This is the story of the Bean incident, as always told by the old people in Washington county. Russell Bean was a man of fine appearance and engaging manners. He was not only a genius, but he was “well read” for that era, and had picked up, on his trip to Connecticut and at New Orleans, a great deal of information with reference to other nations and their affairs. He could have been a leader, but for some infirmities and peculiarities. When Parton was preparing his life of Jackson, some one gave him the information that Col. Charles Roberson, Bean’s father-in-law, was “an illiterate old man, who had fought under Sevier at King’s Mountain and made campaigns against the Indians.” This statement, unqualified, does Col. Roberson injustice. He was one of the heroes of King’s Mountain, and had engaged in many campaigns against the Indians. He was not an educated man, but the various responsible positions to which he was appointed, including that of chairman of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, according to early records at Jonesboro, and speaker of the Senate in the last General Assembly of the State of Franklin, 1787, testify to his intelligence, as well as the esteem and confidence in which he was held by his countrymen. Bean’s divorced wife married again, and moved to Knoxville, where the unfortunate child died, as did also her second husband. In the course of a few years, Bean himself drifted to Knoxville, where Jackson met him and, it is said, brought about a reconciliation between him and his former wife. They were remarried, and lived happily until the death of Bean. Parton fixes the date of the fire incident at Jonesboro at the time of the Bean incident--after Jackson had been appointed judge. The date is not material, but Parton’s information must have been incorrect, or the date of the fire incident, as recollected and given by aged persons who remembered it and recounted it as late as twenty years ago, was wrong. According to these old citizens, the fire in which Jackson distinguished himself was in 1798, while he was stopping in Jonesboro on his way to Nashville from Philadelphia, after he had resigned the position of United States Senator. Court was in session, however, when the fire occurred, as stated by Parton, and Jackson was there mingling with his friends. He had been there for a few days previous to the fire, and continued his stay in town for a few days afterward. He was not stopping at the tavern, but was the guest of one of the families.