Albert Clayton Beckwith

Surnames: Dickinson, Foster, Seymour

Regions: Chittenango, Madison Co., NY; Rome, Oneida Co., NY;

Delavan, Walworth Co., WI

From the book History of Walworth County Wisconsin, by

Albert Clayton Beckwith, publ. 1912 - Page 573-574

ALBERT CLAYTON BECKWITH, the eldest of ten children of Asahel Lane BECKWITH and Harriet Angeline SEYMOUR, was born at Chittenango, New York, March 14, 1836; lived at Rome (Oneida county) from 1843 to 1855 and there he and a brother were bred to their father's calling of house and sign painter; came in 1855 to Adrian, Michigan, for employment as a brakeman; in 1856 to Racine, and in the same year to Delavan and Elkhorn. Two brothers having enlisted in April, 1861; he did likewise at Cedar Falls, Iowa, two days before Bull Run, and was honorably discharged from the First Iowa Battery in April, 1863, at Young's Point, Louisiana. He worked at his calling from 1864 to 1873 at Chicago, and returned to Elkhorn. He had married, April 17, 1870, Isidor Adelaide, daughter of Nathaniel DICKINSON and Phila FOSTER. Of two children, Constance Dickinson is (in 1912) assistant to the county school superintendent, and Mabel Foster is a teacher at Elkhorn. Mr. BECKWITH is a member of Delavan Masonic Lodge, of the Grand Army Post at Elkhorn, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and is a Son of the American Revolution. In 1910 he undertook the compilation of the historical department of this work. In performing this unwonted task he found kindly-given and indispensable help from county officers, town, village, and city clerks, clergymen and keepers of church records, and form many old friends and new ones; but this is only to say that he was among men and women who have made and are making one of the best counties of one of the best of forty-eight states. Between 1897 and 1907 his brother, Edward Seymour BECKWITH (1837-1909), with himself compiled and printed eight genealogical pamphlets, their total contents four hundred and ninety pages. Six of these were of a series of BECKWITH Notes, relating to descendants of their immigrant ancestors, Matthew BECKWITH (1610-1680) and wife Mary, of Hartford, New London, and Lyme, Connecticut. The younger compiler was a tireless tabulator of genealogical data, in collecting which he developed noteworthy ingenuity. Besides, he knew something of the service and military reputation of most Federal regiments of the Civil war, and much generally and particularly of the organization and service of Wisconsin regiments and batteries. He had found, too, much interest in minor local records, no inconsiderable part of which, by copying or otherwise, he had saved from destruction. His various notes have supplied much of value to this compilation. Though no more than his elder brother a trained writer, his letters were easy, graphic, racy, and he had his grandfather Seymour's knack of satirical rhyming. In grained imitations of native and imported woods, his forms and colorings were careful studies of nature's endless variety, and his work was known at New York, Detroit, Lansing (state house), Chicago, and Milwaukee.

Submitted by Carol