beardsley

Ahira J. Beardsley

Ahira J. Beardsley, sone of James and Rachel Beardsley, was born in Hannibal, Oswego Co., N.Y., in 1832. He had one brother, Jerome Beardsley, who died in 1862. James Beardsley, father of our subject, was a farmer and carpenter by occupation. He died in New York at the age of seventy-eight. Ahira Beardsley immigrated to Illinois in 1853, where he followed photography, with good success, but after a year or so he went Decorah, Iowa, where, for some time, he kept a hotel and speculated in land. While at times he was very successful, at other times things did not go altogether to suit him, so at last he removed to St. Louis, and soon sent for his mother to come and make her home with him. She died at the age of seventy-eight. Mr. Beardsley finally engaged in business at Victoria, Mo., where he kept a railroad eating house, in partnership with Mr. T. Espy. About a year later he went to Ironton and here became proprietor of another hotel, which he continued one season, after which he went to Olney, Ill. Here he again engaged in the hotel business, but growing weary of this he removed to Terre Haute, Ind., and after another season returned to St. Louis, where with another party, for another season, he fed all the odds and ends of regiments that came to the city. He then left this place and went to Warrenton, Mo., where he again kept a railroad eating house for two years, and where he was made railroad brigadier quartermaster for a couple of years, and where he was made railroad brigadier quartermaster for a couple of years. During that time he went to Helena, Ark., and joined the First Arkansas Mounted Rangers, accepting the lieutenancy as recruiting officer to St. Louis for that regiment. He went back to his home, at Warrenton, Mo., and the following season returned to St. Louis and kept a hotel. At that time (1866) the cholera was raging there, and he lost his wife, whom he had married when he was but twenty-one years of age, in New York State. This was a very severe blow to him, and for many years he mourned the death of his beloved companion. Mr. Beardsley then went into partnership I the real estate business with Daniel Dillon, who is at present judge of one of the circuit courts of that city. Mr. Beardsley finally left St. Louis and went to Mine La Motte, where for fifteen years he acted as superintendent of real estate. While there he married the widow of Prof. C. Y. Mason, of Libertyville, and with her lived happily for seven years, when he was again left a widower. After a time he began to look around for some one else to share his home and this one he founding the daughter of L. T. Cosby, of Spanish descent. Mr. Beardsley had known her as a little girl of six, when he was keeping the hotel of Victoria. In the meantime she had grown up and married Col. A. M. Tyler, of Binghamton, N. Y., and had been left a widow with one little boy, Bertie. Ahira J. Beardsley and Mrs. Emma Tyler were married in De Soto, Mo., in 1882. Tow years after they lost their little boy, Bertie. About this time Mr. Beardsley became a stockholder in the first roller mill in Southeast Missouri, they being located in Marquand, Mo. Three years later he commenced their supervision, and is now sole proprietor. He was executive Democratic committeeman for eight years and Congressional committeeman two years, and was delegate to the judicial and congressional convention at two different times, and chairman of the county convention. It is seldom one finds a man who has changed his place of business and occupation as Mr. Beardsley has done, yet these changes have been a school to him, the advantages of which he has taken care to improve. The supplications made to him by men aspiring to political positions in the State are sufficient evidence that he is one of the influential Democrats of Southeast Missouri.