Robert A. Beaty (1794 - 1881)

Born 31 Oct 1794 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States

Died 14 Aug 1881 at age 86 in Gaston County, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

FAG Notes: Robert A. Beaty was born in the Steele Creek Community of Mecklenburg County, NC to John and Mary ____ Beaty. Their home being on a bluff above the Catawba River near the end of present-day Moores Chapel Road at present-day Highway 74-Wilkinson Boulevard, Robert and his siblings could swim and play in the narrow Catawba on the west of their property. From a devout Christian background, he would have been baptized in Steele Creek Presbyterian Church as an infant and professed faith there in his youth. Apparently he had become extremely proficient in his profession of cabinet maker at an early age, because the Mecklenburg County, NC, Court apprenticed a Wilson boy to him to learn the trade, when Robert was 23 years old. That apprenticeship was renewed by the Mecklenburg Court in 1819. The year 1819 was a busy one for Robert: on 27 Apr 1819, he married Nancy Elizabeth Leeper, daughter of John and Elizabeth [some say Dameron???] Leeper who lived in the Point (area between confluence of the Catawba and South Fork Rivers) in Lincoln/later Gaston County, NC.)
A bit later the same year, he bought _____ acres from his in-laws. Before long, he and Nancy were living in their wide, two-story frame house, near her parents, and Robert was widening his cabinet-making clientele in his new community. Besides his usual furniture and other useful items, he was called upon to make many coffins for neighbors who died.
Robert transferred his membership from Steele Creek Presbyterian to Goshen Presbyterian Church, which was the closest Presbyterian Church to his new home. Immediately, he was active in the life of that church.
Within a few years, the Goshen Presbyterian congregational area had grown so, that a new church was needed. Robert A. Beaty was on the building committee for this church which was called New Hope Presbyterian. He and Nancy were charter members there......
In 1846, the new county of Gaston was cut from Lincoln County, North Carolina. Robert was on the committee to build the new Court House in the little hamlet of Dallas, North Carolina.
Schools at that time were by subscription -- parents who were able, employed teachers for their children. In 1847, Robert and Nancy decided to send twelve-year-old daughter Nancy Zalena Beaty, to Woodlawn Female Seminary in the settlement called Woodlawn. This school was in the former large, wide frame home of Robert and Margaret Jack Alexander on the highest point of their plantation, which they named Woodlawn. (Their plantation eventually grew into the settlement/village of Woodlawn , NC, whose name was changed to Mount Holly, in 1876. The sizable house, which stood facing NE at the corner of present-day Hawthorne and ___ Streets in Mount Holly, NC, was occupied by a number of people in later years. It served as the County Jail at one point.) Nancy Zalena needed a desk for her room; so her father made a simple walnut table with a drawer pulled by a large walnut knob. Nancy began school there in Sep 1847. At some point during her schooling, she wrote the following on the bottom of her desk drawer: "Nancy Z. Beaty table Commenced Woodlawn Female Seminary __ Sep 1847 Mifs Sarah Henry, teacher."
Also on the bottom of that drawer is "J. A. Rankin"
Typical of all wives at that time, Nancy Elizabeth Leeper Beaty carded, spun, and wove for her family, then sewed and quilted the fabrics she had made. A tulip-design quilt of hers survives. The once bright red tulips and their green leaves in each square are now brown; the inevitable textile deterioration is taking its toll. But, the pattern created by her exquisite, tiny stitches are breath-taking.
Nancy died on 26 Oct 1849, and was buried at New Hope Presbyterian. Robert stayed fast in his life course; he was present at nearly every Session meeting at New Hope Presbyterian; and often represented that church at Presbytery meetings.
In his later years, Granddaughter Addie Rankin would ride with him in his buggy to visit relatives in northern Mecklenburg County, NC -- some __ miles and several days.
Around ___ he began to miss New Hope Presbyterian Session meetings. When a delegation from the church session visited him regarding his atypical absences, he told them he had _____ problems.
In 1881 he died while visiting his son Andrew Beaty in the South Point Community of Gaston County. The South Fork River was too high to get his coffin back to New Hope Presbyterian for burial, so he was buried in an unmarked grave in South Point Methodist Church, where his son attended.

Sources

• Find-a-grave #202600940