Noah Beauchamp
| Noah Beauchamp | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 24, 1785 Maryland, United States |
| Died | December 30, 1842 (aged 57) Rockville, Indiana, United States |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Criminal status | Executed by hanging |
| Conviction(s) | Murder |
Lt. Noah Beauchamp (February 24, 1785 – December 30, 1842) was a blacksmith and an Indiana pioneer. He was also the first person to be legally hanged in Parke County, Indiana, after murdering his neighbor, George Mickelberry, over a dispute.
Noah Beauchamp was born in Maryland to Thomas and Sarah Adams Beauchamp. As an adult Noah was over six feet tall, burly and had a ruddy complexion. He was said to have been quick to anger and as a young man, Beauchamp had a disagreement with his father over the morality of slavery. The younger Beauchamp was very religious, a devout Baptist, and he was vehemently against slavery. His father, who owned slaves, may have disowned Noah, who soon left for Kentucky and then Ohio, where he may have met Elizabeth Adams who became his wife. His first child, Noah Beauchamp, Jr., was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 29, 1804.
By 1811, Beauchamp had moved with his family to Connersville Township in Fayette County in the Indiana Territory, where he set up a blacksmith shop. On December 14, 1812, Beauchamp purchased a tract of land in Fayette County and lived there until the 1820s, the family moved to Edgar County, Illinois. Noah was appointed a lieutenant of the Eleventh Indiana Territorial Regiment on April 29, 1814. The Eleventh regiment was on the best organized of the Indiana regiments.
In an era where many whites would not deal with blacks, Noah and his wife Elizabeth sold a tract of land in Floyd Co., on September 11, 1828 to Caesar Findley. The Beauchamps resided in Illinois until the mid-1830s, when he relocated again to Indiana, this time to Vigo County.
One of the neighboring families, in Sugar Creek Township, that abutted his farm was the Mickelberry family. George Mickelberry and Beauchamp became embroiled in a heated dispute over property boundaries, but the tension between the two families wasn't bad enough to prevent Mrs. Mickelberry from hiring Beauchamp's daughters to knit. It was after one of these knitting jobs, in July 1840, that a larger dispute took place, this time between the Mickelberry and Beauchamp women. The Mickelberry daughters were spreading the word around town that Beauchamp's daughters stole some left over wool from the job. Beauchamp heard the accusations and quickly became very angry over the claims. He decided to confront George Mickelberry about the charges.
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