Benning Moulton Bean (1782 - 1866)
Born and died at Moultonboro (NH).
Teacher, farmer, local, state, and national legislator.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1874.
Presented to the State, 1874.

Benning Moulton Bean (1782 - 1866) was born and died at Moultonboro (NH). His father was one of the first settlers in the area, and as a boy Benning got what little education he had from Parson Fowle, an Episcopal clergyman at Holderness (NH). He then passed on his education to other schoolchildren in his own town.

Bean was a longtime selectman for Moultonboro (1811 - 1829, 1832 - 1838). He served as a State Representative (1815 - 1823, 1827) and as a State Senator (1824 - 1826, 1831 - 1832), then was elected to complete an unexpired term in the United States Senate (1833 - 1835). He was reelected to a full Senate term in Washington, D.C., then retired to the family farm, where he spent his last years in agriculture.

References: Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, 1774 - 1989 (1989); John N. McClintock, "Hon. Benning Moulton Bean", Granite Monthly, vol. V no. 6 (March 1882), pp. 165 - 166.