Samuel Beaumont, fifth generation New Englander, whose ancestors had arrived in Boston before 1640, clearly knew his allegiance as a Patriot in April, 1776. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted at Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut, his home town, as a private in Colonel Selden's regiment. He fought under General Washington at Harlem Heights, September, 1776, and at White Plains, October, 1776. He also fought at Flat Bush, Turtle Bay and Elizabethtown Point. In February, 1778, Samuel Beaumont was appointed corporal, Third Connecticut, in Colonel Samuel B. Webb's regiment. And, in August, 1778, he fought, under General John Sullivan, at Newport. In June, 1780, Samuel Beaumont was appointed sergeant, again Third Connecticut, in Colonel Samuel B. Webb's regiment. He was discharged from the Continental forces in February, 1781, at the age of twenty-three.

Following the marriage of Samuel Beaumont to Thankful Towner, at Middlesex County, Connecticut, five children were born there, of whom Virginia Frances (Fannie), Anna and Sophia survived.

In 1795, a treaty was executed, at Greenville (present day Darke County, Ohio), between numerous Indian tribal chiefs and General Anthony Wayne. This was the basis of a permanent peace in that territory. Samuel Beaumont, at the age of thirty-seven, along with his wife, children and widowed mother, joined hundreds of fellow Patriot veterans as immigrants, under the auspices of The Ohio Company.

The Beaumont family originally settled on one hundred twenty acres, bought from Spencer and Nichols, at Vienna, Wood County, (West) Virginia., where Samuel was a merchant and the owner of a hotel. In 1796, Samuel and his wife, Thankful, became charter members of The First Congregational Church, at Marietta, Washington County, Ohio -- which is across the Ohio River from their home site. Four more children were born at Wood County, of whom Amelia, John Towner and Eliza Sibyl survived. And, in 1803, at Wood County, daughter Frances (Fannie) was wed to William Zebulon Griffin, whose roots, also, were in Middlesex County, Connecticut.

The next year, in 1804, the Beaumont and the Griffin families moved once more -- thirty-five miles, to Ames, Athens County, Ohio. Samuel Beaumont was now forty-six years old. Both he and his son-in-law, Zebulon Griffin, became land owners, grand jurors and founders of The Western Library Association. This was the first public library formed in the northwestern territory, later popularly known as The Coon-skin Library. Samuel Beaumont was manager of the library in1808. And, before the families were again to move, Zebulon Griffin served three terms, 1810-1811-1812, as county commissioner for Athens County, Ohio.

In January, 1818, Samuel Beaumont, at the age of fifty-nine, filed for and was granted his Revolutionary War pension, at Washington County, Ohio.

Word was spreading of profitable salt mining in the Kanawha Valley of (West) Virginia. Ever the adventurer, Samuel Beaumont re-moved, one hundred eleven miles, along with his extended family, to Charleston, Kanawha County, (West) Virginia. In 1818, he participated financially, with his son-in-law, Zebulon Griffin, in establishing Charleston's first hotel. The following year, 1819, Samuel Beaumont became one of two founding elders of Kanawha First Presbyterian Church. In 1821, he built a fine house on the banks of the Kanawha River, directly across from the village of Charleston.

Although census records and family history reveal that Samuel Beaumont "employed a number of colored people on his premises," it has been told, in a nostalgic reminiscence written by his granddaughter, Virginia Adeline Rugg Jones, that he, in later years, had some regrets of having located in the South -- that "he was an anti-slavery man and did not wish to traffic in human blood." Over twenty years following Samuel's death, at the outbreak of The War between the States, his then widowed daughter, Frances (Fannie) Beaumont Griffin, was residing in the family homestead. It is probable that she and her children had aided in the underground railroad. The house built by Samuel Beaumont was used as headquarters by both Confederate and Federal troops; and, it was subsequently burned as a signal light by an unidentified party.

Samuel's granddaughter further told that "the Beaumont grounds were noted for their thrift and beauty of cultivation" and spoke of "the beautiful mountain...the wintergreen berries...the beautiful cedar trees that line the avenue that leads to the river...the sweet long ago..." In conclusion, she wrote that "Samuel Beaumont always dressed in the colonial fashion, wearing the silver buckles on his shoes and his hair in a que down his back."

Samuel Beaumont, his wife, his mother, his son and his son-in-law were all interred in the family cemetery on his property, alongside the banks of the great Kanawha. Sadly, the cemetery faded from history, undoubtedly in 1873, with the advent of the railroad across West Virginia. Currently standing at this site is the Chesapeake & Ohio Depot.

The following obituary for Samuel Beaumont is copied as it was published, December 2, 1837, in the KANAWHA BANNER, Charleston, Kanawha County, (W)VA.

"At his residence near this place on the morning of 27th Samuel Beaumont in the 80th year of his age. Mr. Beaumont was a native of Saybrook, Conn., and removed to this state in 1790. In the war of the revolution he served in the American Army five years and six months, and was in some hard fought battles. For about forty years he had been a consistent professor of the Christian Relegion. He was one of the elders ordained when the Presbyterian Church was first organized in Kanawha. During his long and painful illness his hope in Christ was as it had been for years, clear and satisfactory. He died in full confidence of acceptance with God through the merits of a crusified redeemer."