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Submitted: 7/7/12 • Approved: 7/7/12 • Last Updated: 3/30/18 • R54595-G0-S3
IN MEMORY OF
THOMAS BEARD
BORN
Oct 1st, 1794
DIED
Nov 26, 1849
The first permanent white settlement within the present limits of the city of Beardstown was made by Thomas Beard, who came here on horse back when it was a Kickapoo town in 1819. Mr. Beard built his cabin upon the steep bank of the river at the present foot of State street and began buiness as a trader among the Indians. He was rather unfortunate in selecting the site for his cabin, because the nest spring he found that he had built it upon a den of snakes and (the next spring) when the weather was warm many thousands of them of all kinds came out upon the bank by his cabin. Soon after he built a two story brick hotel where our post office now stands and this old hotel stood at the foot of State street for 85 years. Many of the early immigrants going and coming across the river stopped at this hotel.
Mr. Beard was the father of our town. He came here as a young man twenty-four years old on horse back from the state of Ohio. His parents did not want him to go so far from home but he had the pioneer instinct in him and wanted to seek new and strange lands, so he came west as far as Alton and Edwardsville at first, and while in the latter place he made the acquaintance of a young man by the name of Enoch C. March. They soon formed a strong friendship for each other and came to Beardstown together. The firs land entry was made by Thomas Beard and Enoch C. March jointly. Mr. Beard's cabin marked the western most out-post of civilzation at this point. He thought it such a wonderful country and wrote most alluring descriptions of it home to his parents and so interesteddid they all become that the whole Beard family moved to Beardstown, and now most of them lie buried in the Beard cemetery at the top of Seamon Hill just five miles out of Beardstown on the Chandlerville road.
Contributed on 7/7/12 by lynn57
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Record #: 54595