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Lysander T. Beckwith, a highly respected farmer residing on section No. 22, Grand Rapids township, Kent County Mich., with his post-office box No. 266, Grand Rapids, was born in Guilford, Chenango county, N. Y., July 31, 1830. His parents, Peter and Sylvina (Griswold) Beckwith, were both natives of New York. The parents of Peter Beckwith were Daniel and Lucy (Perkins) Beckwith, natives of Connecticut, and both lived to reach a great age, she dying in her ninety-sixth year. Peter and wife lived for a time in the city of Rochester, N. Y., also in Pennsylvania, and in 1845 came to Michigan and located in Grand Rapids, where the father worked at his trade of carpenter for three years. In 1848 he settled on a farm still owned by the family in Grand Rapids township, deep in the woods, it being heavily timbered beech and maple land. He had but a few neighbors only three or four, no road except an Indian trail, and that is what took to reach the village. On that farm of eighty acres the father died, in his ninety first year; his wife died in her seventy-ninth year. They were the parents of four children, viz: Lysander T., the subject of this sketch; William, a real estate dealer in Grand Rapids, with his office over the Giant clothing store; Cynthia, unmarried, and living at the old homestead; Henry, who was killed at the battle of Bull Run, aged about nineteen years. Lysander T. Beckwith remained on the home farm until it was well cleared up, and until he has reached his twenty-fifth year. He cleared up a forty-acre tract, and then in the spring of 1865 came to his present farm. It had but sixty acres cleared, but comprised 130 acres, and he still owns the original forty acres where he first started. On coming here Mr. Beckwith was very poor and had to work his way along. He received $48 for clearing a five acre tract, one half of which was brush. When it was ready to put into wheat, this tract was on the farm that he now owns. He helped cut out all the roads through the heavy timber. He saw all the varieties of pioneer life and endured many hardships. Although not noted for hunting, he has killed hundreds of deer. Mr. Beckwith filled several of the township offices, such as justice of the peace and township treasurer three terms. A democrat early in life, he has been a republican since the organization of that party, except that he was a greenbacker for a time. Although not active in politics in late years, he was formerly found in conventions, county, district and state. Mr. Beckwith married, at the age of twenty-seven years, Julia A. Camburn, of Lenawee county, but she died May 14, 1897, after they had happily lived together almost forty years. Mrs. Beckwith was one of sixteen children, among which were one set of triplets, all girls, now living, aged sixty-nine years, two pairs of twins, one pair living, aged seventy-five years. Lysander T. Beckwith’s family comprised four children, viz: Mary Jane, housekeeper for the wife of Thomas Bamber, who works on the farm; Cynthia Sylvania, wife of Earnest Stevenson, in Grand Rapids; Julia Ann, wife of Eaton Gibbs, also of Grand Rapids, and Henry P., a member of the Grand Rapids fire department. |
