Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 434
RANSOM W. BEEBEE

Ransom W. BEEBEE, ex-liveryman at Missouri Valley, has been a resident of Harrison County for twenty years. In 1871 he located in La Grange Township, where he engaged at farming, purchasing land in sections 24 and 26, of that township. He followed farm-life until 1888, and then entered the livery business at Missouri Valley. To inform the reader more concerning his personal and domestic relations, it may be said that he was born in Madison County, N. Y., April 28, 1835. He is a son of James L. and Alma C. (WILLIAMS) BEEBEE. The BEEBEE family was originally from Wales, but have been in New York State for many generations. The Williams family were from England. The father was a contractor, and helped construct the Erie Canal, and also assisted in enlarging the same. He was also extensively engaged in farming. The mother died in 1885, in La Grange Township, this county, and was buried at Council Bluffs. Our subject was the fourth child of a family of nine sons and two daughters. Of this number five and one daughter is living. H. C. BEEBEE lives in Council Bluffs. Three live in La Grange Township; a sister, Mrs. Carrie MOSHER, lives in Cayuga County, N. Y. The father came to Harrison County in 1871, and carried on farming in La Grange Township until the spring of 1891, and then returned to the Empire State, where he now resides. He is now eighty-two years of age, though quite active for one so old. He was again married in1890, to Mary WARHOUSE.

Our subject's great-grandfathers were both in the Revolutionary War, and were men of much distinction in their day and generation.

Our subject was married in September, 1866, at Buffalo, N. Y., to Catherine MYERS, who was a native of Erie County, N. Y., and born in Fairview Township. Her parents were farmers, and are both deceased. June 9, 1887, the Angel of Death visited the home of our subject in La Grange Township and claimed his wife while yet in the prime of her young womanhood. She was buried in the Logan Cemetery. She was an exemplary Christian lady, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and beloved by all who knew her.

Mr. BEEBEE married for his second wife Annie O'CONNOR, in March, 1888. This lady is a native of Iowa, the daughter of Thomas and Marie O'CONNOR, farmers living in La Grange Township. By this union two children were born�Alma; born August 27, 1889, and Annie, born November, 1890.

Politically, Mr. BEEBEE had always been a Republican. He has served La Grange Township in various official capacities, having been member of the School Board there for fourteen years. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, and is a member of Geneva Lodge, No. 421, at Geneva, N. Y. In a general way, it may be said that our subject obtained his education in the common schools of New York, and came to Harrison County May 12, 1871, and in the same day of the year, in 1887, he passed over the road to bury his wife. He was an American Express messenger for fifteen years, ten years of which he ran between Cleveland and Buffalo. He relates how that, in one trip in 1864, he had charge of ten tons of specie.

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