BIOS:  Alexander Beaton, Gem Hill (near Corsicana) TX

   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
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   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
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   00011
   
   FOLKLORE -- WHITE PIONEERS
   
   Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
   
   McLennan County, Texas
   
   District No. 8.
   
   No of words 1,000
   
   File No. 240
   
   Page No. 1 ALEXANDER BEATON, Gem Hill, (near Corsicana,) Texas.
   
   Major Alexander Beaton was born at Inverness, Inverness-shire, the
   most beautiful and romantic part of the Highlands of Scotland,
   February 19, 1820. His parents, Donald and Margaret (Beaton) Beaton,
   died when he was in his thirteenth year. He received an academic
   education in his native town, and in his seventeenth year was sent to
   the city of London, England, where he entered the office of an
   accountant, where he remained for six years. Shortly after his first
   arrival in London, he witnessed the grandest sight and pageant of his
   life, the coronation of Queen Victoria. He came to the United States
   in 1843, in November of that year landing at New Orleans where, until
   1844, he filled a position secured by him before he left London. He
   left New Orleans at the beginning of the yellow fever epidemic in [?],
   the local physicians and newspapers advising all unacclimated persons
   to pursue that course. He went from New Orleans to St. Louis and from
   the latter city to Bolivar, Polk County, Mo., where he taught school
   and read law until 1847 in the office of Colonel Thomas Ruffin, who
   was then known as one among the leading members of the bar in
   Southwest Missouri. In the summer of that year a call was made on the
   State of Missouri to raise her Third Regiment of Mounted Volunteers
   for service in Mexico, and Major Beaton volunteered for service during
   the war and became a member of Company R. of said regiment. Col.
   Ralls, of Ralls County, Mo., was afterwards elected Colonel of the
   regiment, which, after being duly equipped and made ready for service
   at 00022Fort Leavenworth, now in the State of Kansas, started on its
   march across the plains in July, 1847, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where
   it took the place of Gen. Price's command, whose term of service had
   expired. Major Beaton went to Taos, New Mexico, with three companies
   of the regiment and remained there, doing duty as acting adjutant of
   the battalion, until the end of the war, when he returned to
   Independence, Mo., with the entire regimental command, where with his
   fellow-soldiers he was, in the fall of 1848, honorably discharged from
   the service. He now draws a pension of $8.00 per month as a Mexican
   war veteran from the United States government. Shortly after his
   discharge from the army, he and Col. Ruffin came to Texas, stopping at
   Houston for a brief period and then took a look at the town of
   Washington on the Brazos, which was much spoken of at the time and
   believed by many to be destined for the dignity of a city of
   importance at some time. They afterwards visited and resided, for
   varying periods, at Brenham, Chappel Hill, and Richmond, Colonel
   Ruffin locating at the latter place. Major Beaton during his sojourn
   at Chappel Hill taught school for a few months.
   
   He arrived at Corsicana on the 16th of March, 1850, then a small
   frontier village of about one hundred inhabitants, and has since
   resided in and near that place. In a short time after his arrival he
   was employed in the County Clerk's office and was later appointed to
   fill the unexpired term of a former incumbent of the office of County
   Assessor and Collector of taxes and, while so engaged, industriously
   applied himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar
   00033in 1851, license being granted by Hon. O. M. Roberts, the
   presiding judge, afterwards Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court,
   Governor of Texas, and later, senior law professor in the University
   of Texas. Major Beaton afterwards, for a period of over thirty years,
   engaged in the practice of the profession, before and after the war
   for some years as a co-partner of the now distinguished statesman,
   Hon. R. Q. Mills, and since that time, until about ten years ago, when
   he retired from active pursuits to his "Gem Hill" home, near the city
   of Corsicana.
   
   He has borne a conspicuous and helpful part in the upbuilding of
   Corsicana. The start in the making of Corsicana as a city was his
   successful effort in getting a depot of the Houston and Texas Central
   Railway located at the town in 1871. In the attainment of this object
   he was ably assisted by Mr. James Kerr, Sr., and Colonel William
   Croft. In honor of his services and liberality, without any desire or
   asking for it on his part, the people named the principal street in
   the city, Beaton Street, in his honor. He has been a life-long
   Democrat and has done good service for the party and for the cause of
   honest and accountable government. His fore-fathers for many
   generations were members of the Presbyterian Church, which with
   Calvanism and authoritative teaching he could not agree. He now
   worships with his wife in the Methodist Church, whose tenets and
   beliefs are more in accord with his own.
   
   As previously stated, Major Beaton retired from active business and
   professional pursuits more than ten years ago and moved to his
   00044residence, "Gem Hill," which overlooks the city of Corsicana and
   is one of the most exquisitely beautiful and well appointed
   country-seats in the South.
   
   July 11, 1852, he married Elizabeth J. McKinney, daughter of Rev.
   Hampton McKinney, a famous pioneer and Methodist Episcopal preacher of
   Navarro County, who moved to this State from Illinois. Major and Mrs.
   Beaton have three children, two sons and a daughter. Their eldest son,
   Ralph, is a member of the firm of Damon, Beaton & Company, of
   Corsicana. Their only daughter, Mary Kate, is the wife of Dr. S. W.
   Johnson, of that city. Major Beaton was made a Master Mason in 1850 by
   General E. H. Tarrant, joining the first lodge organized in Corsicana.
   Major Beaton has won considerable distinction as an amateur geologist
   and investigator of the natural sciences, for which he has always
   possessed a passionate fondness and followed with a quiet and never
   flagging zeal. He has contributed many valuable articles (that have
   been widely copied) to magazines. The following telegram of April 29,
   1895, from Austin, Texas, to the Dallas-Galveston News fitly
   illustrates the interest he feels in the cause of scientific progress:
   "It may not be generally known that a few weeks since the University
   of Texas came into the possession of the valuable and unique cabinet
   of minerals collected by Hon. Alexander Beaton, of Corsicana, on his
   home place, known as "Gem Hill", situated about a mile south of the
   town.
   
   "Major Beaton has long been a student of nature and, being impressed
   with the remarkable beauty and purity of the drift-minerals found in
   the fields near the house, he took the pains to have many of

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