Signature from an 1854 land sale record.
(Note the alternative spelling.)
There are many snippets of information available regarding Jabez Avery Beebe, who played an integral role in the early years of Fountain Green. He came from New York with wife and family to Township 6 North, 5 West in Hancock County in 1831 or '32, was Postmaster for the area and, later, a Police Magistrate, Justice of the Peace and lawyer.
According to the research of Susan Sessions Rugh*, before leaving New York, Jabez purchased several land patents in the Illinois Military Tract. One of these had been for bounty land originally granted to Nathan Penhallow, consisting of the 320 acres comprising the east half of Section 28. This, according to Ms. Rugh, is where Jabez made his home. He later sold 110 acres of this land to Stephen Gano Ferris, husband of Jabez's sister, Eunice.
Jabez and Stephen laid out a town in 1835 and they cannily selected a name which would better attract other settlers*. The area had previously been called Horse Lick Grove, not a name which would have inspired the same verdant, fertile and pleasant vision as Fountain Green. In 1840 he purchased an additional 280 acres of land from the government.  View a representation of where these properties were located.
Jabez lost his first wife, married her sister (who also died), married for a third time when he was 67 years old and fathered children by each of his wives.
Not so easily learned are details about Jabez, the man. There are indications he was opinionated (read cantankerous), and prone to be involved in disagreements with his neighbors. He was foreman of the jury which acquitted the accused murderers of Joseph and Hiram Smith and then was one of those who profited from the hasty Morman withdrawal by buying their land at tax sales*.
His first wife was Sophia Waite (also found as Wait), who is said to have come from Chenango County, New York. Calculating from the inscription on her tombstone, she was born July 6, 1793. A biography of Henry Clay Beebe, Jabez' son by his second marriage, reported that Sophia was born July 3, 1793.
In 1825 Jabez, Sophia and children moved to the village of Hinsdale, Cattaraugus County, New York.
From Catalogue of Books on The Masonic Institution**, by Henry Gassett, published in 1852: In September of 1826 a man named William Morgan was "murdered, drowned in Niagara river for having disclosed the first three degrees in Masonry..." The perpetrators were reportedly Freemasons and the crime heightened anti-Masonic sentiments. In 1828 the "Convention of Seceding Freemasons" was held in two sessions at Le Roy, Genesee County, New York. Jabez A. Beebe of Hinsdale, New York, was listed as both an honorary and regular third degree Mason and one of a number of men who "probably were not in the Convention, but signed" an "Antimasonic Declaration of Independence" "afterwards as opportunity presented." (pp. 86-89)
**The complete title of this book is quite long. See the full text on : Google Books
In 1829 Jabez and several other men were granted licenses to keep an inn or tavern, having been judged by the commissioners of the Board of Excise, to be " ~ ~ ~ ~ of good moral character, and of sufficient abilities to keep an Inn or Tavern, and have, respectively, accommodations to entertain travelers, and that Inns or taverns are absolutely necessary at the places where said persons propose to keep taverns for the actual accommodation of Travelers." In 1830 Jabez owned 172 acres of land, 30 of which were improved. [This information comes from History of Cattaraugus Co., New York: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, by Franklin Ellis, published in 1879, pages 422 and 428. An online transcription of page 428 does not show Jabez as a landowner in Hinsdale, but he was listed on the original page.]
Excerpted from the autobiography of Lucy M. Beebe White:
My father (Jabez Beebe) left New York to come to Illinois in the spring of 1832. He with his family came down the Alleghany river in a family boat to Louisville, Kentucky. There we stayed till fall. Father taught 3 months school. In fall we came to Warsaw, Illinois in a steamboat. There we stayed all winter. There was no town laid off there then. There was an old fort. There had been and was still some trouble with the Indians. There was an alarm out that they had been seen on this side of the river, so we all went down to the fort one night. Father said he wouldn't take his family there anymore, that he would stand guard at home, but we wasn't molested by them.
Excerpted from an essay on William Harrison White, husband of Eunice Beebe:
...a daughter of Jabez and Sophia (Waite) Beebe, natives of New York state, who in 1832 drove overland to Hancock County, and located in what is now Fountain Green Township. Jabez Beebe entered land from the government, and added to his original farm by purchase, it being on the present site of Fountain Green, which he named. He also owned land in large tracts for miles around his homestead, and he was one of the most important men of his day in this section.
Excerpted from a biography of Henry Clay Beebe, son of Jabez and his second wife:
....a son of Jabus A. and Martha (Wait) Beebe, natives of Connecticut and Chenango County, N. Y., respectively.
From Henry's obituary:
The father, Jabez Beebe, was the very earliest of the county's pioneers. He was a native of Chenango Co., New York, from which he emigrated in 1831, bringing with him his wife and three daughters, to make for themselves a dwelling place on western prairie lands. After long and tedious travelling by ox team, they crossed the boundary line of Illinois. Continuing their journey still many days, they at last camped beside a clear spring of water, which surrounded by its carpet and canopy of green, so impressed Mr. Beebe's beauty-loving soul that he selected the spot for his home, and named it Fountain Green, by which has since been known the village, which later grew about the site. The next morning after the camp was arranged, a large deer coming to the spring for its daily drink, furnished the family with venison for breakfast.
From a biography of Stephen Gano Ferris:
About the year 1820 he removed to the town of Howard, Steuben county, N. Y., which was then a frontier county. Here he remained until the spring of 1832 when, pursuant to an arrangement between himself and his brother-in-law, Mr. Jabez Beebe (the latter having come West the previous year and purchased land where Fountain Green now stands)....
So there are differing versions of how and precisely when the Beebe family arrived in Hancock County, and conflicting information regarding where Jabez Beebe was born. Census records don't help - in the 1850 and 1870 census listings for Jabez, his birth state was shown as Connecticut, but in 1860 it was shown as New York. And in later censuses his children reported the same two states, Connecticut and New York. In the summer of 1869 Jabez was one of the attendees at the first meeting of the Hancock County Old Settlers Association. The news item covering that event implies that attendees were to indicate his or her place of residence before coming to Hancock County, rather than his or her state of birth. Jabez registered as having come to Hancock County in 1831 from Connecticut.
Henry's effusive obituary fairly romanticized the family's arrival and leaves the reader confused, unless the family did not travel as a unit. It mentioned only three daughters arriving in Illinois. Based on census and other records, there were at least four daughters, probably five, born in New York, and one or more sons, all alive in 1831-32. One son was Arius, who was in Hancock County no later than January of 1838, when the proprietors of the Tyler-Hopkins general store accepted an axe handle from him, and credited 50 cents to his account*. We have not yet identified the other older male, probably born before or after Phidelia (the eldest daughter), but this is guesswork since the 1830 and 1840 censuses did not define relationships. We are attempting to learn when Jabez and Sophia were married, which would give us a better idea of when their first child may have been born. The 1820 census records found thus far are off just enough that we can't be confident we've found the correct one for Jabez, Sophia and family.
The known children of Jabez Beebe and Sophia Waite were:
| i. |
Based on the 1830 and 1840 censuses, perhaps a male child as described above.
The 1840 listing also indicates another young male in the household, born approximately 1831-1835.
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| ii. |
Phidelia W. Beebe, born November 23, 1815, in New York. She died March 27, 1893, burial at Fountain Green Cemetery, Hancock County, Illinois.
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| iii. |
Arius A. Beebe, (also found as Arias) born about 1819 (this is shaky approximation) in New York. He died in 1860 and was buried at Osage City Cemetery, Osage, Mitchell County, Iowa.
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| iv. |
Lucy M. Beebe, born August 29, 1823, in/near Preston, Chenango County, New York. She died May 30, 1914, in Jackson Township, Clark County, Missouri. Burial at Fountain Green Cemetery, Hancock County, Illinois.
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| v. |
Mary L. Beebe, born about 1825 in New York, died September 13, 1885, and was buried at Moss Ridge Cemetery, Carthage, Hancock County.
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| vi. |
Eunice Ferris Beebe, born March 31, 1827, in New York. She died in December of 1874, burial location undetermined.
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| vii. |
Sarah Ann Beebe, born about 1830 in Hinsdale, Cattaraugus County, New York.
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| viii. |
Mansil D. Beebe, who was buried at Fountain Green Cemetery. The above mentioned biography on Henry Clay Beebe cites a child who was born April 16, 1834, and died March 12, 1838. Unfortunately that biography also states that this child was a son of Jabez and his second wife, Martha, but Sophia didn't die until 1840.
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According to her tombstone inscription, Sophia passed away May 17, 1840, probably in Fountain Green Township, and was buried in Fountain Green Cemetery.
Jabez then married her younger sister, Martha (born about 1806), in New York. Perhaps Jabez went to New York for that specific purpose, or perhaps just for a visit, but whatever the reason, he and Martha returned to Fountain Green Township as man and wife. We can make an educated guess at the approximate time of this marriage, based on a letter written by Stephen H. Tyler to Jabez during the winter of 1841, at which time Jabez was said to have been visiting in Preston, New York. Travel in those days was difficult enough that it seems improbable for him to have made two separate trips to New York between the time Sophia died and the birth of his and Martha's child, Henry.
| i. |
Henry Clay Beebe, born November 5, 1844, in Fountain Green Township. He died October 7, 1921, in Hancock County. His obituary reported he died at the home of his son in Hancock Township; State of Illinois death records indicate he died in Fountain Green Township. He was buried at Webster Cemetery, Webster, Fountain Green Township. |
Jabez was again widowed between 1850 and 1856. Martha's burial location is undetermined, although it seems probable that Jabez would have buried her near near Sophia.
Miss Louisa Taylor (on their marriage license her name was shown as Louiza) became Jabez' third wife on November 20, 1856. Born April 28, 1831, in England, she was more than 40 years his junior. Marriage License
Jabez and Louisa had two children:
| i. |
Charles L. Beebe, born April 28, 1859, in Fountain Green Township. He died September 14, 1912, in Central Township, Franklin County, Missouri, burial at Anaconda Cemetery, Central Township.
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| ii. |
Minnie Sophia Beebe, born about 1863-64 in or near Webster in Fountain Green Township. She died June 26, 1935, in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois; burial location undetermined.
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Jabez prepared a will on May 26, 1871, "revoking all previous wills", appointing Louisa his executrix and leaving to her all of his real and personal estate wherever situated. He did not name or bequeath anything to any of his children.
Jabez died July 2, 1871, and was buried at Fountain Green Cemetery.
On a document filed after his death, only Louisa, Charles and Minnie were named as his survivors. His personal estate was valued at about $100, his real estate at about $2000.
Louisa remarried the following February. She and second husband Thomas J. Sturr were married on February 1, 1872, and were living in Webster, Fountain Green Township, in 1880. Louisa died February 8, 1890, Thomas died the following year. They were buried at Webster Cemetery.
* Those Who Labor In The Earth, by Susan Sessions Rugh
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