The Bush Family's
Emmitsburg Connection
The Emmitsburg Historical Society
recently received the following e-mail from Alice Davis of Cates, Vista,
Ca.
I am interested in Emmitsburg [history] in an indirect sort of way. I
share a bit of Cecil County ancestry with President Bush's family, which
is nice, except that the Presidential genealogies are masterpieces of
incorrectness when it comes to Cecil County. I decided to do a paper on
the Bush family roots in Maryland, but I have now scaled that back to
Cecil County, as the Bush family has just too many roots in Frederick
County for me to understand.
George Walker, an orphan, was sent by his Cecil or Kent Co. guardian to
Mount Saint Mary's in 1811 and 1812, when he was 14 or 15 years old. I
thought it was interesting that he was sent to a Catholic school,
especially since George W. Bush has gotten into trouble with his visit
to Bob Jones U. Also, I wondered, and still wonder, why young George was
sent to Emmitsburg, which is quite a way from Cecilton.
I then noticed that George's son, David Davis Walker, married in St.
Louis Martha Adela Beakey, a girl born in Emmitsburg. Was this
coincidence or connection?
I'd like to learn more about the Beakey/ Beachey/ Becchi/ Beche family.
My only source to date is Americans of Gentle Birth and Their Ancestors,
compiled by Mrs. H. D. Pittman, Burton and Skinner, St. Louis, Mo.,
1903.
According to this book and my interpretation of it Victor Emmanuel
Becchi immigrated from Strasbourg in Alsace Lorraine after the
Revolutionary War and was a friend and ally of the Rev. Prince
Gallitizin in establishing a Catholic prescence around Loretto in
Pennsylvania. His son Joseph, who I think is the Joseph in your history,
studied for the priesthood but chose
another vocation. He was said to be a gifted linguist. He married a
Catherine Shriner and settled in Emmitsburg. His son, Joseph Ambrose
Beakey, went to Philadelphia where he met and married Mary Ann Bangs, a
girl of Quaker family. They returned to Emmitsburg, she converted to
Catholicism, and then in the 1840's moved to St. Louis by 1850. The
senior Joseph is said to have died in Emmitsburg in 1854 and the younger
while on the Minnehaha steamboat on the Mississippi in 1858.
At this point, this is mainly undocumented. I'm going to suggest that it
would be a good subject for a paper by some Mt. St. Mary's student---the
archivist there helped me with some of George Walker's school financial
records.
George Herber Walker, the son of David Davis Walker and Martha Adela
Beakey, was President Bush's maternal grandfather. On the Bush side the
family also has a lot of Frederick County ancestors, the Shellman and
Fout families, mostly Lutheran, I think.
Alice Davis Cates, Vista, CA
PS: Should George W. not get Gored, he should have a real fondness for
Frederick County, if anyone tells him about it.
Do you
know of an individual who helped shape Emmitsburg?
If so, send their story to us at: history@emmitsburg.net
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