352. William Columbus Beck

Updated: Mar 24, 2022

Private William Columbus Beck was born on July 2, 1836 in Baker County, Georgia, the son of Jesse Beck (1798-1883) and Sarah Ann Woodcock (1813-1894). His father was a farmer and a veteran of the War of 1812 having served with Thomas' 2nd Georgia Regiment of militia. By 1850, the family had relocated to Covington Co., AL but by 1858 William had his own farm in Lowndes County, AL with his new wife Annie Mariah Hall (1833-1911).

Three years later, the clouds of war burst upon the nation and we were at war again. William enlisted in May 1861 in Company "I" of the 1st Alabama Cavalry and was assigned to General Joseph Wheeler's regiment. Here, he fought three years in every raid and battle forthwith. However, on a raid in September 1864 he was left behind enemy lines north of the Tennessee River because of his foundered horse. When his horse recovered he made his way back to his unit who was fighting against General William T. Sherman's Union army. In once such close quarter fight on December 24, 1864 he was slashed by an enemy saber on top of his head before breaking away. He was given a medical furlough and upon recovery he joined up with the nearby 11th Alabama Cavalry Regiment under General Nathan Bedford Forrest on January 10, 1865. When the weather cleared, the Union forces moved on Selma where William's regiment was placed under Philip Roddy at Montevallo. At the battle for Selma on April 2, 1865 the regiment was dismounted and placed in the trenches, but luckily their part of the line was never attacked. Within a short time, the regiment would surrender at Decatur. Also surviving the war was William's brother Sergeant Jesse Bryant Beck of the 25th Alabama Infantry. Jesse had been wounded in 1863 and became a POW until his parole in June 1865.

After the war, William and Annie Mariah separated and he married Mary C. Watts in 1866 (1844-1891). The couple moved to Escambia County, Florida on May 4, 1867 where William procured land along today's Highway 4. Even his parents had relocated to the area around Enon further south than William and Mary. Although farming was his mainstay, William would dabble in other work. In 1880, he was working as a raftsman in the lumber trade before he and Mary split up on or about 1887. That year, he married for the third time to Annie Larue Collins and three years later he had become a county surveyor.

But there were numerous stories that circulated amongst the congregation of the Pine Barren Baptist Church about the flamboyant Beck's whose patriarch was called "Ole Hush yo Fuss.” Old William never tired of telling his old war stories to the church's children who gathered around him on the grounds where the wagons were parked. He would recite to them how he gave the Yankees for four years. After the war, he applied for his Confederate pension and listed as his medical problems an attack of appendicitis, rheumatism, and continuing trouble from the saber wound to his head. He was finally granted a pension of $120.00 per year as of July 1, 1909.

But his old stories were far from his only idiosyncrasies. He had a tendency to call his children strange names such as Barn-Burner, Little-A, Big-A, and two grandsons known as Sock-a-dollar and Dollar-Bill Solomon. I'm sure these were only nicknames because every census listed their children with normal names. The Beck family lived four miles up in the woods and was connected to Wardville only by a narrow three-notch trail. The area was within the parameter's of the Ward's Mill precinct that was off of Still Road just east of William Samuel Ward's farm. Beck also had an old coon dog that was infected with the same strange mannerisms as Hush yo Fuss. And his peculiarity was his addiction to sucking eggs. As a young pup, he became a master at breaking into all the local smoke and hen houses before dawn and having his way with the eggs and meats. After a filling meal, he would creep upstairs and sleep it off with the boys. There was nothing unusual about the boys sleeping up in the loft and as often as not finding the dog in the middle of them when they awoke.

By 1883, William's father had passed away followed by his mother in 1894. Both were buried in unmarked graves in the Enon Cemetery. William would follow soon enough on January 16, 1919 and was buried in the Big Pine Barren Cemetery. Annie applied for his Confederate pension two months after his death, which was granted in the amount of $180.00 per year. Annie would join him in death in 1941 but was buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico.