Eighth Generation

3424. Hiram BEAN was born on 26 June 1822 in New Hampshire.¹⁴⁶³ He died on 17 October 1865 at the age of 43 in East Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts.¹⁴⁶³ Family lore has it that on the day of his death, he raised up from his sick bed (he had TB after so many years of breathing in the lead that was then contained in paint ... he was a painter), grabbed his rifle from over the mantle, opened the front door, fired 3 shots into the air, and shouted "Hooray for the North" (they had won the Civil War in April of that year) ... and dropped dead! He was buried at Central Cemetery in East Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts.⁸⁴⁵

Hiram BEAN and Louisa Mary GROW were married on 29 April 1845 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.⁸⁴⁵ She was the sister of Charity GROW, who married Hiram's brother Jedediah. Louisa and Hiram were both living and working in Lowell, MA during the 1830's. Louisa and her sisters were employed by the Suffolk Manufacturing Co. It was a large brick factory employing 70 males and 410 females. They had 10,240 spindles, 352 looms and manufactured twilled gods in their factory, using from 80-90 bales of cotton per week [Lowell City Directory, 1836]. After Louisa and Hiram were married in 1845, they lived in East Bridgewater, MA where Hiram was instrumental in establishing the Universalist Church in the Centre village of East Bridgewater [July 9, 1851 town record, taken from LDS film #0873752]. Hiram must have moved to East Bridgewater about 1843, as in the town records for that year and also for 1844, Hiram Bean is eligible for the militia, along with his younger brother, Reuel Bean, who must have been living with him. Hiram and Louisa had a large family.

About 1860, Hiram came down with TB. Both he and his wife thought that he might improve if they moved to Maine, so they packed up and took the train from Boston to Bangor. In Bangor they bought a covered wagon and a horse and started up the river, heading north. There was a settlement near Haystack Mountain and they settled there. The trip was extra hard for Louisa, as she was pregnant with Forrest at the time. Along the way they bought a cow and some seed, as the land was so fertile you could just throw the seed on the ground and be sure of a good crop. Hiram built a log cabin in the Maine woods, helped by his son, Frank, who was good with an axe. He didn't put a door on it right away; just hung up a tarp. One day he went into Presque Isle, the nearest large community, to buy goods. Back home, Louisa was cooking dinner in the large black pot in the fireplace and all of a sudden, an adult black bear came right through the tarp and into the cabin. Louisa hollered at her children, Frank, Georgianna, and Seth, who were working their lessons on a chalk board at the kitchen table. Louisa grabbed the youngest child, Ada, from her trundle bed, and with the three older children, quickly climbed the rope ladder leading to the sleeping loft where the children slept. Louisa pulled the ladder up quickly into the loft. The bear, smelling the stew simmering in the kettle, put his paw into the kettle and burned himself badly. This caused him to go crazy and attack all the furniture in the cabin. He totally terrorized the furniture for several minutes, and then left the cabin. Louisa and the children stayed in the loft until Hiram returned the next day. Needless to say, that very day, Hiram and Frank put a solid wooden door on the cabin!

When the baby, Forrest, was born a few months later, Louisa had no milk, so she would mash a bit of food and make a sugar teat for Forrest to suck.

While they lived there, Hiram earned a living by working with a team of men that were creating state roads in northern Maine. One way Hiram had of making extra money was to whittle axe handles from all the wood around the outside of the cabin., He would hang them in the rafters to dry, tied together in bunches, over the beds of the children. Well, son Frank got careless one day and was showing off to neighbor children how well and fast he could chop wood and he chopped his big toe right off. It didn't heal right; with the bone sticking out of it. One night, as Frank slept, a bunch of the axe handles fell from the rafters right onto his toe, breaking that bone off, and it finally healed correctly.

After five years in Maine it appeared that Hiram was not improving. In fact, the TB was much worse, so they moved back to East Bridgewater, MA, where he died shortly thereafter.

Louisa Mary GROW, daughter of George GROW and Abigail MATTHEWS, was born about 1822 in Hartland, Windsor, Vermont.^334,1459 She died on 18 December 1905 at the age of 83 in Malden, Middlesex, Massachusetts.¹⁴⁵⁹ She died at the home of her daughter, Frannie Griffin Bean Allen, age 83. She was buried at Central Cemetery in East Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts.⁸⁴⁵

Hiram BEAN-17174 and Louisa Mary GROW-20236 had the following children: