WAS born in Salem, Ohio, in 1829, of Scotch-Irish parentage, his father, Israel Beans, and mother, Jane Byrnes, having emigrated to Ohio from Virginia, early in the Century. He was brought up in the midst of the stirring Anti-Slavery times. Salem being a Quaker settlement, was naturally one of the staunchest for human rights. It was one of the strongholds of the Underground Railway for escaping slaves. When a lad, Mr. Beans helped one of these unfortunate negroes on his road to Canada and freedom, by driving him in a closed carriage by night, to the next station.

With such an Ancestry and Quaker blood in his veins, and with such influences about him, during the plastic days of youth, what wonder that he became one of the hardy pioneers of the great West.

After a few years of business in Philadelphia and Pittsburg, both in commercial and banking houses, he, with a party of adventurous youths, started in 1849, overland for the gold fields of California. After many ups and downs of fortune among them--being flooded out in Sacramento, and losing everything but a lot of crow-bars,--he went to the mines, and located in Nevada City, where he mined for two or three years, and then opened a general merchandise store for Miner's supplies.

Here, in 1856, he married Virginia Knox, of London, Missouri.

A few weeks after his marriage the city was nearly destroyed by fire, and he narrowly escaped with his life. In 1861 he lost his wife and youngest son, and was left with two little children, a son and daughter. His home being broken up he visited Ohio, hoping the change might restore his health.

After various changes he finally (in March, 1866,) settled in San Jose, where he founded the Bank of San Jose (which was the

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