Treasure Chest Thursday - December 10, 2009

The photo above is the scan of a 1799 land grant that was sold to my great-great-grandfather, William Bean, sometime around 1820. It is for 620 acres on the north fork of Potts Creek, in what is now Monroe County, West Virginia. It is only one of many grants he received and/ or bought.

The above grant is now owned by my cousin, Richard, in Oregon.

William became one of the wealthiest men of the county for his time. At his death he owned more than 1450 acres of land in the Potts Valley [where present day Waiteville, WV is located]. He had cash assets in excess of over $50,000.

William was killed on January 1, 1864 when as a member of the Home Guard, during the Civil War, he went in pursuit of a group of renegade soldiers who was terrorizing the women and children of the county. He followed them, after a theft, into Wiseman's Hollow, and into a cabin there, where one of the renegades shot him from the loft. The ball hit him in the head. He died instantly.

William is buried in the Bean Cemetery, which is a small, hidden cemetery, located on a knoll in the woods on the old Bean homestead.