Peter Ellis Bean

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/205626?fbclid=IwAR0a_C4P5GxsWuIni3U0R4...

Peter Ellis Bean was born in Grainger County, Tennessee, on

June 8, 1783.1 He was the eldest of eight children, and his parents

were William Bean and Elizabeth Blair; they, both widowers, married

in 1782. Earlier Bean writers have been silent on his mother’s name,

but it appears—from a recent genealogical post on the Internet, which seems to be taken from work that is well researched and documented (though not credited, as is often the case)—that she was Elizabeth Blair.

Peter Ellis’s siblings were William (1785), Fetna (1787), Robert (1789), Edmund (ca. 1790), Elizabeth Ann (ca. 1792), Jesse (ca. 1794), and Lydia (1796). In addition, his mother Elizabeth had at least one son from a previous marriage. This half brother later became known as Capt. William Shaw, but there may have been other children in addition to him. A Benjamin Shaw often appears in the same records as William. Peter Ellis, after his return from Mexico in 1817, visited these relatives in Tennessee.2 Bean’s father was also married previous to his alliance with Elizabeth Blair. Around 1777 he wed Rachel Ball, and their son Ahab Bean was born January 10, 1778, on Boone’s Creek in Washington (later Grainger)

County. Rachel died in childbirth, as often happened to women on the frontier. Thus Peter Ellis was surrounded by brothers and sisters as he grew to manhood, and he also had numerous kinsmen in the immediate area.3 The Beans were a well-established clan in the mountains of eastern

Tennessee by the time of his birth, dating back to the foundation of

Bean’s Station. It stood in a gap of the Cumberland Mountains where Indian trails intersected, being branches of their Great Warpath. There, on the Holston River near a sulfur spring and a salt lick that attracted game, the Beans built their Station (or fortified enclosure) as a protection against Indian attack. It grew into an important crossroads point in what became Grainger County, Tennessee.4

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Peter Ellis Bean Collection

COLLECTION INFORMATION TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dates: 1835-1983

Size: 1 expansion folder, 15 items

Acquisition: Gift, pre 1970

Access: Open for research

Processed by: Natasha McClanahan, 1990

TIDES Link: Peter Ellis Bean Collection Biographical Sketch

Scope and Content Note

Location of Record

Inventory

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Peter Ellis Bean was born in Tennessee in 1783, the son of William Bean and Elizabeth Blair. At seventeen years of age he traveled to Natchez, Mississippi, and joined Philip Nolan, pioneer explorer and Indian trader, during Nolan's fourth and final expedition to Spanish Texas. At a mustang corral near the Brazos River, Philip Nolan was shot and killed by Spanish troops. The other members of the expedition, including Bean, surrendered and were eventually taken to Chihuahua, where they were held in prison a before being allowed liberty of the town. Bean went into business as a hatter and prospered. After five years he and a number of companions attempted to escape. Their plan was foiled and Bean was sent to Acapulco where he remained in prison until November 1811. Bean joined and fought under General Morelos for the revolutionary cause in Mexico. In 1814 Bean was sent to New Orleans to get aid for Mexico. Here he met up with the pirate Jean Lafitte, and together they offered their services to General Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. Their valiant conduct during the battle resulted in a pardon for Lafitte, while Bean obtained promises of help for the revolutionary struggle. He returned to Mexico for a short time before conducting a Mexican ambassador and Morelos's son, Juan Almonte, to New Orleans. By the time Bean got back to mexico, Morelos had beencaptured and executed; the revolution was in a desperate condition. he married a young Mexican lady, Senorita Magdalena Falfan de los Godos, intending to bring her with him to the United States. But Bean was captured by the Royalists and imprisioned at Veracruz, where he managed to make his escape to New Orleans sometime in 1816 in a manner that went unrecorded in his Memoir published by Yoakum in 1855.

Little is known of Bean's life until he returned to Texas in 1823. He stayed in the Neutral Ground for a while and worked on his Memoir before deciding to visit his Tennessee relatives in 1817. While in Sparta County he married the daughter of Isaac Midkiff in 1818, either thinking his Mexican wife was dead or not telling eighteen-year-old Candace Midkiff about her. They moved to southwestern Arkansas, where a son (Isaac Bean) was born in 1821. hearing of Mexican independence, Bean decided to bring his family to Nacogdoches and seek recognition for his revolutionary services. He settled on Mound Prairie, which was near the Neches River on the Old San Antonio Road. In 1825 Bean went to Mexico City. There he received a commission as a Colonel in the Mexican army and an appointment as Agent to the Cherokees and other immigrant tribes in East Texas. He applied for colonization rights to the border reserve along the Sabine River, but Mexico gave it to Lorenzo de Zavala in 1829. While in Mexico Bean renewed his relations with his first wife, Senora Magdalena Falfan de los Godos but kept his home with his second wife in Texas, Candace Midkiff, with whom he eventually had three children. He was instrumental in defusing the Fredonian Rebellion in 1826 and settled down to discharge his duties as Indian agent. Bean briefly commanded Fort Teran in 1831 and helped overthrow the centralist commandant at Nacogdoches in 1832, whereupon Bean became the interim military head of affairs in East Texas.

Although his sympathies were probably with the Texas Revolution, he took no active part and offered to place himself under arrest when fighting began. He was granted parole, but because Bean was still an officer in the Mexican army with great influence over the Indians, General Houston ordered him detained in April 1836. After Texas won it independence at the Battle of San Jacinto, Bean continued to live around Nacogdoches until 1843, when he returned to his first wife in Jalapa. He died at her estate in 1847 at age sixty-four. Candace Midkiff, the mother of his children, died the following year and is buried in the Roark Cemetery at Linwood. Although uneducated, Peter Ellis Bean was a natural leader, bold, courageous, resourceful and able to accomplish whatever task was set before him. He accumulated considerable property in East Texas and was well thought of by his neighbors and old fellow Texans.

(Crocket, Rev. George L ."Peter Ellis Bean." ca. 1925, Peter Ellis Bean Collection. East Texas Research Center, Ralph W. Steen Library, Stephen F. Austin State University.)

(Jackson, Jack. "Peter Ellis Bean," 2003, Peter Ellis Bean control file, East Texas Research Center, Ralph W. Steen Library, Stephen F. Austin State University.)

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

Original documents, photocopies, typescripts, and newspaper clippings relating to Bean's life and activities. Included in the collection is an agreement to use a Salt Lick in 1835 and an 1835 bond for debts owed.

LOCATION OF RECORD

[A-139]

INVENTORY

BOX 1

Folder 1: Documents relating to a salt lick owned by Bean, 1835-1836. (Originals with photocopies.) 4 items.

Use of Land Contract, March 19, 1832. [image]

Folder 2: Bond of Daniel Wilburn and Peter Ellis Bean for the debts of John Berry, 1835. (Photocopy.) 1 item.

Folder 3: Article from Telegraph and Texas Register regarding Bean's sale of land to Sam Houston, May 19, 1838. (Photocopy and typescript.) 2 items.

Folder 4: Sketch of Peter Ellis Bean by Rev. George L. Crocket, ca. 1925. (Typescript carbon.) 1 item.

Folder 5: Newspaper clippings concerning Peter Ellis Bean and his activities, including his connection with Fort Teran, 1947-1983.

Folder 6: Letter to Peter Ellis Bean from Mr. Medina, Mexico, 11 July 1835 (Original, Spanish). 1 item.

Last Revised: 12/20/2008 19:49:47

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Peter Ellis Bean (or Ellis P. Bean), filibuster and Mexican revolutionary, was born to Lydia and William Bean, Jr., on June 8, 1783, at Bean Station, Tennessee. In 1800 he joined Philip Nolan's last filibustering expedition to Texas, lured by promises of wealth from captured mustangs and by talk of gold and silver. He was captured by the Spaniards, established residences in both Mexico and in Texas, and became a minor, though colorful, figure in the history of both regions.

In Texas Bean found only misfortune. Spanish troops attacked Nolan's fortified camp, in what became McLennan County or Hill County, killed Nolan, captured Bean and the other survivors, and took them deep into Mexico, where they held them in a succession of towns. In his memoir Bean wrote that the attack occurred on March 22, 1801, while Miguel Francisco Músquiz, commander of the Spanish troops, recorded the date as March 21 in his diary. Mexican revolutionaries led by a priest, José María Morelos y Pavón, gave Bean his chance for freedom at Acapulco in 1810. He had been released from jail there to fight for the besieged Royalists, but he deserted to Morelos and helped capture the town. He stayed with Morelos and rose in favor.

Fifteen years after leaving his native land Bean returned as a Mexican colonel to seek United States aid for Morelos's cause, but with scant success. During the journey he joined Andrew Jackson's army and fought at the battle of New Orleans. On February 18, 1815, he departed for Mexico on the Águila. As a man of split loyalties, he divided his time between visits to Mexico and the United States. Bean soon returned to the United States as an escort of Morelos's ambassador Manuel de Herrera and Morelos's son Almonte. On his trip back to Mexico he learned that the royalists had executed Morelos. By 1816 Bean had married Magdalena Falfán de los Godos at Jalapa, Vera Cruz. Soon after, he barely escaped capture by the royalists by leaving his wife and fleeing to the United States.

About 1820 he married a Tennessean, Candace Midkiff (or Metcalf), and they eventually had three children. They lived in Arkansas Territory near the Red River, and then the family moved to East Texas in 1823. There Bean served Mexico again as Indian agent. He persuaded the Cherokees to remain neutral during the Fredonian Rebellion. By 1826 the Bean family lived on the Neches River in the Nacogdoches district. Apparently, Bean's wife became aware of his first marriage during this time as Mexican officials investigated his activities and personal life. In 1830 he commanded a small military force at Fort Terán. However, neither Texans nor Mexicans trusted him. After Texas independence he began yearning for Mexico and his other wife. He was still in Nacogdoches County in 1843 when he recorded his last will and testament, leaving his possessions to his three children. He received one league and one labor of land there on September 20, 1844. Sometime after, he traveled to Jalapa to be with his first wife and there, on October 3, 1846, died in her home.