This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: MelissaMorris86 Surnames: Beckwith, Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.beckwith/1259/mb.ashx Message Board Post: So there is a ton of Byron de La beckwiths in my family. I think 4 or 5. Well, One is my 6th cousin and he was the murderer from Mississippi who killed the black guy. This Byron was pure evil. Well I found out his grandfather was also Byron de la Beckwith. This Byron was awesome. Well, to me he is because he lived about 10minutes from where I do now. He was in Lodi, CA I read at Time.com (there was an article about the murdere Byron and they mentioned his grandfather). So I did some research on him. My husband works at a winery in Lodi, Ca. My best friends family owns it. Well their family member was Joseph Spenker and he must have known my great great great great uncle Byron! It was a super duper small town. And Byron was the druggest (like a pharmacist I guess) and he was the 2nd postmaster they had, he also had a telegraph machine in his store. He helped start and build the firls Lodi Hall Association. They had their town meetings there. Then he also had a plan for this D! am that is in Woodbridge, Ca (which is connected with Lodi, CA) Well, it was made kinda crappy and so he had an idea to make it better and they built it! Then he had an idea later about building an irrigation system that would give over 100,000 acres south of the Mokelumne River water. So He got them to build all this irrigation and that is also how today we have Lodi Lake. I have swam in it many times too. He later moved to sacramento, ca and lived along the Sacramento river. You can read all the tidbits on him at http://www.woodbridge.us/history08.htm This is amazing to me because we thought all our family was from Oklahoma. They have lived where I grew up and went to school! Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.