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How do we know that Asa Beebe & Mary Whipple Beebe were involved with the underground railroad?
How do we know that Asa Beebe and Mary Whipple Beebe were
involved with In 1899, Edmund Wheeler, the Beebes' son-in-law, recounted
that the Beebes Asa Beebe, foundry man and moulder, was born in Vermont in 1792 or 1793, came to Mexico about 1807, and fought in the War of 1812 at the Battle of Sackets Harbor. He became very active as a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. In the 1840s, he was dismissed from the church for his ideas of Christian Union. Characterized as a "stern, inflexible man, very tenacious of his opinions," he supported Starr Clark in refusing to work for political abolitionism and the Liberty Party. In 1840, Asa and his wife Mary Whipple Beebe bought a house on Main Street, just west of Black Creek. In 1851, they moved to Toad Hollow, where Jerry Henry found refuge for two weeks in the Beebe barn. Edmund Wheeler, Asa and Mary Beebe's son-in-law, spoke with Jerry himself and testified to the white stripes on his back, a result of whippings while enslaved. Wheeler noted that Mary Beebe would send food for Jerry Henry to the barn with her son Winsor. Early one morning, Winsor Beebe hitched up their team to go for a load of wheat in Oswego. Hidden among bags and blankets, Jerry Henry arrived in Oswego before daylight, where he probably stayed with Sidney and Olive Clarke before he was put on board a boat for Canada. By 1855, the Beebe family had reached a degree of material comfort, with a house worth $1500, a farm worth $2625, and a furnace and machine shop worth $3000. Asa Beebe lived to be 86 years old. Both Asa and Mary died in 1878, within three weeks of each other. They were survived by children Salem Town Beebe, a foundryman; Winsor Beebe, a miller; Minerva Beebe, a homemaker; Emma N. Beebe, an artist, author, and teacher; Nancy Jane Robbins, homemaker; and Mary Ann Wheeler, homemaker. Sources: Elizabeth Simpson, Mexico, Mother of Towns, 352, 356-8. |