Erastus Beall and his sons came to East Bexar County, Texas with their slaves to build a plantation. Instead they created a ranching empire in Live Oak and McMullen counties; counties they helped create.
Erastus Beall, the son of Samuel Beall and Susannah Boothe was born in Warren County, Georgia in 1807. Erastus married Elizabeth Brinkley in Upson County, Georgia on Oct 7, 1824. Elizabeth was born in Warren Co., Georgia in 1803.In 1850 Erastus and Elizabeth were living in Warren County, Georgia. Erastus was a planter (as was his father).
Erastus and Elizabeth’s children were all born in Warren Co., Georgia: William H. (1825), Sebastian (Mar 24, 1830), Benjamin (1832), Mary A. (1834), Samuel Francis (1837), Robert A. (1841), Emmaline (Nov 25, 1844), Priscilla, (1847), Francis L. (1848), and Susan P. (1850).
William H. Beall died in 1854 and Erastus died about 1859. Sebastian became the head of the family.
By 1856, Erastus Beall and his sons were engaged in a deadly fued with their neighbors in the Post Oak community (later Lavernia). C. G. Napier, representing the community of planters petitioned the Bexar County courts to enforce a “peace bond” of $1,000.00 against each of the brothers for a period of one year.
The hostilities escalated when in the summer of 1857, a Beall slave was lynched for “outraging” a German girl. The Bealls watched the lynching and made no comment. The Bealls filed suit against the leaders of Post Oak community in Bexar County court to recover the value of the slave and damages for the loss of his services. The suit was abandoned by the Bealls in 1859 when they moved from the area.
Erastus died about 1858 or 1859. Mexican bandits on the Rio Grande killed Benjamin Beall in 1859. In May of 1860 his wife, as executrix of his estate was selling 50 or 60 horses at auction in San Antonio.
Robert A. Beall enlisted in Capt. Eli Toole’s Company of the 3rd Texas Infantry in January of 1862. On August 6, 1862, he was discharged from the army after “furnishing a substitute.”
Elizabeth Brinkley Beall died July 2, 1869.
In 1870 Sebastian, Robert, and Frank were living in the Oakville area of Live Oak County.
In December 1872, Sebastian Beall had “a tooth shot out’ by an Indian arrow in a fight with a band of Indians near San Caja Hill in McMullen County.
Robert A. Beall died in the 70s.
Sebastian became a successful rancher in Live Oak and McMullen Counties. He died in San Antonio June 2, 1884.
Samuel Francis Beall was a merchant at Lagarto, Texas and died in 1901.
Frank moved to Midland and San Angelo, TX. In 1931, he died in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
