The Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky is comprised of the eight westernmost counties - Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall and McCracken. It is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River, on the north by the Ohio River, on the east by the Tennessee River and the state of Tennessee to the south. By Kentuckians it is generally referred to simply as "the Purchase".

Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby purchased the land lying west of the Tennessee River from the Chickasaw tribe and opened the area for settlement around 1820. Within the next few years, my grandfather's ancestors came there from Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee - the Beadles, Clapps, Pryors and Wingos settled in Graves County with the Reeves and Halls in neighboring Ballard County.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

The Other Beadles - Bassett Beadles

At around the same time that Lewis Yancey Beadles arrived in the Jackson Purchase, another Beadles family came to the area. Lewis Yancey Beadles received his first land grant from the Bureau of Land Management on the 31st of May 1830. Less than a month later on the 17th of June 1830, Bassett Beadles and his son William both received grants. Many years of research has failed to reveal whether Lewis Yancey Beadles and Bassett were related or had even been acquainted in Virginia or North Carolina.


1830 Kentucky Land Grant to Bassett Beadles

Bassett Beadles was reportedly born in Richmond, Virginia around 1775 and had married Elizabeth Cashion sometime before 1800 for they were recorded in the 1800 census of Iredell County, North Carolina. In that census Bassett and his wife were both 16-25 years old, they had one male child and one female child each under 10 years old. By the 1810 census they were living in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina and had six children. They were next recorded in the 1820 census of White County, Tennessee with 7 sons and 2 daughters, before moving to the Jackson Purchase.

Bassett's first land grant in 1830 was in the area of Cuba, Kentucky to the southwest of the town of Wingo where Lewis Yancey Beadles had settled. Within the next few years he had moved further south and is recorded in Weakley County, Tennessee in 1840. The town of Dukedom in Weakley County is credited with having been named for Bassett's son Duke who served as the postmaster there from 1833 to 1846. This community is located on the state line between Kentucky and Tennessee.

Bassett Beadles is believed to have died around 1846 and in the 1850 census, Elizabeth Beadles is a 74 year old widow living in a Weakley County, Tennessee community in the midst of her children. According to the best available information, the children of Bassett and Elizabeth Beadles were Lucinda, Alfred, Duke A., William A., Franklin G. Joseph, Bassett Jr. Malinda and James.

Bassett's son William was the County Clerk in Graves County, Kentucky during the 1850's. William's two sons, Alfred and Marshal, became physicians and Dr. Alfred Beadles practiced in Wingo, Kentucky until his death in 1875.

Because Bassett named his son Duke, I have always been curious as to whether he may have been a son of Harmon Duke Beadles of Hanover County, Virginia. Hanover County is just north of the city of Richmond where Bassett is believed to have been born. Harmon Duke Beadles was a taxpayer in St. Paul's Parish of Hanover in 1786 and 1788. Few details are known of his life and there is no known record of his children. He had served as a private in an infantry regiment during the Revolution. After his death in 1813, his wife Ann received a pension on his service.


See update with current news about Beadles' Y-DNA matches to descendants of Basset Beadles at the following post - Exciting Beadles DNA News.

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