Elizabeth (Beasley) Conard (abt. 1810 - 1885)

Born about 1810 in North Carolina, United States

Descendants

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Biography

Elizabeth was born about 1810, probably in Southeastern Kentucky somewhere along the upper reaches of three forks of the Kentucky River or the headwaters of the Cumberland River (speculative). Around 1820, she must have moved with her family south to the to to the new hamlet of Calhoun Tennessee (along the Hiawassee River which now forms the border of McMinn and Bradley Counties Tennessee). Her father may have worked for or did business with John Walker Jr. and Caleb Starr there. Caleb Starr was a prominent Quaker descendant and a former Indian Trader (with Ellis Harlan) who was married to a granddaughter of the famous Cherokee matriarch Nancy Ward. John Walker Jr. was a grandson of Nancy Ward, fought with Andrew Jackson in the Red Stick Creek War of 1814, and was a very prominent Cherokee Treaty signer. John Walker Jr. founded the town of Calhoun Tennessee, and owned the ferry across the Hiawassee River there. Her family also may be related to and/or connected with the James/Meredith Childers Hughes and Carter/Leroy Markham families that also lived near the Walkers' and the Starrs' at that time.

There is an oral family story passed down by some descendants that Elizabeth's and her family assisted in the operation of John Walker's Jr. ferry across the Hiawassee in the late 1820's and early 1830s. Descendants of Elizabeth Conrad (a granddaughter of Elizabeth Beasley through Jeremiah) heard stories about Elizabeth fishing in the Hiawassee and helping to ferry settlers traveling through the Old Cherokee Nation into Tennessee before the Indian Removal period. This is likely how Elizabeth met James Conrad, who may have often traveled up from his home in Ooltewah to visit or do business with John Walker Jr. James Conrad's father Hair Conrad was to married Ollie Candy after the War of 1812, and Ollie was also a descendant of Nancy Ward and a relative of John Walker Jr.

As a result of living literally on the border of the final boundaries of the Old Cherokee Nation, Elizabeth apparently eventually began a multi-year relationship there with a mixed-blood Cherokee man (alleged by descendants to be named James Conrad). This relationship resulted in several children that thereafter used the surname Conrad or Conard, as did Elizabeth (although the "marriage" was never formalized, either by the Cherokees or the U.S.A. courts). Whatever the circumstances of the relationship, it was ultimately literally ripped apart by Andrew Jackson's 1830 Indian Removal Act and the subsequent 1838 removal of the Cherokees west to Indian Territory. Elizabeth (who was a U.S. Citizen; born in KY) may have feared of being parted from her children, and perhaps with the assistance of her family moved her children to Haywood County N.C. after 1835 but certainly before the remaining Cherokees (including most likely the father of her children) were forced west by the U.S Military in 1838. Elizabeth appears in the 1840 census in Haywood County, N.C. with eight children but no husband. The 1850 census lists her with three children John, age 16, James age 13, and William age 10. George Coonrod is living next door. In 1880 Elizabeth is living with daughter Caty. She passed away in 1885.

It is thought by a few descendants that Elizabeth may have been related through her mother to the James Hughes family that moved to McMinn County TN from the Ninety-Six area of South Carolina around 1820 (speculative, due to shared migration patterns of ancestors and descendants). These Hughes were more or less considered "white" by the 1820's because they had already assimilated were considered U.S. citizens in SC after the Revolutionary War (because they simply continued to live on formerly Cherokee land ceded to England before the War), owned land in South Carolina (probably via their British Indian Trading Patriarchs), and were therefore treated as U.S Citizens (even though some of their ancestors proudly descended from several early Cherokee Wild Potato Clan Matriarchs that married colonial SC Indian Traders such as Cornelius Dougherty and Bernard Hughes in the mid to early 1700's; James Hughes father may have been the same Charles Hughes who was killed by James Vann in a intra-tribal clan dispute).

This is also how some suspect Elizabeth may have came in contact with the mixed-blood Cherokee father of her children (alleged to be James Hair a.k.a. James Conrad, son of Hair Conrad; through the Cherokee related Hughes who knew the Cherokee Conrads', Starrs', Walkers', and Markhams'). Since Elizabeth's McMinn County Beasley and Hughes kin were already living outside of the Old Cherokee Nation East borders before the 1838 Cherokee Removal (in SC, KY, TN, and NC), they were not subject to the forced removal to Oklahoma in the same way as the Cherokee Conrads' were. The Conrad Cherokees where not considered U.S. Citizens (at the time), because they were still living within the borders of the Old Cherokee Nation at the time of removal, and were citizens of the Cherokee Nation. The Beasley and the Hughes were considered U.S. Citizens (even though they had Cherokee and/or Melungeon heritage at the time of removal), because they already were living outside of the Cherokee Nation boundaries, owned land, and had "assimilated". They all quickly vacated the Charleston TN Hiwassee River area around 1835 -1836, after John Walker Jr. was murdered as a result of a conflict between the pro-treaty and anti-removal factions within the Cherokee Nation at that time.

Elizabeth may also have been a Melungeon (through her father) of partial Native American, African and/or Marrano descent (speculative). There are Beasley's in NC that descend from the Chowanoke Tribe in Bertie County NC, http://sites.rootsweb.com/~molcgdrg/nl/nl-12/nl06-12.htm and they may have mixed with a few of the remnants of Tom Blount's band of Tuscarora Indians or the Saponi and Occaneechi from Fort Christanna that assimilated and worked for N.C. Quaker locals instead of joining the Iroquois to the north or the Catawbas to the south (after the warfare of the early 1700's; Tuscarora War; Yamasee War). Bertie County is the same area where survivors of the "Lost Colony of Roanoke" may have mixed with the local native populations, and is the same area where Sir Francis Drake marooned the many "captives" that he transported from his Cartagena raid against the Spanish in 1586 (this is one of the many theorized sources of the Melungeons). As with many of the purported Melungeons, there isn't much definitive documentation to corroborate this assertion, as they lived clandestinely on the fringes of early Native American and Colonial American society for over 200 years. Other than small amounts of DNA evidence, subjective interpretations of the photographs of descendants or relatives, and speculative naming connections to known historical white Indian trading families and their mixed-native descendants, there is very little recorded evidence to back up these claims.

Elizabeth's father is unproven (as of this writing - some have suggested a man named Reuben), but there are also records of several Beasley families living in the NC/SC/GA borderland area that was disputed during the 1804 "Walton War". Those listed as having been involved in the Walton War "orphan strip" land dispute include Joseph Beezley, Samuel Beasley, and John Beasley http://www.shahall.com/walton.html. At the time of the Walton War, this area had already been ceded by the Cherokees back to the U.S. Government by 1798, but was still considered "no-man's land" (which led to state taxation disputes, and this led to the Walton "War"). Melungeons historically migrated and settled/resettled along the constantly shifting borderlands between ceded/unceded Indian Tribal Land and the newly "opened-up" land that was sold/granted to "white" settlers, usually before it was surveyed. This is also probably the reason that Elizabeth Beasley's family was in SE Kentucky when she was born; her family was living in a sparsely populated remote area before it was surveyed for "settlement" (perhaps without clear title to the land or an official land grant from the US government).

Autosomal DNA possibly links Elizabeth with a Robert and Keziah "Catherine" Beasley https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Keziah-96 family that was one of the first settlers of Stokes County NC in the 1780's. Therefore it is suspected that Elizabeth's father's Beasley family may have migrated from the Stokes County area to the "Ninety-Six" are of South Carolina, or the extreme western part of NC (adjacent to or within Cherokees tribal land at that time) before 1800. After he married (in SC?), he must have moved his wife and new family to Kentucky before 1810, and then to SE Tennessee around 1820. Keziah "Catherine" Beasley (nee Cato?) 1775-1860 has been listed as "Cherokee" in some histories, https://piedmonttrails.com/2018/04/01/the-early-settlers-of-stokes-county-north-carolina/comment-page-1/ and a 1970's local newspaper article, but it may be far more likely that she was descendant of the assimilated Saponi or Occannechi tribal remnants from Ft. Christanna that mixed with descendants of the Lost Colony of Roanoke and/or the marooned Spanish captives from Cartagena (mentioned above). There were several Native American "Melungeons" from Colonial Virginia and North Carolina that assimilated and intermarried with local NC "whites" or "blacks" before they migrated west with the rest of the new American "settlers" to Kentucky and Tennessee. Some still reside in Virginia and North Carolina to this day (the Lumbees, the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, and the Buffalo Ridge "Cherokees", etc). This is all very speculative of course, but it may help to partially explain the once strong Native American physical appearance and oral heritage claims that many of the descendants of this NC Conrad/Conard/Beasley family group remember.

Nevertheless, the "Cherokee" heritage in this family (as evident through historical photos of some of the descendants) primarily must have came from the "James" Conrad side (Elizabeth's purported common law husband), as the descendants already suspected. This too is unproven, but there is a strong oral tradition from multiple branches of the descendants of this family group of at least some mixed Cherokee trading family connection. And as we now know, "Cherokee" may have simply been a generic word that really meant "Indian", or what we now call "Melungeon" (or simply "Mixed-Metis").

If you find any new, missing or erroneous information regarding this Elizabeth Beasley, by all means, feel free to edit this biography and/or correct any misinformation in this bio that may apply. Thanks!

Sources

• 1840 U.S. census, Haywood Co., NC, p. 105.

(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHTJ-1VD : 20 August 2017), Lize Coonrod, Haywood, North Carolina, United States; citing p. 105, NARA microfilm publication M704, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 362; FHL microfilm 18,094.

• 1850 U.S. census, Haywood Co., NC, p. 197b.

"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4BC-RPK : 12 April 2016), Elizabeth Coonrad, Haywood county, Haywood, North Carolina, United States; citing family 937, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

• 1880 U.S. Census, Haywood Co., NC

"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCX9-FDR : 12 September 2017), Elizabeth Conrad in entry for Caty Conrad, 1880; citing enumeration district ED 93, sheet 223D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d), roll 0967; FHL microfilm 1,254,967.

• "Elizabeth Beasley Conard," Findagrave.com. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=88178922

• Paul Mears, "Meares-Butler Blackburn-Pickel Rhinehart-Nelson Jones-Medford of SC/NC/TN." Rootsweb.com

http://www.shahall.com/walton.html

https://piedmonttrails.com/2018/04/01/the-early-settlers-of-stokes-county-north-carolina/comment-page-1/

http://sites.rootsweb.com/~molcgdrg/nl/nl-12/nl06-12.htm