John F. Beard
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John Forbes Beard (August 13, 1822 – October 2, 1891) was an American plasterer and farmer from Gratiot, Wisconsin, who served a single one-year term as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Lafayette County, Wisconsin.[1]
Beard was born in Landisburg, Pennsylvania on August 13, 1822. He received a common school education. He left Pennsylvania in 1840 with $12, an umbrella and his clothes, walked the 250 miles to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he caught a boat to Cincinnati, Ohio; thence to Piqua, Ohio, where he worked for about a year before returning to Pennsylvania. He then learned the trade of plasterer, and left for Wisconsin in 1845, spending about a year in Galena, Illinois, then settled in New Diggings where on March 17, 1846, he married Amanda Criss, a native of Wheeling. He stayed in New Diggings for six years or so, before moving on, coming in 1851 to Gratiot. He served on the town board of Gratiot.