The
Handbook of Texas Online provides some background:
Tom Bean is on State Highway 11 and Farm Roads 902 and 2729, ten miles southeast of Sherman in southeastern Grayson County. It was established in 1888 as a stop on the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, and that year a post office opened there. The community was named for Tom Bean, a surveyor from Bonham, who, in hopes of enticing the rail line to extend its tracks across land that he owned in Grayson County, donated a fifty-acre tract for a townsite and railroad right-of-way. The presence of the railroad drew settlers and businesses from the nearby community of White Mound, and by the early 1890s the incorporated town of Tom Bean had the post office and a school, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, and a weekly newspaper. By around 1900 its population stood at 299, and in the mid-1920s the town had a population of 367, with twenty businesses. In the mid-1950s Tom Bean had 286 people and eleven businesses. After the 1950s its population began to grow, reaching 570 by the mid-1970s and 926 in the late 1980s, when the town had four businesses. In 1990 Tom Bean reported 827 residents. The population reached 941 in 2000.
A City of Bonham historical marker is at the entrance to Constantine Lodge No. 13, A.F. & A.M. at 517 N Main St, Bonham, TX. It provides a biography of one of Bonham's most interesting characters, this same Thomas C. Bean:
Probably the most colorful and altogether mysterious figure of the Red River Valley was a man named Thomas C. Bean. Bean's death in 1887 "about 70 years of age" set off untold numbers of lawsuits by bogus heirs to his estate, claiming literally hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Texas. All claims were rejected and more than forty years after his death, the remaining wealth went to the State of Texas.
It seems that Bean developed his foggy aura deliberately and for reasons that will never be known. A story often attributed to him is probably the reason for the myriad of stories that abound concerning the man and his life. Once asked about his background, Bean replied, "I woke up one morning and found myself in a bean patch so I named myself Tom Bean."
Bean showed up in Bonham about 1842. This was about the time that many of the early settlers to the Republic of Texas were beginning to locate their headright claims. Republic and county surveyors were unable to keep up with the flood of requests for these headrights to be surveyed in order to establish legal claim. Bean, an experienced surveyor became licensed and opened an office and home in a log cabin just north of the courthouse on this site.
In addition to a long term career in surveying, Bean also found time to serve as District Clerk of Fannin County, Notary Public, and an a number of important city and county committees, as well as being elected to the position of Fannin County Surveyor in 1870.
For the cash-poor settlers of Texas, Bean was a godsend. To establish legal claim to these headrights, the owner had to meet mandated time limits to have their claims legally surveyed and recorded. Instead of demanding cash for his work, Bean most often took ownership of several acres of land from the tracts that he surveyed. It is unknown how many acres were expected per survey, but judging from the number of acres recorded in Bean's name in courthouses all over Red River, the "fee" was generous. It was said that he would not sell or fence his land so that poor people could graze their livestock on it.
Although active in the Masonic Lodge, Bean generally led a reclusive lifestyle. For all of his stay in Bonham, he lived in the small log cabin where he opened his first office. He seemed to prefer the company of the Negroes who worked for him, including a longtime employee named Sukey, who lived in a cabin to the rear of the property and acted generally as housekeeper and cook.
He had been described as a man of great intellect. He was an avid reader and he had an extensive library. He kept well informed on current affairs and he was a student of frontier politics. Gentlemanly and of quiet demeanor, he was always well dressed and appeared to be the opposite of the usual frontier surveyor.
He lies in a well marked grave in the oldest section of Willow Wild Cemetery, in Bonham. The final enigma is chiseled on his marker at the behest of unknown persons: "Born in Washington City, DC."