He served on the Light House Board at Baltimore for the duration of the war, and upon his retirement in 1870 lived in Fredericksburg, for a time. He died in Savannah, Ga., in 1873.
He resided, when in Fredericksburg, in the house now owned by Dr. C. Mason Smith on Prince Edward Street.
William Henry Beck
Surgeon William Henry Beck, U. S. Navy, came to Virginia from England as a lad of twelve in 1800. Some years later he entered the Navy as an Assistant Surgeon, and made several voyages in the old sailing ships to various ports of the world.
He married Miss England, of Stafford, and made his home in Fredericksburg.
He lived in what was then a northwestern suburb, near the present basin, and this section was known as “Becksville.” He was at one time a police officer in our town, and as the result of an injury in arresting a prisoner, lost an arm.
He died in the fifties, and was buried in St. George’s Churchyard. A son bought and lived for years on what is known by our old citizens as “Beck’s Island,” now owned and occupied by Mr. J. A. Emery.
John Randolph Bryan
Lieutenant John Randolph Bryan, U. S. Navy, born in 1806, in Georgia, was educated in Virginia, and married at Chatham in 1830, Elizabeth Coalter, daughter of Judge John Coalter, of the Virginia Supreme Court. Leaving Yale in 1823, Lieutenant Bryan was appointed to the Navy, became midshipman in 1824, and was ordered to the Peacock.
He resigned in 1831 and took charge of his estate at Wilmington Island, and later an estate in Gloucester County, Virginia.