Beckley, Alfred and Eby, Cecil D. (Editor) and Wiles, Doris C (Annotator) and Arana, Eugenia B. (Annotator)
St. Augutine, FL: Saint Augustine Historical Society, 1964. Reprint from he Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. XLII, No. 3, April 1964. Wraps. The format is approximately 6 inches by 9 inches. [2], 307-320 pages, plus covers. Front cover has an illustration. Footnotes. Illustrations. Cover and pages have some wear and soiling. This is No. 20 from the Saint Augustine Historical Society. Front cover has a title variant from the formal title page. Front cover reads Memoirs of a Westpointer in St. Augustine 1824-1826. Alfred Beckley (May 26, 1802 – May 26, 1888) was a public official who founded Beckley, West Virginia, and a brigadier general in the Virginia militia during the American Civil War. He named the city of Beckley in honor of his father, John James Beckley,[a][b] who was the first librarian of the United States Congress. Beckley was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, nominated for West Point by William Henry Harrison and President James Monroe; he entered on September 25, 1819, and graduated on July 1, 1823, ninth in a graduating class of 35. This class started with 86 cadets in 1819. He was in the army for 13 years, serving the entire time as an artillery officer in Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, and New York. In 1834–1835, after legal disputes, Beckley received the title to 56,679 acres his father had owned in western Virginia. In order to manage his inherited estates, Beckley resigned his officer's commission on October 24, 1836. He then settled in Fayette County (now Raleigh County), West Virginia, which was then part of Virginia, finding it a "perfect wilderness". His home, named Wildwood, was built in 1835–1836, expanded in 1874, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. More