Susannah Beeghley Hadsell

 Susannah Beeghley Hadsell, 1848-1893
Dunkard Pioneer
 
Buried in Loosley Cemetery, exact location unknown

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Flat terrain, fertile soil, and abundant water from the Salt River made Phoenix an agricultural mecca during its early days. Among its settlers were adherents of religious groups who came not only to "make the desert bloom," but also to found new congregations.
 
Susannah was born May 30, 1848, in Allen County, Ohio. She was the daughter of Elias Beeghley and Sarah Erbaugh, and the second of ten children born to them.
 
Rather surprising for the times, Susannah was already 31 years old when she married Burgess Almon Hadsell on February 2, 1879, in Montgomery County, Ohio. Hadsell was the son of George Myron Hadsell and Mariah Thayer, believed to have been Dunkards. The Dunkards were a small sect of Anabaptists who, like the Quakers and Mennonites, wore "plain" garb and were pacifists. 
 
In 1880, Burgess and Susannah were living in Bath, Allen County, Ohio. With no time to waste, the couple welcomed a son in 1880, a daughter in 1885 and another daughter in 1886.
 
Burgess had previously purchased 160 acres of land in eastern Kansas in 1873, possibly with the intention of founding another Dunkard community. However, he sold that land in 1886 and travelled to Covina, California, with two companions. Once there, they located a tract of land suitable for a new Dunkard community.
 
Burgess then moved his family from Ohio to Chicago, Illinois, where he and Susannah’s last daughter was born in November, 1888. In Chicago, Burgess went into the wholesale and retail clothing business, selling ready-made "plain" clothing to Dunkards, Mennonites, and other Anabaptist sects. It is not known whether Susannah had a hand in the business.
 
By 1890, it was clear that Susannah’s health was in decline, so the Hadsells sought a warmer climate. They bought 300 acres in Glendale, Arizona, to found a Dunkard Temperance Colony there, and Burgess also helped to start a Brethren church in Glendale in 1892. Because of Susannah’s poor health, however, the family lived in a brick house in Phoenix, and Burgess opened an office in the Monaghan Building.
 
Unfortunately, Susannah did not recover. She contracted pneumonia and succumbed on March 14, 1893. She is presumed to have been buried in Loosley Cemetery, although no grave marker has been found.
 
Burgess Hadsell eventually remarried and moved to Buckeye, Arizona. He became a very successful apiarist; he and his children built the largest bee industry in the Salt River Valley. Hadsell died in November 28, 1936, and was buried in Phoenix’s Greenwood Cemetery.
 
© 2019 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 9 August 2026.

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