Yes, Samuel Beck married Mary Meigs. They had to have lawyers fight for their getting listed on the Freedmen rolls and investigators seemed to have gotten quite confused and at times accepted Samuel and daughter Luquittie while saying Mary had not gotten back to the area until too late. I've begun to suspect there was something political about what was happening to the family and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to sort the situation out adequately.

Samuel, Mary and daughter Luquittie Beck are on Cherokee Freedman Roll D775 with Mary's parents noted on the second page as Peter and Betsy Meigs. The Wichita Daily Eagle, June 23, 1908 carried a news report about contested ownership of land, "By virtue of a number of complex treaties and laws relating to the five tribes, Mary Mayes, daughter of a former chief of the Cherokee nation, is contesting the title of Mary Beck, a freedwoman of the tribe, to an allotment in Washington county. The land was settled in 1867 by the parents of Mary Beck, Peter and Betsy Meigs, who before the war were Cherokee slaves!" So there are the two accounts making Mary Meigs Beck the wife of Samuel Beck.

I have been going through this family's accounting, hoping to write a piece about them and their situation, if I can make heads or tails of it.

FYI, I don't yet find Mary Mayes to be a daughter of either of the Mayes brothers who were chiefs, but their family accounting seems confusing since they "adopted" several daughters and their dozen sons married a few women. I do find newspapers are not always accurate and I suspect Mary Mayes might be a daughter-in-law or a niece of a notable Mayes. But, she's definitely not Mary Beck (although there is another Mary Beck in the form of Mary G. Beck (not connected to Samuel or Meigs or Mayes).

Research and Information provided by
Karen Coody Cooper
Tahlequah OK 74464
[email protected]
http://karencoodycooper.com