Beeson, Mary Frances, 1848-1943.

Mary Frances (Warfield) Beeson was born on December 14, 1848 in Jacksonville (Macoupin County), Illinois to James Lot Warfield and Mary Jane (Jones) Warfield. The Warfield family moved to Johnson County, Kansas, on the Kansas and Missouri border, where they became residents of Shawneetown in 1861.

On October 17, 1862, James Warfield was one of several Shawneetown residents killed by a band of Missouri bushwhackers led by William Quantrill. Warfield's widow later moved with their children to Wyandotte County, Kansas, where she married Allen Beeson in 1863. Mary Frances Warfield married her stepbrother, Clarkson Lewis Beeson, on April 5, 1865. In 1879, they moved to Walla Walla County, Washington, where Mary Frances died on January 4, 1943.

From the guide to the Autobiography of Mary F. Beeson: James Warfield family in Old Shawneetown., undated, (University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library Kansas Collection)