Notes |
- 1850 Census, Town of West Union, Doddridge County, Virginia (now West Virginia), enumerated on Jul 16 1850:
Josiah H. Bee, 26, blacksmith; Mary A, 21; Berkley H, 4; Mary F, 2; Oscar J, one month.
1860 Census, Doddridge Co, Virginia (now West Virginia), enumeration date not given:
J. H. Bee, 35, blacksmith, value of real estate $3,000, value of personal estate $1,150; Mary J, 30; B. H. (male), 14; S. O. (male), 7; A. O. (female), 5; B. F. H. (male), 2; Arthur Ingle, 18; E. J. Dotson (female), 18. All born in Virginia.
(NOTE: Arthur Ingle was presumbably an apprentice blacksmith, since that was his military specialty during the Civil War and his civilian occupation afterward. Emily Jane Dotson was a second cousin of Mary Jane (Davis) Bee. The female child identified as A. O. was daughter Alice O'Dell Bee. Although her birthplace is shown here as Virginia, subsequent census records of 1870, 1880, 1910, 1920 and 1930 all show that she was born in Missouri in 1855. Circumstances of this family being in or near Missouri at any time between the 1850 and 1860 censuses are not known.)
The Josiah H. Bee family moved from Doddridge "to Wirt County and lived there between 1872 and 1883. They operated the Kanawha Hotel, located on the banks of the Little Kanawha River at Elizabeth. The hotel was a popular stop-over for boats hauling passengers and goods between Parkersburg and the interior regions of West Virginia. Josiah died there in 1876 following an injury inflicted by a horse. A few years after his death, Mary Jane sold the Kanawha Hotel and returned to Doddridge County where she died" in 1903.
SOURCE: Goldenseal Magazine, Winter 1991, pp. 40-45. (NOTE: Article states that Mary Jane (Davis) Bee died in Doddridge County in 1905. But her headstone shows her death date as Oct 20 1903. No death record has been found for her. There was a Mary Bee who died in Doddridge County in 1905, but that was Mary Melissa (Welch) Bee, second wife of Ephraim Bee.) [1, 4]
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