The Portland daily press., 1882-12-04
Sylvester B. Beckett.

A@OOEAOOos
The death j. announced of Mr.. Sylvester
Blackmore Beckett, who died in this city Sat
urday night, at 80 o'clock, after long and
lingering illness. Mr.. Beckett was in GER
tain measure identified with the later history
OF Portland, and it is unfortunate that man
SO well acquainted with the lives of his fellow
citizens should have failed to preserve min
utes of his own eventful and adventurous life.
Sylvester Blackmore Beckett was native
of Portland, where he was born May Is, 1912,
He was enc of a family of twelve children of
whom two sisters survive him; one Eliza Beck
cit aged 80, and the other the wife of Rev. Mr..
Williams Of Quincy. Mass. His father was an
American, but his mother was an English
woman named Blackmore, descended from the
Blackmores Of Wandsworth, England.
Mr.. Beckett attended Master Libbys school
and also the old Latin school, but ne never re-
ceived collegiate education. Notwithstand-
ing this latter fact he was a close student and
by application obtained an education such as is
rarely the lot of collegemen. He is said to
have been thorough Greek, Latin and French
scholar.
He followed the trade Of printer, but dur.
ing the first twenty-five years of his life he
made extensive travels to the south and east,
especially long visit to Alabama. On voy-
age to the East Indies he was shipwrecked and
his narrative of the event proved thrilling ex-
perience. In 1916 with his friend Daniel c.
Colesworthy, now living in Boston, he edited
the Portland Umpire, weekly journal pub
lished by John Edwards, and it was in the ca
pscity of editor he acquired the habit of sys-
tenn, and collection of valuable statistics that
served him in good stead later in life. In 194S,
he was engaged in writing and publishing Sc
ries of valuable letters ON the business facli
ties and advantages of the towns through which
the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, now the Grand
Trunk passes. At the same time or there
abouts Mr.. Beckett was admitted to the Cum
berland Bar, under the general statutes exist
ing at the time
While devoting himself to the practice of
the law Mr.. Beckett also followed the gratif-
cation of bis literary tastes. Besides great
number of fugitive poems and sketches pub
llshed in various papers, he left behind large
number that have never been given to the pub.
lie. His "Hester, the Bride of the islands"
poem of 1856 pages, was published in 1860.
In politics Mr.. Beckett was a Republican.
He had been on the old school board of TWEEN
ty-one members, three from each ward, a sys-
tenn which was abolished in 1873, giving way to
the present board of seven He will be best
remembered as an assessor of the city for if
teen years, from 1860 to 1875. When he went
into the office he systematized the methods by
which values were placed upon property and
his services ere fully appreciated. HIS also
established the Portland Directory, published
by Brown Thurston, and set Of the volumes
gives the appearance of large, family from
| the thick book of the fifteenth volume, to the
little thin pamphlets which formed the first. He
was the fifth Clerk of the Common Council,
serving the years 1S44-45, and represented
| Ward One in the Council in 1851. He was one
Of the original projectors of Evergreen Gene
terry, and always felt little sensitive because
his services in securing the the land from Oil
! yer Buckley and William Stevens in 1852 were
not more keenly appreciated.
! Mr.. Beckett acquired handsome competence
and in 1870 took European trip furnishing
letters to the PRESS from abroad. He was
married in 1S41 to Louise NJ. Davis, and had
by her three children, one dying an infant, one
at the age of fourteen years, and the third a
daughter, married George w. Verrill, Esq, Of
this city, and surviv her father.