This is a transcription of the Nellie (Bean) Zebley biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 131.
Nellie (Bean) Zebley
MRS. JOHN F. ZEBLEY, maiden name Nellie Bean, daughter of Loammi and Sarah Bean, born at Weirs, near beautiful Lake Winnipiseogee, is one of the old Granite State’s most loyal daughters. After her public school education, she pursued a two years course at a commercial college in Boston, and has had her home in New York city since eighteen years of age. She has traveled extensively at home and in foreign countries, studying art, of which she is an enthusiastic devotee, in London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, Dresden, Munich, Rome, and Venice. She is also an accomplished linguist, being able to read, write, and speak five different languages. She is a member of various charitable organizations, and of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and to animals. She married John F. Zebley, a New York banker, at Laconia in 1883. Her summer home, “Nestledown,” Zebley Farm, near Weirs, is noted far and wide for its tasty surroundings, choice antique furnishings, and the open hearted hospitality there dispensed. This is the ancestral farm where her father left his family, when he departed for the front as a member of the Eighth New Hampshire Volunteers in the early days of the Rebellion. He was killed at George’s Landing. La., October 27, 1862. But the old home and the father’s memory have ever been held clear by the daughter, and in honor of the latter she erected and gave to the Eighth Regiment Association the fine granite and bronze drinking fountain and soldiers’ monument near the railway station at Weirs, which was dedicated with impressive ceremonies at the Veterans’ reunion in August, 1894. Her mother’s memory has also been duly honored by Mrs. Zebley’s presenting an elegant memorial window to the M. E. church at Weirs. Mrs. Zebley spends three months during the heated period each season at her summer home, and her presence, her hospitality, and her interested public spirit, are essential factors in the social life and prosperity of the lake region.