Horace Beardsley (abt. 1771)

Ancestors

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Horace Beardsley is a descendant of the immigrants William Beardsley and Mary Harvie.

Biography

Horace was born about 1772. He is the son of Ebenezer Beardsley and Martha Phillips. ^[1]

Horace was associated with his uncle, Gershom Beardsley, in many adventures in early settlement of Vermont. [Holt]

From Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889, Part First, Pg. 203: (excerpted)

Cabot was granted November 6, 1780, and chartered August 17, 1781, to Jesse Leavenworth and sixty-five associates. The town received it's name from Mr. Lyman Hitchcock, one of the grantees, in honor of his intended bride, Miss Cabot, of Connecticut, a descendant of Sebastian Cabot.

The town was organized at the first town meeting of Cabot, held at the house of Thomas Lyford, the last Saturday of March, 1788. At this time Cabot was included in Orange county. In 1792 Caledonia county was formed from a part of Orange , and Cabot formed a part of the new organization until after the county seat was changed from Danville to St. Johnsbury, in 1855, when, by the exertions and influence of Cabot's representative, Dr. M. P. Wallace. the town was transferred to Washington county.

About the time Caledonia county was set off from Orange, Dr. Gershom and Horace Beardsley entertained so sanguine an opinion that Cabot would be a shire town, that they proceeded to clear two acres of land in a pasture now owned by S. S, Batchelder, for the county buildings. The ground was thoroughly prepared by taking out the stumps of trees, and removing all obstructions. On this site they raised the first frame house in town. This frame was all hard wood and two stories high, and it required a large force of men, and a corresponding quantity of rum, to rise it. All the men and women of Cabot, Peacham, and Danville were invited to the raising, and two barrels of rum was provided for the occasion, (to meet the threats that those invited "would drink the Beardsley's dry,") and all were invited to help themselves. The rum imbibed lasted a great many two days, and in after years they enjoyed the incidents of this "raising." The Beardsley's did not realize their hopes in the location of the county seat, and the building was not finished where it was raised. In about two years it was removed to the Plain, nicely finished, and became the renowned "Yellow House,", and a favorite inn of the travelers passing between the north and the Connecticut river. The Plain ws the "hub' of the town for about eighteen years, when, like other "cities set on a hill." the business gradually slid into the valleys, and now there remains but a single farm house to mark the place of its departed glory.

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Sources

• Beardsley Genealogy: The Family of William Beardsley, One of the First Settlers of Connecticut. Compiled and edited by Nellie Beardsley Holt and Charles Eleazer Holt. Published at West Hartford, Connecticut, 1951. Horace is the son of Ebenezer Beardsley, Holt Record #124, Pg. 68.^[2]
• Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889, Part First, compiled and published by Hamilton Child, The Syracuse Journal Company, Syracuse, N. Y., April 1889. Gershom and Horace Beardsley, Pg. 203.
• Catalogue of the principal officers of Vermont, as connected with its political history, from 1778 to 1851, by Leonard Deming, published by the author, Middlebury Vt., 1851. Page 23, Representatives: Horace Beardsley, Caledonia County, 1798-1800.

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Footnotes

1. ↑ Information from Beardsley family researcher Nick Dann, 3 Jul 2015.
2. ↑ Holt Record #124.