# Hiram Beeson — Can Such Things Be? character guide

> Hiram Beeson in Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mr. Hiram Beeson, Mr. Beeson

**First appearance:** 0048-the-ways-of-ghosts

## Snapshot

A man whose death precedes his story, whose buried body and unsettled business draw the living back to a grave they cannot leave alone.

## Who they are

Hiram Beeson dies on the sixteenth of July, 1863, known to every man, woman, and grown child in his village, and is buried two days later with a funeral the local paper cannot ignore. Around his death gather the ordinary rituals of a small town—mourners, newspaper notices, the slow work of settling a life—but the narrative refuses to let him rest. What matters is the pull his absence exerts on the living, and the suspicion that Beeson's business with them is not finished.

## Relationships

### [Ben Greene](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/ben_greene)

_rivalry_

Ben Greene and Hiram Beeson are enemies, with Beeson accusing Greene of a terrible crime from beyond the grave.

### [Ben Greene](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/ben_greene)

_rivalry_

Ben Greene and Hiram Beeson are enemies, with Beeson accusing Greene of a terrible crime from beyond the grave.

## In the story

### [The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/the-night-doings-at-deadman-s)

The sole inhabitant of Deadman's Gulch, a gaunt and ragged man of twenty-eight who looks much older. He guards a dead Chinaman's pigtail nailed to a beam, haunted by the ghost seeking its return. Found dead the following spring with a bullet through the heart.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/hiram_beeson
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters