Tannen Family

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Contents

Neville Tannen

Neville Tannen, the twelfth Earl of Blackham, is the patriarch of the Tannen family, and the earliest ancestor for which there are any direct records. His is also the first appearance of the name, having apparently derived from the word "tenant," as he was a tenant farmer for the prior Earl Blackham.

Baptized on November 16, 1586, Neville grew up working the fields of Blackham Manor in Hampshire, England. Circa 1605, the elderly Earl of Blackham had only a single surviving child, Nigella, and no sons to inherit the title. In 1609 Neville was married to Nigella; he would inherit the title through her in 1612.

Little is known of Neville's life, either as laborer or Earl, though he was apparently a courtier of the scandal-plagued James I. He and his wife had seven children, of whom three died in infancy. Neville died on April 20, 1648.

Jefferson Tannen

Jefferson Tannen was the owner of a cotton plantation in Wallace, Texas. He was born on December 8, 1796 in Georgia, and was killed in a riding accident on March 11, 1851 in Texas. He was described, even by his own children, as a cruel and heartless man.

Jefferson grew up on a plantation in southern Georgia, and inherited a considerable sum of money which he used to found his own plantations, first in Mississippi, then, after the sale of that plantation, one in East Texas.

Jefferson left the home of his father in 1814 at the age of 17, because, as the fourth son, he had few prospects in his father's household. Having received a gift of $8,000 (about $4.15 million today, compared to per-capita GDP), he used the money to purchase land and slaves in Mississippi. Mississippi, which would not become a state until 1817, was not yet a major cotton producer. Jefferson was able to get out in front of the growing industry, and by 1824 he had amassed a fortune of approximately $300,000 (about $297 million today).

Jefferson was married to Mississippian Sarah Pearce on July 18, 1821. He was 24 years old and she was 17. She was the daughter of another prominent slaveholder, Hiram Pearce. The couple would have eleven children, of whom ten survived to adulthood. The fifth child, and first son, was Beauregard Benjamin, who inherited the Plantation upon Jefferson's death.

For reasons that remain unclear, Jefferson sold his Mississippi plantation in 1827 for $30,000 and took his family and approximately 75 slaves to a new plantation in what is now Wallace, Texas.

Jefferson was 38 years old when the Texas War of Independence broke out on October 2, 1835. He decided to join the "Texian" Army. He joined the "squad of permanent volunteers," men enlisted for the duration of the war. This group was permitted to elect its own officers, outside the oversight of the army commander-in-chief. Most of the men who joined the permanent volunteers had settled in Texas before the war had begun, both Tejano and Texan. He was elected an officer and fought in the final battle, the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836. For the rest of his life he would brag that he had killed four Mexicans, including one with his bare hands.

Jefferson then returned to the Plantation, where he continued to be, by all accounts, a cruel and vicious slave master, ordering whippings for often no reason at all, and on two separate occasions executing slaves. (This was an extremely rare occurrence; according to historian Adalberto Aguirre, there were 1,161 slaves executed in the U.S. between the 1790s and 1850s, out of a population of millions.) He fathered several children by slave women, and he killed one slave who resisted while attempting to rape her.

He is also known to have beaten his children and his wife. Beauregard Tannen would later recall being whipped three times when he was ten for talking back to his father; the scars remained on his back until his dying day. It is believed that the psychological damage he did to his family was severe, but the family left little in the way of written records. Much of what we know of his abuse was from the diary his firstborn daughter Naomi kept as an adult. It appears he at least did not molest his children.

Jefferson Tannen was killed while riding along the plantation with his wife on March 11, 1851. He was 54 years old. Jefferson and Sarah, riding separate horses, came across a gully. According to her account, she had her horse walk through it, while Jefferson tried to jump. Instead, he fell off and broke his neck, dying instantly.

However, in his private records Dr. Leslie Hutchison, who examined the body, noted that marks on Jefferson's neck indicated strangulation. It was his personal belief that Sarah permitted one of the stronger slaves to kill him. However, he did not voice this belief publicly, as he felt it was "an appropriate end for such a vile man." He also noted he felt Sarah was quite brave for doing this.

Jefferson's estate was left to his first son, Beauregard, who was then 23 and had three children.

Beauregard Tannen

Beauregard Benjamin Tannen was the scion of a wealthy, slave-owning plantation family in East Texas. The oldest boy, his siblings included Thaddeus and Hepzibah. He was born on October 30, 1827 on the plantation in Wallace, Texas.

Beauregard was raised as the heir, and groomed to be the future head of the Tannen Plantation. His marriage was arranged to Barbara Christine Wilkes, and the pair were married on September 27, 1847, when he was nineteen years old.

When Beauregard's father died in 1851, Beauregard inherited the entirety of the Plantation, including its 141 slaves. According to all sources, Beauregard was a much kinder master than his father had been.

Beauregard's first child was a son, and he was named Beauregard Benjamin, Junior. He was born on May 31, 1848—eight months after his parents' marriage. It is unknown whether or not Junior was conceived out of wedlock or if he was premature. If premature, he did remarkably well and survived to have children of his own.

More children followed, three daughters in a row. Belle Georgia was born on July 8, 1849. Bernice Rebecca was born on February 16, 1851. Bertha Augusta was born on June 26, 1852, and she died on May 16, 1853.

Beauregard and Barbara were incredibly shaken by Bertha's death, even more so because their other children had all survived infancy. To honor her, their next child, a boy, received the middle name "August" rather than the planned "Wilkes."

Benjamin August was born on January 24, 1854. Beulah Cornelia was born on May 11, 1855. Buford Wilkes was born on February 22, 1857. And Bernard Alexander was born on September 22, 1860.

Barbara died while giving birth to Bernard. Beauregard was devastated and took to drinking. He relied more and more on his unmarried younger sister Hepzibah to run the household.

Beauregard was infuriated by the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and fervently supported secession. He remained on the sidelines, however, until 1863, when 15 year-old Beauregard, Jr. expressed interest in enlisting. Senior, however, refused to permit it, and instead entered the army himself. He was 36. This was in spite of the "Twenty Negro Law" which exempted owners of large plantations from military service.

Beauregard rose to the rank of Brigadier General. His force was defeated outside Chattanooga, Tennessee by the Union general Eustace Clayton on February 11, 1864. Ironically enough, Clayton was a relation of Clara Clayton.

After the war, Beauregard returned to the plantation to find that they did not have the money to hire back all their former slaves as field hands. Over the next three years, Beauregard sold most of the property, and his workforce was reduced to fifteen field hands. Finally, after the harvest of 1869 yielded a net loss, Beauregard declared bankruptcy. By this time, his children were 21 (Junior), 20 (Belle), 18 (Bernice), 15 (Benjamin), 14 (Beulah), 12 (Buford), and 9 (Bernard). At the time, Junior, Belle, and Bernice were married.

With nothing left for him in Texas, Beauregard left his family behind to find new prosperity out west.

Beauregard arrived in Los Angeles, California on Tuesday, February 8, 1870. He initially viewed his stopover in the city of 5,700 as a temporary one, and he roomed at a boarding house. He shortly thereafter found a job as a bricklayer in the rapidly-growing city. The job paid $1 a day (roughly $354 today), and allowed Beauregard to pay off the debt he had accrued at the boarding house.

But the job was immensely dull, and Beauregard turned to gambling to add some excitement to his life. He turned out to be quite skilled, once making $250 on a single bet. It was in this circle that he met Benton Englebrecht, and the two became fast friends.

In 1873 Beauregard and Englebrecht left Los Angeles and journeyed north to Nevada City, where they became partners in a general store. The store eventually turned a large profit, thanks to their considerable business skill. After a falling out in February 1876, Beauregard sold his stake in the store for $2,079.23 ($797,000 today). Using this considerable amount as seed money, he moved to the town of Hill Valley and opened the Palace Saloon. In September, he paid to have the rest of his family move up to Hill Valley—along with Ox McPhips, who had been "courting" Hepzibah. By this time, Beulah was 21 (and unmarried), Buford was 19, and Bernard was 16.

By this time Buford was a troublemaker of some repute. (Indeed, his father had to spend $10 to bail him out of jail so he could come to Hill Valley. For more details, see Buford's article.) Meanwhile, Bernard was showing great interest in the railroads, and Beulah had obtained work as a servant—however, she lost this job when she moved to Hill Valley. As for Thaddeus—well, Buford took after him: Thaddeus made his money through a variety of criminal enterprises.

Beauregard felt great joy when his "spinster" sister Hepzibah married Mr. McPhips in 1877, and even more when she had a child, despite her advanced age. He was considerably less elated as his daughter turned to prostitution and Buford turned to crime.

In 1884, Beauregard sold the Palace Saloon for $900. He remained a prominent citizen and served on the town council briefly in the 1890s. He died on February 2, 1902 at the age of 74.

Buford Tannen

Buford Wilkes Tannen was born on February 22, 1857 on the Tannen plantation in Wallace, Texas.

His short temper manifested itself at a very young age. It is recorded in his father's diary that he beat a young boy by the name of Silas senseless in 1866 after losing a game of marbles to him.

Buford was only 12 when the Gardens was seized by the banks and his father left. Buford, along with his mother Barbara and siblings Benjamin (15), Beulah (14), and Bernard (9), had to move into the home of his uncle Thaddeus. Though the small home was very crowded, it was helped by the fact that Thaddeus was a bachelor and had no wife or children.

Without his father in the picture, Buford "adopted" his uncle as a surrogate father. Unfortunately for the youth, "Uncle Thad" couldn't have been a worse role model. The man would frequently drink, brawl, and make use of the services of prostitutes whenever he visited Galveston or Houston. (Note that, at the time, Galveston was the larger of the two cities.) By the time he was 15 Buford had engaged in all of these behaviors.

Buford found that his older brother Benjamin was favored far more than he was. Benjamin, a very bright child, was eventually sent to a private school back east to learn law. The money spent on his education meant that neither Buford nor his other two siblings would receive much of their own. In 1874, when he was 17, he followed Uncle Thad to San Antonio and the Chisholm Trail. Both became expert cattle rustlers.

(Meanwhile, Benjamin, 20, returned to Houston to open a law practice; Beulah, 19, married and became a housewife; and Bernard, 14, stayed with his mother in the cabin at Wallace, and began to show an interest in the railroads.)

It was while rustling cattle that Buford met the men who would form his gang, and who would eventually follow him to California: Edwin "Stubble" Powell, his right hand man; Ezra "Ceegar" Murdock, the muscle; and Erasmus "Buck" Taylor.

In 1877, news reached Buford that his father had settled down in California gold country. He and his gang left for Hill Valley, and were soon terrorizing Hill County. His mother, Uncle Thaddeus, and Aunt Hepzibah had moved to Hill Valley the year previous.

Buford's short temper (and tendency to drool) earned him the nickname "Mad Dog" from the residents of Hill County. However, they knew well enough not to call him that to his face. He was quick on the trigger and once bragged that he had killed twelve men—"not including Indians or Chinamen." However, this claim cannot be substantiated because precise records were not kept after Buford shot a newspaper editor who wrote an unfavorable story about him in 1884.

Buford maintained a relationship with a prostitute in Hill Valley who was also of southern extraction, Amy Montgomery. Amy quit prostitution early in 1884 when Buford indicated to her that he was ready to settle down. In October she bore him a son, Howard.

But Buford's downfall began shortly thereafter. On September 3, 1885, a stranger came to Hill Valley with a name that later decades would make ironic: Clinton Eastwood. Previously, Buford's horse had thrown a shoe after being shoed by the local blacksmith, one E.R. Brown. On September 3, Buford demanded $80 in reparations, and Brown refused. Later, on Saturday, September 5, Buford smuggled a one-shot Derringer into the Hill Valley Festival, which was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the city and the instillation of the new clock tower. Intending to shoot Brown in the back, Buford instead forced Brown's dance partner to dance with him. She responded by kicking Buford in the shin. Buford leveled his Derringer point-blank at Brown, but was disarmed when Eastwood threw a pie plate at him in the manner of a Frisbee.

The two men agreed to a showdown on Monday morning, September 7, at 8 o'clock. Initially, Eastwood attempted to escape with Brown through the back door of the Palace Saloon. However, Brown was taken captive by Buford's gang, and Buford gave Eastwood one minute to face him, or else the blacksmith would be shot.

According to the newspaper account, at the precise moment one minute passed, Eastwood entered the street. When Buford demanded he draw, Eastwood instead dropped his gun and belt on the ground, saying, "I thought we could settle this like gentlemen." Buford replied, "You thought wrong," and shot Eastwood in the chest.

However, when he approached Eastwood to finish him off, Eastwood kicked the gun out of his hand, revealing that he was wearing a stove door as a bullet-proof vest. After beating the outlaw senseless, Eastwood walked away and into Hill Valley lore, while Buford was arrested for robbing the Pine City Stage the previous night.

However, he also murdered Marshall James Strickland earlier that morning, leaving the Marshall's eight year-old son Roger a witness to the crime. Being too young to know he "should" be afraid of Buford, Roger testified against him in court, and on September 23 Buford was sentenced to hang.

Buford Tannen was hung for the murder of Marshall James Strickland on October 5, 1885. He was 28 years old.

Buford left behind his son Howard, not quite a year old. Perhaps grief-stricken, his mother Amy abandoned the child and left him in the care of his grandfather, Beauregard Tannen. Howard would later have two sons of his own; one son, Irving, would follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become an outlaw, though he would never be executed for his crimes.