Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2022 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== History of Anoka County And the Towns of Champlin and Dayton In Hennepin County, Minnesota by Albert M. Goodrich pub. 1905 - Hennepin Publishing Co., Minneapolis page 185-186 JOHN R. BEAN was born April 25, 1830, in Enfield, Maine. Attended common schools in Oldtown and Bangor. When still a boy he went on a whaling voyage to the Pacific ocean, which took him around Cape Horn and back to New Bedford, Mass., consuming three years and three months in the cruise. He made two shorter sea voyages and then found employment in a cotton factory at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire. He came to St. Anthony, Minn., in September, 1848, and worked about the saw mills there until the fall of 1849, when in company with JOHN SIMPSON he made a camp on the island in the Mississippi now called Cloutier's island about opposite the farm of C. G. RICHARDSON in the town of Ramsey. At this camp a lively trade was carried on with the Winnebago Indians, who had not kept very closely upon their reservation at Long Prairie and were scattered all along the Mississippi above Itaska, and even as far south as the present site of Champlin. In the spring Mr. BEAN built a log house on the main land on the present RICH- ARDSON farm. About 1853 BEAN and SIMPSON made a trading trip to Pembina, where they remained one year. On one occassion Mr. BEAN got across the British boundary and was captured by agents of the Hudson Bay Company, but luckily escaped without having his furs confiscated, being put back across the bound- ary with a warning to trade only south of the forty-ninth parallel. Mr. BEAN then lived several years in St. Anthony, working in the saw mills. In 1855 he built a permanent dwell- ing on the present RICHARDSON farm, where he lived contin- uously with the exception of eighteen months, until 1870, when he purchased his present home in Anoka, where he has since lived. Mr. BEAN was married Jan. 7, 1855, to JULIA A. MATHISON. Children: MARY E. (Mrs. WILLIAM BOLSTRIDGE, St. Francis, Minn.), IDA E., (Mrs. GEORGE L. RATHBUN) and DANIEL R. ===========================================================================