Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 413
HENRY O. BEEBE

Henry O. BEEBE (Portrait), a farmer living on section 28, Taylor Township, came to the county in the autumn of 1859, and rented a farm in Magnolia Township the following year. He had obtained the place he now lives upon in 1858. He traded for eighty acres and entered sixty acres and commenced to improve his place in 1861. He built a little shanty, having to sleep in his covered wagon, the fore part of the season. With his ox-team he broke forty acres of land and put it in sod corn, potatoes and sugarcane.

In the fall of 1861 he traded for a house in Cincinnati Township, which he moved to his place. This building, 14x20 feet, served the family until 1884, when he built his present residence, the upright of which is 24x30 feet, with an ell 16x24 feet. Aside from his one hundred and twenty-acre home farm, he has a quarter section in Cincinnati Township; forty acres of meadow in the same township; eighty acres of pasture land in Taylor Township, besides sixty acres of pasture land in Cincinnati Township.

August 18, 1862, he enlisted as am ember of Company C, Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry. He went South and was on detached service much of the time. His regiment was in several battles, in which he did not take part. They were with Gens. Steele and Prentice most of the time, in Arkansas and Louisiana. Our subject was discharges at new Orleans, August 24, 1865, and was paid off at Davenport, Iowa. After coming out of the service he went to Hampden, Mass., and remained until the spring of 1866, and then came to this county.

Mr. BEEBE was born in Hampshire County, Mass., June 16, 1832, the son of Abner L and Dolly (MILLER) BEEBE. The father was a native of Connecticut, while the mother was born in Massachusetts. When our subject was quite young his parents moved to Hampden County, Mass., and in 1853 he went to Bureau County, Ill., returning to the �Bay State� that fall; remained at home until the spring of 1856, when he again came West, with the expectation of location in Illinois, but was unable to obtain Government land, so pushed on as far West as Omaha. He spent the winter of 1856-57 in De Soto, and in the spring took a claim of one hundred and sixty acres, in company with his brother Lyman, at a point near where Blair now stands. They did not keep this land, however, only one year, and in the summer of 1858, he farmed in Washington County, Neb., and the following season, 1859 on April 1, he started for Pike�s Peak, crossing the plains with ox teams, returning to Harrison County the next fall.

Mr. BEEBE was united in marriage in Hampden County, Mass., to Mary A WINTER, the daughter of Alpheus and Prudence WINTER. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, belonging to Boyd Post, No. 379, at Modale. Politically he affiliates with the Republican party. Mr. BEEBE is no office-seeker, but has held the position of Trustee and Assessor of his Township.

Our subject and his estimable wife are the parents of five children: Charles L., Ora A., Lena R., George H., and Wells W, (deceased).

Source: 1891 Harrison County Iowa History, page 413-414.

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