Person:James Beard (25)

The father of John, Hugh and Samuel Beard is thought by some researchers to have been James Beard who was living on the Cowpasture River in Augusta County, Virginia and later moved to Eastern Tennessee by about 1784/85. Additional research is needed on his family. One Ancestry Member Tree claims that James Beard died in 1786, but it provides no sources to substantiate this.

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Early Land Acquisition in Augusta County, VA

Acquisition of Land from Chalkley's:

Page 5.—10th August, 1761. John Crockett and Margaret ( ) and Archibald Crockett and Mary ( ), of Anson County, North Carolina, to James Beard, £120, 246 acres on Cowpasture, cor. James Mease [sic, s/b Mayse]. Teste: Samuel Crockett. Delivered: Mrs. Beard, June, 1784.

James Beard acquired 24 acres on the NW side lower Pasture river in 1763. [A Centennial History of Alleghany County, Virginia", By Oren F. Morton, B., Lit. Dayton, Virginia, J. K. Reubush Company 1923].

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Records in Augusta County, VA

From Chalkley's:

Vol. 1 - October 19, 1748. Page 65. James Beard added to tithables.

22 May 1753, Samuel Lockhart and wife Catherine to Edward Beard, Mason, 200 acres on North River of Shanando, part of 400 acres patented to Lockhart in April of 1751, corner Samuel Lusk, corner to James Beard. (So Edward Beard and James Beard now own lands next to each other on the North River of the Shenandoah.) Beard Family History

Vol. 1 - May 21, 1755. Page 427. Road from James Beard's Ford to Chamberlain's Run, thence to the Stone Meeting House.

1755, John Quarles vs William Dougherty and James Beard. Summons issued 28 May 1755 and returned to the Court "not executed by reason of disturbances of the Indians". File 397, Augusta County Records. William Dougherty lived on or near the James River, near James Beard. According to the William and Mary Quarterly, William Dougherty and James Beard both lived on the James in present day Rockbridge County. A part of Botetourt County eventually became a part of Rockbridge. We believe that this James Beard lived on the Cowpasture near the James River, not on the James, from many other records. Beard Family History

Vol. 1 - April 29, 1756. (108) Claims, propositions and grievances; James Beard, claim for ranging.

Vol. 1 - May 19, 1756. (113) Robert Moore, overseer for James Beard.

1756, Fee books for services: a James Beard mentioned in Cowpasture. Beard Family History

Page 125?(i.—14th February, 1761. John Dunlupe (Dunlap, Dunlop, Dunlape) to Robert Dunlape, £100, 295 acres on Calfpasture, part of 625 acres on Mill Creek, the river where the Creek empties. Teste: Arwaker Johnston, James Beard, Jas. Trimble.

1763, James Beard is on a list on the northwest side of the lower Cowpasture, 1763 patents. This is the area of Augusta that became Botetourt County in 1769. and the northernmost part then became Bath County in 1790. Beard Family History

12 October 1764, Cowpasture River area: Processioning: At intervals, the Court ordered that a committee of men visit all the property owners and walk the boundaries of their lands and mark them. This was called processioning, and it provides us with a list of landowners in order in a certain area. This was a very important processioning record for us: "As it has pleased your Worships to send an order to nominate four persons in the Cow Pasture to mark the lines of the several plantations theree, we the subscribers hereof have gone from the Forks at Jackson's River upeard to Joseph Mayse, and Thomas Feamster and William Black from there to the head of the waters. There is many places that there is no livers in and others that doth not know their lines. The names of such as have f'd [followed?] their lines are as follows. Signed, James McCay, James Scott." McCay and Scott marked for themselves and for William Gillespie, John Handley, William McMurry, James Beard, John Dickenson, James Hamilton, Ralph Laverty, John Cartmill, James Hughart, Robert Stuart, Charles Donally, and Thomas Gillespie. Their cohorts, Feamster and Black, marked for themselves and for James Mayse, John McCreery, James Knox, James Shaw, George Lewis, James Clements, Hugh Hicklin, Charles Lewis, John Kinkead, Robert Hall, Boude Estill, William Jackson, and James Bodkin. This very important document shows that James Beard was neighbor to John Handley, whose son Alexander was the captain of Samuel and John Beard's militia unit during part of the Revolutionary War, and also neighbor to John Dickenson, who was the militia officer named in Samuel Beard's 1832 Revolutionary War Pension Application as his commander. Beard Family History

19 October 1765, William Gallespy [Gillespie] and James Beard are appointed Surveyors of the Highway from above the Pedlar Ford on James River to Captain Dickinson's and it is ordered.... This cite is for the Cow Pasture area. Beard Family History

Page 457.—9th July, 1766. David Viers' (Viars—Viurs—Via—Wivs) will—wife, executrix. 1 bond due for John Lancaster, and 1 note of Henry Harris.—Frances Viers. Teste: Chas Knight, Edward Warner, Adam Reaburn. Proved, 19th August, 1766, by Warner and Reaburn. Frances Via qualifies executrix (her mark), with James Beard, David Lard (Laird I).

20 August 1766 O. S. page 205: Ordered that John Dickinson Gent. and William Hugart take an account of the titheables and divide the road from within eight miles of the Pedler Foard [Ford] to Captain Dickinsons, whereof William Galespy and James Beard are surveyors and make report thereof to the next Court. [This is the Cow Pasture area, and this is definitely James Beard of the Cowpasture]. Beard Family History

References

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Samuel Beard and his wife Rebecca

Samuel Beard was born in June of 1754 in Augusta County, Virginia, specifically in the part of Augusta that became Botetourt County in 1769. There are records of only one Beard settler in this time in this location, and he was James Beard. Two probable siblings of Samuel were Hugh Beard and John Beard, both older than he was. There is some proof that both Hugh and Samuel named their eldest son and daughter James and Jane, so chances are good that these were their parents' names. The family lived on several hundred acres along the banks of the Cowpasture River that flows through the Shenandoah Valley. When Samuel was born, there was Indian unrest in the area, and the French and Indian War officially began in 1755. The families along the Cowpasture, when alerted to imminent danger, would hurry to the nearest fort, one of several built in a long line for protection of the settlers, where they would wait out the dangers along with their closest neighbors. He grew up knowing great danger and learning how to deal with fear. No doubt he became a hunter at an early age, and in later years in Kentucky he would be known as a great hunter.

Until proven wrong, we are identifying this James as the father of Hugh, John, and Samuel Beard, who are later found with him in other places. Samuel's eldest son was named James, and he was probably born during this period and named for his paternal grandfather. This was the last record of Samuel and his probable father, James, on the Virginia tax records. The next year, 1784, Richard Mayse was appointed overseer of a road "in the room of Samuel Beard", and that is the last mention of Samuel in Virginia. In 1783, Samuel's brothers John and Hugh are both found in the records of Greene County, Tennessee and are on the 1783 Tax List for Greene County that is famously full of Revolutionary War veterans called the "Nolichuckey Boys" for the river they settled alongside. Samuel and James Beard begin appearing in Greene County records soon thereafter. James purchased land on the south bank of the Nolichuckey River, extremely close to lands of Hugh and John Beard, on August 10, 1785. In the document he was listed as "James Beard, Esquire", indicating an older, established gentleman. Samuel's eldest daughter Jane married in 1792 in this county. Life was dangerous in the "Southwest Territory", called the first wild, wild west of America. The Cherokees and other tribes were constantly at war with the settlers here, and all the Beard men were listed in militia units, with John Sevier their commander. They lived on land along Horse Creek, a tributary of the Nolichuckey River, and many of the Valley of Virginia families were with them. Samuel is shown buying lands, serving as a witness for land transactions, and serving on jury duty in early Greene County, Tennessee. See the Timeline for all documented events of this period. From a close study of both Virginia and Eastern Tennessee documents and events, it is clear that Hugh and John Beard, together with several allied families, were in Eastern Tennessee by 1783, and that Samuel and the Beard men's probable father James Beard were still on the Cowpasture River at that time but moved into Eastern Tennessee and settled close by, probably in the year of 1784, and definitely by the year 1785. In 1792, Knox County was formed from Greene County, and there is evidence that our Beard families were now living near what would become Knoxville.

http://thebeardfamilyhistory.wikia.com/wiki/Samuel_Beard_and_his_wife_Rebecca
Morton, Oren Frederic. A centennial history of Alleghany County, Virginia. (Dayton, Va.: J.K. Ruebush Co., 1923).

Meanwhile several families seem to have settled on the Cowpasture below Griffith's Knob, but our knowledge of their locations is very unsatisfactory. (Note: Chapter III in The Annals of Bath County by Oren F. Morton, 1917 gives a fair representation of the locations of the inhabitants around 1746.) Indeed, so early as 1741, John Grome had patented 400 acres at the mouth of this river. But Grome was a non-resident, being an influential planter of Tuckahoe Virginia. In the suit of James Simpson against Margaret Campbell, 1756, a number of persons are named as inhabitants of the lower Cowpasture, and some of them undoubtedly belong to the Alleghany area. The names are as follows: Hugh and William Martin, William, Agnes and Samuel McMurry; Edward Edwards; William, Mary and Robert Gillespie; Patrick Carrigan; James Beard; James Scott; Margaret Coherin (Cowardin); Thomas Simpson; James Arbuckle and his wife Margaret; and Thomas Fitzpatrick.