek to look at the country, for a crossing. We took the Indian trail through the bottom, and while going along we discovered a moccasin track in the trail as it had rained the night before, and while we were parleying about it, we heard what we took to be an old musket snap at us. We then moved on, watching, but we did not see any more tracks. We went out to the prairie and continued our walk for some two miles, when we came to a post oak grove and found a gang of deer. I killed one, and after looking a little more, we took our deer and went back home. This grove is now known as the home of G. W. Glover. By the time we killed the deer, we had about forgotten about any Indian signs, the ones we saw in the morning. We got back all right, and had a good appetite for venison.

In the summer of 1843, some emigrants came in and settled about in different parts of the county. Among them was John Hewit and Jeff Tilley at Cedar Springs. William Cochran and Farmers Branch, also Thomas Keenan, and others in the same neighborhood. William Coombes and a Mr. Leonard with their families on the west side of the river in the neighborhood of Captain Gilbert, who had previously settled there. In the spring of 1843, General Sam Houston, who was at this time President of the Republic of Texas, came out to meet the Indians at Bird's Fort to make a treaty of peace with them, as they were still hostile. He wanted me to go as guide to the Fort, which I did. He had about thirty men with him as a guard, among them was John R. Reagan. Reagan was taken sick at White Rock so was left at my brother John Beeman's. As soon as he was able to travel he went back to his home in East Texas.

The Indians refused to meet at the Fort, fearing there was a trap set for them, so they moved down on Elm Fork where the Indians met the commission that Houston appointed to treaty with them. Houston having official business at the seat of Government. A treaty was effected, after which we began to feel much safer, but not entirely so for awhile at least.

All this time we saw very hard times in the way of living. I still had to depend upon my gun for the most of our meat, also for wearing apparel. I dressed in deer skin pants, hunting shirts and moccasins. My wife carding, spinning and weaving cotton for shirts. I would sit up nights and finger and pick the seed out of the cotton for her to spin the next day, and she would sit and card rolls for spinning the next day. While the buffalo continued to come into the country I could kill one once in a while and had tolerable fair living but this was rather uncertain. I would use the upper part of their hides to sole my moccasins. We called it "brogan". It was done by cutting a sole out of the raw hide and sewing it on the bottom of the moccasin. This was quite an advantage, as the soles would last quite a while in dry weather. In wet weather they would stretch out of shape.

In July 1842 the colony grant was extended by an extension of twelve miles further east, including us, but we Beeman's remained where we were on our claims, got our lands surveyed by the county surveyor, A.C. Walker, and by a special Act of the Legislature of 1850 got our patents. I could give names of the first settlers who came to the county after 1845, but I think this will be done by some one else who will be more competent to do it than I am. As to the history of the organization of the county, there are others who will do that also.

In the year 1843, John S. Beeman came back from Lamar County, and that fall he and myself moved across White Rock and began our settlements. I had found that my first improvements were on an old survey. For awhile both of us lived together in the house we built for him, and worked together, after which we built a house for me. We settled on sections 22 and 21, which was patented to us. I was on 22 and continued to live on it until in 1854 when I went to Parker County, and as there when the county was organized, lived there nine years. On my Dallas County place I planted the first peach orchard that was planted in that part of the county, and had an abundance of peaches so my neighbors could get all they wanted, and we had plenty for our own use.

On this place my wife died the 8th day of March 1848, and was buried on the northeast corner of my land. In the spring of 1848 I went to California, and returned in 1850. I had then only four living children. Had lost the first, a son, in Illinois. The second, a girl, died a few days after she was born. On my return from California I went on my place with the children and kept house with them until the 29th day of November 1851, when I and Elizabeth Baker, who was teaching school in the neighborhood, were married. After our marriage she had three children, two girls and one boy. I will now give the names of the first six children: William Crawford Beeman, who died in Illinois. He was born the 28th day of September 1857. Mary Jane, born in Illinois, was the baby when we came to Texas, born on the 3rd day of March 1839. Emily Elvira, was born in Bowie County, Texas, the 8th day of January 1841. The infant that died so young was born October 1843 in Dallas County, Texas. We named it Genett. Francis Marion was born November 1844 in Dallas County, Texas. Melissa Anice was born November 15th 1846 and died February 26, 1861, in Parker County, Texas. By my second wife, the first child was a girl named Lydia Angeline, born in Dallas County, Texas, November 13, 1852, and died January 29, 1853. Charles Artemas was born in Dallas County, also, January 24th 1854. Sarah Elizabeth born in Parker County, Texas, March 9th, 1857. These are the names and number of all of my children. Up to the present date, the number of grand-children is 34, and great-grandchildren are 14. On this the 24th day of December 1886, only four of my own children now are living—to wit, Emily E. Baker, Francis Marion, Charles Artemas, and Sarah E. Sweet. The number of grandchildren now living is 26 and great-grandchildren six.

Lampasas, Texas
December 24, 1886
Signed—James J. Beeman