Stonewall Jackson Beach was born around 1862 in Alexandria, VA to James and Jane (Cook) Beach – though, to be honest, I’m not completely certain that 1862 is the right year.  In the 1870 US Census, he’s listed as 10 years old.  His Virginia death record shows his age at death due to meningitis as 33; the Alexandria Gazette cited below says he died of Bright’s Disease at the age of 34 (the day before, it said he died of consumption). Stonewall Jackson wasn’t truly revered by his southern brethren until he won a few battles in the Great War for Slavery – so an 1862 birth year makes a certain amount of sense.  Let’s just go with that. Anyway – he was the middle child of seven born to a laborer and his very busy wife.  His dad suffered from tuberculosis by 1880; by that year Jackson was working as a carpenter to help support the family.

In March, 1884, Beach married Margaret Ann (Annie) Upton; a few weeks later he would become a major league baseball player.  In 1890, they had a daughter, Ruby Thelma.

Jack Beach was a catcher – he played for local teams in Alexandria, Lynchburg, Danville, and Roanoke before and after his major league career ended – in later years he was the one organizing teams to play other teams throughout Virginia.  The Virginia State League was a lower level minor league in the 1880s – he played there, too.  His professional career accounts for just a six week period of his life, though the people he met on the Washington Nationals of the American Association attended his wedding. Signed as a backup catcher to John Humphries, Beach played just eight games for Washington, getting three hits (.097 batting average), of which two were doubles.  He scored three runs.  Most of his professional excitement came on opening day in a win over Brooklyn on May 1, 1884.  At bat, he recorded both doubles and scored a run off Sam Kimber.  In the field Beach made five putouts and threw a baserunner out – six of his twelve successful chances came in his first game.

However, Beach never caught for Washington.  He played seven games in right field and one other in left field (by my count, using box scores in the New York Clipper, he had at least two games in left field).  Beach had eighteen chances to get a batter or runner out.  In six of those chances, he made an error. By mid-June, Beach was returned home to play amateur and state league ball. (Washington didn’t finish the 1884 season either, with the remnants of the team heading to Richmond to close out the season.)

When Beach passed on July 23, 1896, he left behind his wife and daughter and was buried in Bethel Cemetery; the gravesite is unmarked.  His wife, however, left behind eight lines of poetry to commemorate his passing in the Alexandria Gazette.

“My husband is sleeping so free from all pain,
Oh wake him not sweet spirit, to suffer again,
He slumbers so soundly, oh let him sleep on,
His sickness is ended and troubles all gone,
Oh think how he suffered and moaned with pain,
In the long night hours I soothed him in vain,
Till God, in his mercy, sent down from above
An angel that whispered a message of love.

BY HIS WIFE”

Notes:
Washington DC Marriage Records
Virginia Marriage Records
Virginia Death Records
Baseball-Reference.com
FindAGrave.com
1870, 1880 US Censuses

“Alexandria Affairs,” The Washington Critic, March 21, 1884: 3.
“Died,” Alexandria Gazette, July 24, 1896: 3.
Box Scores from The New York Clipper, May 10, 1884, May 17, 1884, June 14, 1884, and June 21, 1884.