Biographical Sketch
This is where our Bearen family records began. Francis was the son of Jacob, the first of the Bearden family born in Virginia. He married Sarah Jane Blassingame, (1695-after 1737) daughter of John Thomas Blassingame and Rachel Mcllroy. They were married 1715/16. They had several children, including, but not limited to: Ambrose, Benjamin Franklin, Sarah, John William Sr., Richard, Humphry, Sr., Edmund. He may have been a constable or judge, but he is most remembered for tobacco theft.
In the book, Caroline county Virginia is the following record:
"An attempt to get rich quick also led Francis Bearding (Bearden) to crime. To secure capital with which to speculate he broke into the storehouses of Benjamin Hubbard of lower Drysdale Parish and carried away 350 pounds of tobacco. The Caroline magistrates had jurisdiction to try Bearding since neither the value of the goods he stole, nor the breakin and entry during daylight were sufficient to constitute a felony. But they preferred not to exercise this right and sent him to Williamsburg to stand trial for his life in the General Court, because in colonial Virginia the theft of tobacco, which was the basis of the economy, was treated very much like horse-stealing, at a later date, in the American West. Hanging was none too good for a thief"
And so, apparently, he was hung. His burial is unknown to me at this time. His family moved on, some to N.C.and S.C., the name "Bearding" became Bearden.
Chapter: The Great Crime Wave of Caroline County, VA"