Mary Elizabeth BROOKMAN

Über dieses Buch Voransicht des Buches

Horry County, South Carolina, 1730-1993

Von Catherine Heniford Lewis

Mary Brookman, cousin of Henry Buck, came from Bucksport, Maine, in 1849.

Mary Elizabeth Brookman had an only brother, Mr. John U. Brookman of New York is the only living member of a large family.2 Mary Elizabeth Brookman was also known as Mary Brookman.3 She left a will at Johnson & Quattlebaum, Conway, Horry County, South Carolina, US,, left a will. The Executor of the will was Fred B. Cushman. There is a date conflict because he posted in the newspaper that she died 26 Nov 1901. She was born on 5 April 1824 at Bucksport, Maine, US.1 She was born on 5 April 1825 at Bucksport, Maine, US.4 She immigrated in 1849 to Horry County, South Carolina, US.5 She was was a school teacher for 2 terms. From 1849 to 1851 at Bucksville, Horry County, South Carolina, US.6 She immigrated in July 1851 to Maine, US.

MARY ELIZABETH BROOKMAN Pedigree

Female

Event(s):

Birth:

05 APR 1824 Bucksport, Hancock, Maine

Christening:

Death:

Burial:

Parents:

Father: HENRY BROOKMAN Family

Mother: ELIZABETH

Name: Mary Brookman

Age: 22

Estimated Birth Year: abt 1828

Birth Place: Maine

Gender: Female

Home in 1850(City,County,State): Horry, Horry, South Carolina

Household Members:

Name Age

Henry Back 45

Francis Back 33

Orella Back 11

Lucind Back 10

Henry L Back 7

George O Back 4

Francis Back 1

Benj A Thompson 61

Mary Brookman 22

Mary J Buck 17

Eliza J Congdon 14

Mary Elizabeth (Brookman) Beaty

April 5, 1824 - November 27, 1901

by Mrs. Elsie Cushman Warwick and others

Mary Elizabeth Brookman Beaty was born in Bucksport, Maine April 5, 1824. She was one of nine children of Henry Brookman, a rigger, and his wife, Elizabeth Bowels. In the 1840's she came to Bucksport, South Carolina as a "Yankee school-marm", the governess to the children of Mr. Buck, a shipbuilder from Main. Here she met and married, in 1851, Thomas Wilson Beaty whose family were pioneer residents of Horry County. In her long lifetime (she died in November, 1901), she became one of the most respected and influential women in the county. The home life at the Beatys was quite proper. A reminiscence from her great-niece, Freddie Cushman Charlotte, in 1967: "When the judge would come to hold court in Conway, he always stayed with the Beatys. This meant big meals and I can close my eyes and be sitting on the steps behind the dining room with Moll, the cook, and taste the sweetness of the cold cabbage. Everything at the Beatys was just so, and as children, the Cushman brood would much prefer being out in the country with the Gillespies to being in town with Aunt Mary and having to dress up in stockings and gloves to go to church, but this was expected and done." The kitchen was out behind the dining room with a latticed breezeway between.

The big front yard of the Beaty house, which is now covered with commercial buildings, was the scene in bygone days of many picnics and May Day festivals.

There is a popular and well known story around Conway that when the Wade Hampton oak was threatened with destruction in order to widen the street to make way for the railroad, Mrs. Beaty stood in front of it with shotgun in hand and threatened,dire consequences to the first man to use an ax or saw on the tree.

Whether the story is fact of fiction one can't be sure. Suffice it to say that the beautiful oak still stands in front of the museum on the corner of Fifth and Main and the railroad took another route through Conway.

Mary and Thomas had five children and their home was what is now known at the Beaty- Spivey house on Kingston Lake. They lost all five children tragically. Two of the girls drowned in the lake behind their home, two girls died young of diptheria, and the youngest child and only son, Brookie, is the subject of what has become a Conway ghost story. I heard this story as a child and still hear it -- that Aunt Mary was sitting in the parlor with a sick Brookie upstairs when she heard beautiful music. Angels, who were her deceased daughters, appeared. A discordant tote was struck and she asked the meaning. The girls replied that they had come for their brother. Mary went to the child's room and found that he had died. Mrs. Beaty repeated her experience often to the people of Conway and her story was accepted as true, since she was such an intelligent, well-informed and highly respected lady in the town. All five children are buried in the Kingston Pres- byterian churchyard in the section known as the "Beaty Burying Ground". Over the graves of the two girls who drowned is a marble carving, encased in glass, attributed to the renowned sculptor, Hiram Powers.

Thomas Beaty fought in the Civil War and left his wife, who was an energetic woman of great ability and high intelligence, to supervise his business interests which at that time included an extensive mercantile and naval stores business and the running of a local newspaper. All of this she handled with great competence and skill.

Mary Beaty died in 1901. As a young man, Mr. C.P. Quattlebaum lived in her home before he married. His daughter, Marjorie Quattlebaum Langston, wrote in the April, 1967 Independent Republic Quarterly an account of this as he told it to her.

The Independent Republic Quarterly

Vol.20 No.4; Fall 1986, Pg 13

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