Display Patriot - P-327142 - William BEASLEY/BEESLEY
William BEASLEY/BEESLEY
SAR Patriot #:
P-327142
The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Image taken and submitted with permission from compatriot Roger Southerland (KY) member 198258.
No entry found in Find-A-Grave - Nov 2023
GPS coordinates are for the monument on the Butler County KY courthouse lawn.
Death is presumed to be in Butler County KY
Patriot Beasley filed his declaration for pension in Butler County KY in 1825.
Pension records for Elizabeth Beasley indicates pension payments were being made to her in Morgantown, KY in 1848.
Directions to Cemetery / Gravesite:
Photo: 1 of 1
Author: Roger Gayle Southerland
The following biography was edited and augmented by PRS staff.
William Beasley was born on 25 April 1762 in Craven County, North Carolina.
He married Elizabeth Taylor in February 1784 in Craven County, North Carolina. In his pension deposition, he states that his family consists of his wife, who is older than him, and six grandchildren. His known children were:
Mary Ann was born about 1800 and died in 1846. She married Paul Abney.
Elizabeth was born about 1790 and had a child out of wedlock
Nicey was born in 1784 and married David Caughey or Coy.
John was born about 1785 and married Sina or Syna Dougherty.
During the Revolution, he served under the command of Captain Samuel Jones, who was commanded by Colonel Archibald Lytle of the 2nd Regiment of the Continental Line. He served a term of one year when he was discharged from said service in South Carolina near Charleston.
He next served two months and 18 days at the time of General Horatio Gates' Defeat at Camden on 16 August 1780, South Carolina; he resided in the State of North Carolina when he was drafted and served in the company of Captain David Roach, commanded by Colonel Benjamin Exum. Afterward, he volunteered in a company of light horses under Captain John Stevenson and marched to near Wilmington, where they joined Colonel Richard D. Spratt's Regiment and continued until his thirty-day commitment ended.
On 2 January 1782, he enlisted in his final tour for twelve months in the company of Captain Samuel Jones, commanded by Colonel Archibald Lytle.
He filed his declaration for his service pension on 11 April 1825 at the Butler County, Kentucky courthouse. He was 63 at the time. His service record was included in the declaration. Also of note is his statement that in 1825, he owned between 20 and 40 sows, pigs, and shoats, some of which were wild. He had one horse, 25 years old, three cows, two calves, one heifer, and one yearling. There were six ewes and lambs and three wethers. He owned 200 acres, which he said was very poor and of third-rate quality.
He drew his pension of 60 dollars per year from 1834 until his death in 1847. In 1851, his widow, Elizabeth, filed a declaration to draw a pension based on his service. Her pension number is SW 9352.
The minutes of Sandy Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Butler County, Kentucky, show that William was a founding church member in 1805.
A Butler County Court addresses a suit of Beasley Heirs against Beasley Heirs, but the relationships are not totally clear:
Nicey and her husband, David Coy
Elizabeth was born about 1790, and her husband John Daugherty.
Kiziah Furguson [Keziah Beasley, born about 1794, married James Ferguson].
Darcus [born about 1809 in Kentucky] and her husband, Calvin Taylor.
Betsey Ann [born about 1812] and her husband, James Romans.
John Beasley
Robert Beasley
James Beasley
William E Beasley
[Children of Mary Beasley Abney, deceased]:
John Abney [born about 1826]
Mary Ann [Mary Ann Abney] born about 1828] and her husband Thomas Moore [born about 1816]
Nicey Abney [born about 1822 and married Jesse Dewese]
Paul Abney [born about 1801].
The following are listed as infants and have no guardian:
Jesse Abney
James Abney
An 1852 Deed in Butler County gives us additional information: James Romans and Betsy Ann, his wife, formerly Betsy Ann Beasley, Calvin P Taylor, and Darcus, his wife, formerly Darcus Beasley, John W. Beasley, and Mariah J, his wife and Robert D Beasley children and heirs of John Beasley, decd and Mary Beasley, widow of John Beasley, decd, mostly of Butler County, Kentucky, and William E Beasley of the county of Jefferson, State of Kentucky.
The Patriot died on 26 September 1847 in Butler County, Kentucky. He is one of 31 of Butler County, Kentucky’s Revolutionary War veterans who are honored by a monument dedicated on 12 October 2024 on the Butler County courthouse lawn in Morgantown, Kentucky; his gravesite is unknown.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.
