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Dave Taylor · (This post was last modified: 08-28-2023 02:35 PM by Dave Taylor.)

Welp, I just spent a few hours tracking down what happened to be a false lead. The proprietor of United States Hotel just a block away from the National was a man named Moses Bean [sometimes spelled Beane]. His FindaGrave page said he had two sons and a daughter but didn't give the names of them. I eventually found the two sons, Frank and John, but not the daughter. Turns out it was a step-daughter. Emugenia Erksine was first married to a man named Jesse Wheeler and they had a daughter named Martha Jane Wheeler. After Wheeler died, Emugenia married Moses Bean. As much as I hoped these were our ladies "Mrs. Bean and Miss Bean" I no longer feel this is the case.

I did however learn that a Congressman from North Carolina named John T. Deweese resigned his House seat after he took a bribe from these Beans to get their son, John, into the Naval Academy. So that's interesting.

Just to add to our collection, it looks like Mrs. and Miss Bean took a trip to Mount Vernon with members of Congress and "guests at the National Hotel" in 1864

[Image: bean-visists-mount-vernon.png]

Alright here's another possible lead that I've gotten stumped on, but it looks promising.

In the 1860 census there is a 17 year old "Caroline Bean" residing in in Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York. This is right outside of the city and her post office is listed as Tarrytown. The census states she was born in New York.

Caroline Bean is the only person with the last name of Bean in the household. The head of the house is Robert Bowne Minturn, a merchant with real estate valued at $200,000 and a personal estate valued at $250,000. Here is the Wikipedia page about Robert Bowne Minturn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bowne_Minturn The dude was loaded.

How Caroline Bean is related, if at all, to Minturn and his family is unclear. Plus there is no reference to a "Mrs. Bean" that could be this girl's mother. Still, Minturn was a very wealthy merchant and someone who could definitely provide fancy clothes and get you into high society. So perhaps Minturn could be the merchant "father" GATH was talking about. If only we could figure out how the two are connected.