A. Beauchamp. More than thirty years ago A. Beauchamp entered the service of the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney Railway at Atchison as car clerk, and had been continnously with that road, being now one of the veteran employees, and by successive promotions now handles the responsibilities of local agent for the company at Atchison.
Mr. Beauchamp is a native of Kansas, and was born in Doniphan County September 15, 1856. That date indicates the pioncer residence of the family in this state. He was born four years before Kansas became a state. It was in the border epoch of Kansas history and his father, Edward A. Beanchamp, was one of the early settlers and homesteaders of Doniphan County. The Boauchamp family originated in France, and it was Mr. Beauchamp’s great-grandfather who came to this country about the time of the Revolution. The family from France had gone to England and thence to the United States. They afterwards located in Kentucky. Edward A. Beauchamp was born in Kentucky in 1813. He grew up in his native state, as a young man went to Illinois, where he married, thence removed to Missouri, and in the spring of 1856 arrived in Kansas. He located a few miles west of the Missouri River in Doniphan County and preempted a claim of 160 acres, He battled sturdily with the virgin soil in an effort to make a living until 1866, and then removed to Mount Pleasant in Atchison County, where he bought another farm. In 1878 he went to Nemeha County, owned a farm in that locality, but finally retired from its management and lived at Seneca, the county seat. While there he was taken ill and went to Atchison, where three months later, in 1896, he died. Edward A. Beauchamp was a stanch republican and a free soiler and a Union man. He was one of the first justiees of the peace elected in Doniphan County, and also filled a similar office at Mount Pleasant. He was one of the pioneer supporters of the Baptist Church in Kansas.
Edward A. Beauchamp was married in Illinois to Jane Elizabeth Gibson, who was born in that state in 1825. She died at Mount Pleasant, Kansas, in 1868. Her children were as follows: Columbus, a retired resident at Concordia, Kansas; James, who died as a child in Missouri; Maria, who died at the age of twelve years; Milton, connected with the coal firm of C. A. Wright at Atchison; the fifth, a son, died in infaney; the sixth was Mr. A. Beauchamp; Austin became a farmer and died near Centralia at the age of fifty; and Samuel is a farmer ten miles south of Centralia.
Mr. A. Beauchamp was educated chiefly in the public schools at Mount Pleasant. He also attended the Normal School at Leavenworth, but at the age of eighteen left school and for one term taught in Platte County, Missouri. Mr. Beauchamp had been a resident of Atchison since 1876. Three years were spent with the A. B. Symms Grocery Company, and for one year he was with Julius Kuhn in the wholesale grocery’ business, and for six months was shipping clerk for the wholesale furniture honse of Kelsey & Simpson.
After this somewhat varied exporienco Mr. Beauchamp accepted the position of night baggage agent at the Union Depot in Atchison. In the spring of 1885 he was enrolled among the employees of the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney Railway as car clerk, and filled one post of responsibility after another until 1907, when he was appointed local agent. He is one of the most capable men in the service of the company. The local offices of the Burlington road are situated at the corner of Main and Second streets.
Mr. Beauchamp owned a comfortable home at 314 North Third Street in Atchison. He had always voted and affiliated with the republican party, and is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married in 1882, at Atchison, Miss Nellie Edgerton, a daughter of Emmett and Dianthony (Shaw) Edgerton. Her father, now deceased, was an early resident of Atchison, owned some real estate there, but at the beginning of the Civil war enlisted in the Union army and died soon afterward, Mrs. Beauchamp’s mother is still living at Atchison. Four children have been born to their marriage: Edward Edgerton, a Methodist Episcopal minister, now living near Hiawatha, Kansas; Carrie Irene, wife of B. H. Hand, who had charge of a laundry at Ottumwa, Iowa; Lucy A., still at home with her parents; and Mavine, wife of J. R. Montgomery, who runs a lumber yard at Dubois, Nebraska.