The cedars by the wall still weep.
Though many years have passed, there is still a sense of intense mourning about the place.
While William B. Beeson and his son Lewis H. have their final resting place within a wrought iron fenced plot in Silverbrook Cemetery, other members of the Beeson family were laid to rest behind the low stone wall that encloses the park-like setting of the Beeson Mausoleum.
The story begins not in Niles but in Pennsylvania, where Jacob and Judith married somewhere at the turn of the 18th century and parented four sons and a daughter, Phoebe. The sons were Jacob, William B., Job John and Strother M. Beeson.
The eldest son Jacob emigrated to St. Joseph in 1829, where he began a mercantile business. In 1832, he moved to Niles and started a store in a portion of what was Colonel Huston's Tavern.
Jacob left Niles for a period when in 1857 his activity in an extensive forwarding and commission business led to his appointment by President Buchanan as a custom house collector at Detroit.
Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website
Published May 10th, 2008