Biography - Dorrick Beauman
DORRICK F. BEAUMAN, who has resided on his four hundred acre farm on section 36, Tunnel Hill Township, Johnson County, for the past twenty years, was born in Canada, in the District of Three Rivers, St. Peter's Parish, June 22, 1827. His father, Alexander Beauman, was a native of France, and was born in 1857. He emigrated from France to Canada when a young man of about eighteen years, with but a few hundred dollars' cash capital, and a part of this was the buttons on his coat, which were of gold covered with cloth. He was a farmer by occupation, but he was the son of a colonel in the French army.
Dorrick F. Beauman is one of twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. He is the sixth son of his father and the third child of his mother, who was his father's second wife. She was Mary Ann Frazier, a Scotch lady, who had four children, two sons and two daughters: Sophia, Clara, Dorrick F. and Jeffrey. Mr. Beauman is the only one surviving of these four children. The parents removed from Canada to Vermont about 1850, where they lived with their children until their death, the father dying in 1852, at the age of ninety-five, and his widow, who was much younger than he, dying in the year 1871, at about the age of eighty years. Dorrick F. Beauman was reared in Canada, but went to Vermont about 1848, and came to Illinois in November, 1853, first locating in Union County. He was Roadmaster on the Illinois Central Railroad for eight ycars, up to 1861. He then followed farming in that county, and was married there in December, 1861, to Miss Carrie Corgan, who was born in Franklin County, Ill., in 1843, and is the daughter of John Corgan. He was a native of North Carolina and of Irish descent.
Mr. and Mrs. Beauman resided in Union County three years, when they sold their small farm and began merchandising at Anna, and afterward at Lick Creek, in the same county. He was successful until 1873, when he sold out and moved to his present home. His well-cultivated farm he bought for $15 per acre, and since that time he has been farming and merchandising at Tunnel Hill, except that from 1880 to 1890 he was engaged exclusively in farming. While he has always carried on mixed farming, yet his specialty has been a high grade of Shorthorn cattle. He has kept as many as eighty head at a time and has shipped a carload to market each year. Soon after coming to his present farm he planted out a fine orchard of eight or ten acres of apple trees, and his apple crop was a success every year until 1892, when the crop was a total failure in all this portion of Illinois. He has also grown small fruits, such as strawberries and raspberries, but is now only raising these fruits for his own use.
Mr. Beauan built his present fine house in 1889, but that built by him in 1880 was a finer one than this. He also had a fine large barn, the finest one in the county, but it and the house were burned down in the spring of 1889, the loss being ยง4,500. All their household goods were destroyed and the insurance was only partial. He had buried his wife in February, 1889, and his house and barn burned in May. Mrs. Beauman was forty-six years old and left ten children, five sons and five daughters, all of whom are living, as follows: Emma, wife of R. A. Dinwiddie, who is engaged in merchandising at Tunnel Hill; Louis, a civil engineer, who is married and living in Texas; Frank, single, and engaged in merchandising in Tunnel Hill with his brother-in-law; Guy, a traveling salesman, single; Harry, a young man residing on the home farm; John, who is attending school in Quincy, Ill.; Maud, a young lady at home; Madge, a young lady of sixteen, at home and in school; Carrie M., eight years old and in school; and Clara, a lovely little child four years old. These children have had and are having the best educational facilities that the country affords. Mr. Beauman felt the loss of his wife very greatly, but he has been greatly favored in his children and in his business career, for though beginning poor, he has accumulated a handsome competency, and has reared all of his children. He is a Master Mason and a Republican. Our subject has been peculiarly unfortunate in the matter of fires, as in April, 1893, his business house in Tunnel Hill and all its contents were destroyed, and his insurance was only light.
Extracted 04 May 2016 by Norma Hass from 1893 Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, pages 250-251
