Albert Beam
Albert Beam was born about 1810, in Fairfield District, South Carolina by family memorials. He was very probably the Albert named in the will of Sarah Beam, widow of Jesse Beam, of Fairfield District. That will was proved on 2 February 1820, when he was a boy of about ten, and his father was already dead.
His mother left her personal property to "my Two Sons Albert & Jisse". Her reason was that "they are my Two younges Children and are not able to Obtain a liveing by their own Labour, and have had no Education at all." She made their eldest brother, Solomon, "the Sole and Intire Guardean & Trustee" of the two boys and their property, "Together with the Education untill They Come of full age." Another brother, William, suffered from fits, and Solomon was made his guardian too.
Three things tie that boy to this man. He was the right age. Memorials that do not cite the will make Albert a Fairfield County man and a son of a Jesse Beam. And Albert named his own second son Jesse W. Beam, after his father and his youngest brother.
He came to Georgia young. By the March Term of 1833 he was in Newton County, one of the defendants in a list of debt cases before the county court. On 9 December 1833 he bought 108 acres from John Webb for two hundred dollars. Both men are called "of the County and State aforesaid", Newton County, Georgia. The land was fractions 320 and 321 "in the first District of Walton now Jasper County", with the rest of fraction 321 "formerly owned by Pleasant Avant". Eleazer Garrett witnessed the deed, Thomas Hightower proved it, and it was registered in 1835.
He married America Dixon, a daughter of Thomas Dixon of Jasper County, probably about 1830, since their eldest child was born about 1831. No record of the marriage is known. America and her sister Julia Ann Dixon were their dead father's orphans, and in the land lottery of 1827 they had drawn lot 61 in the sixth district of Coweta County, 202 1/2 acres.
On 13 December 1834, in Jasper County, Albert, America and Julia Ann sold that lot to James E. P. Hunnicutt of Coweta County for three hundred dollars. The deed calls the sellers "Julia Ann Dixon, Albert Beam & America his wife (formerly America Dixon)", all of Jasper County. A married woman's land could only be sold with her husband joining, so his name stands between the two sisters. He signed and sealed, with Julia Ann signing on one side of him and America making her mark on the other. The same day a justice examined America apart from him, and she released her dower "of her own free will & accord".
In April 1837 he was at the sale of Jesse Meador's estate in Walton County, where he bought a road wagon. At the same sale a Jesse A. Beam bought a horse. That was very probably his younger brother Jesse, come to Georgia as well.
His first children were born in Georgia from about 1831, very probably on the Newton and Jasper line. He still had family in Fairfield. A Sarah of Fairfield who never married made her will there on 25 July 1838. She calls him "my well beloved Brother Albert Beam", and she was very probably his sister. She left him three enslaved people, "Sam & his wife Joana & thire Daughter Sarah". The rest of her property went to the widow and children of "my Deceasd Brother William Beam".
His death is known from one court paper in Georgia. On 3 September 1849 the Inferior Court of Cherokee County, Georgia, sitting as the court of ordinary, appointed a guardian for seven children and called them "orphans of Albert Beam deceased". So he was dead by that day. How long before, and where, the bond does not say.
The bond reads: "State of Georgia, Cherokee County. Know all men by these presents that we Julia A. E. Dixon and Kennedy Gramling security are held and firmly bound to the Justices of the Inferior Court sitting as a court of Ordinary for said County ... in the just and full sum of two hundred & fifty dollars ... dated this 3d day of September 1849. The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas the said Julia A. E. Dixon has been this day appointed guardian to Katherine F. Beam, Jesse W. Beam, Julia A. Beam, John B. Beam, Thomas Z. Beam, Julius O. Beam, Henry M. Beam, orphans of Albert Beam deceased ..." It was signed by Julia Ann E. Dixon and Kennedy Gramling in the presence of J. C. Maddox, clerk of the court of ordinary, and recorded on 27 September 1849.
A guardian's bond was the court's security for the orphans' property. The guardian and a surety bound themselves for a sum of money, here two hundred and fifty dollars, which they forfeited if the guardian failed to account for what the children owned. Kennedy Gramling was the surety.
Nine months later the census taker found the same children in one house in Cherokee County. It was headed by Julia Dickson, twenty eight, and held Frances, nineteen; Jesse, seventeen; Julia, fifteen; Thomas, twelve; Julius O., seven; Harry, five; and Benjamin, three. There was no adult Beam in the house. Katherine F. of the bond is the Frances C. Beam who married John W. McCollum in 1852, with her two names turned round. Henry M. is very probably Harry, and John B. is probably Benjamin.
Find a Grave memorials for the family fill in the rest, without a source shown. They give America's death as 12 September 1847. They make the guardian, Julia Emily Dickson, her sister, which the 1834 deed bears out. That would mean the children lost their mother in 1847 and their father within two years, and that the court gave them to their aunt.
The same memorials place both deaths in Cherokee County, Alabama, not Georgia. The two counties of that name lie side by side across the state line. A son, Julius Oscar, is said to have been born in the Alabama county on 28 October 1844. So the family probably lived just over the line in the mid 1840s, and the orphans were brought into the Georgia county, where the guardianship was taken.
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "Albert Beam (b. 1810)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/albert-beam-1810-859a9f.