Richard Henderson Bean

EARLY SETTLERS OF CANE HILL BY ELLEN EARLE RICHARDSON - 1955

That place had belonged in the earliest days to Richard Henderson Bean, brother of Mark Bean, though it isn't certain that he was the first owner. He sold the place long ago, probably to Jim Mitchell, and moved to Texas. After his death, two. of his children, Adelaide and Nannie; came back to make their home with there uncle Mark Bean. Adelaide married Col. J. P .Neal who lived at the big spring in Prairie Grove, and Nannie married Will Buchanan, son of Isaac, and one of the three brothers, killed at the same time during the War. After his death she married Tom Buchanan, son of William Buchanan, at Viney Grove and uncle to Velma, who taught in the Cane Hill school. After the death of her second husband; she married· Mr. Goodpasture. A daughter of hers by the first marriage lives at Springdale near the home of her son, Mr.Trowbridge. This daughter married a second time and is now Mrs.Plummer.

The Beans were from Bean's station in Tennessee and had come with their parents to Arkansas when they were children. They may have lived at Batesville, for it was there that Mark Bean was married to Hetty Stuart, his first wife. He lived in Franklin County for some time.

It seems likely that the Beans are descended from William Bean, the Scotch-Irish blacksmith in whose home on Bean's Creek near Sycamore Shoals was born Russell Bean the first white child born west of the Alleghanies, according to John P. Brown in "Old Froritiers".

Richard Henderson, friend of Daniel Boone and well know to the frontiersman, had promoted immiegration to this section and William Bean had been among' the early comers to this part of Tennessee.

Perhaps he was a friend of the Bean family, for his name has been handed down through that fainily, and it will be noticed that Mark Bean's brother and his only son are both named "Richard Henderson."

Years before these Bean brothers came to Cane Hill, they and Mr. Henderson Bates and a Mr. Drake, supposedly Uncle Wesley Drake, and some others had been engaged in making salt at a salt spring in the Indian Territory. They erected a smoke-stack, using cut stone, and from the base of this constructed a long furnace upon which they placed long kettles for boiling the water. When the present line between Arkansas and Oklahoma was run, they were all ordered across the line and were given each 320 acres of land to indemnify them for the loss. The kettles being useless for any other purpose were left on the furnice and some were still there at the close of the CiVil War. This account was given by Alfred Carnahan and he adds, he saw this place in l877 but the kettles were gone. Good-sized trees were groWing in the furnace, and a sycamore tree about two feet in diameter was standing Within a few feet of the smoke-stack. Uncle Ned Cowley said there is one of these kettles at Jim Little's, spring.

All these men who were ordered to move, from the Indian country, came to Cane Hill. Mark Bean took the larid that still is often spoken of as the Bean place. Mr. Bates, for whose ancestors the town of Batesville named, settled at the place where Howard Pyeatt lived. Mr. Drake lived on Drake's Creek in the western part of the county. His son N. F. Drake, taught geology in thE University of Arkansas.

There were many springs on Mark Bean's place, and when the spring branches all come together, they form a small creek. So he built him a mill, beside the stream and made a big overshot wheel 40 feet in diameter for the water to turn, and so could grind wheat and corn for all customers who came, It is said that for time the power was used to turn carding and splluiing machinery. The cotton for this was brought up from New Orleans, but in time Mr.Bean bought a cotton farm at Ozark to grow his own cotton. He owned several darkies. One of them, Uncle Wesley; lived to be very old, and like so many old darldes, claimed to be more than a hwtdred year's old.

Mr. Bean's second wife was Nancy, Orie of the Parks sisters. At first they lived near Rhea's Mill, then they moved to the place of many springs. It has been said, that Mr. Bean paid two dollars an acre for his land.

Their children, Eliza and Elick, both married children of Mrs. Mary Lacy, Eliza married Dr. John Lacy and they lived at Cincinnati until they moved to California when Eliza was a young girl she was sent to school at Ward's Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. Possibly other girls in the cowity went too, for Rev. Ward seems to have been approved by the pioneers.

Dick married Lou Lacy and built a house by one of the seven springs not far from the old home. The four older children, Bettie, Ola, Billy nd John, used to ride to school, all on one big long horse. No horse, though, was large enough to carry seven, and there, were younger children growing up, Mary, Nannie and Ruth. Mr. Bean loved good horses and kept several, but it seemed simpler to move the family to a home nearer to school. He sold his· farm and bought one from Captain McPhetridge, the place directly south of the Him Rose farm. The Captain's widowed daughter, Mrs. Gilbreath, and her son Will made· their home with him. The famous Bentonville avistrix, Louise McPhetridge von Thaden, is the same family.

About 1880 a small colony of Quakers moved to Cane Hill and lived in x-a little group· clustered around Bean's Mill. Names remembered are: Boles, Bond, Griffith. There were others; probably more are forgotten than are rememberred.

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