Sarah Beam
Sarah Beam was the wife and then the widow of Jesse Beam of Fairfield District, South Carolina. Her maiden name is not known. She is known from her will, which was proved on 2 February 1820 before Jno. Buchanan, the Ordinary of Fairfield. The Ordinary was the district officer who proved wills and supervised estates and guardianships. So she was dead by that day.
The will opens: "I Sarah Beam Widow of the State of Southcarolina and District of Fairfield, Takeing into Consideration, that it is Appointed once for all to die do therefore make and ordain this my last will and Testament." She could not write her name and signed it with her mark.
Her first bequest went to her two youngest sons. She left "the whole of my Personall Property" to be "Equally Divided between my Two Sons Albert & Jisse". Then she gave her reason: "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, all the rest of my Children be ery nearly of full age."
Her second bequest went to her eldest son. She gave Solomon Beam "all my Right and Title to Dower in the Real or Landed Estate of my Late Husband Jesse Beam To him & his heirs forever." Dower was a widow's lifetime share in her husband's land, usually a third. She explained this bequest too. Solomon, she wrote, "has Always from his Childhood Rendered me the most Esensial Services, and more particular Since his Fathers Decease, performing my business in the most Disinturested & Satisfactory manner often Neglecting his own to attend to mine."
She then put the younger boys in Solomon's hands. He was to be "the Sole and Intire Guardean & Trustee of the Persons, and property, of my two younger Sons the aforesaid Albert & Jesse", and to see to their education "untill They Come of full age". Full age was twenty one.
One more son needed a guardian for life. "And where as my Son William is an Ediot and of non Sane Memory Occation by Fits which has rendered him intirely incapable of Takeing Care of himself or his property," she wrote, Solomon was to be William's guardian and trustee as well. She named Solomon her sole executor.
Three men witnessed the will: D. R. Coleman, Jacob Feaster Jr. and Henry A. Coleman. The Colemans were close to the family. In 1838 an unmarried Sarah of Fairfield, very probably her daughter, called David R. Coleman her brother-in-law and Henry A. Coleman and Jacob Feaster her nephews. So one of Sarah's daughters very probably married David R. Coleman.
Find a Grave memorials name her Sarah Roe Coleman, a daughter of Robert Coleman of Fairfield. Robert Coleman's own will, dated 30 September 1809, calls that daughter "my Daughter Sarah Mobley". The widow of 1820 had an eldest son, Solomon Beam, who was a grown man running her business, so she had been married to Jesse Beam since the 1790s. She cannot be the woman who was Mrs. Mobley in 1809. The Coleman connection by marriage is probably where the memorials' maiden name came from.
Her son Albert, very probably the Albert of the will, went to Georgia, raised seven children there, and was dead by 1849.
Children
Sources
If Sarah Beam is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Sarah Beam", https://heirology.com/ancestors/sarah-beam-17e0c3.