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Chapter 4 - 1

Alexander (Aleck) McBeath 16 Jan 1869 - 12 Jan 1946 (77).

Seaman, fisherman, sailing ship captain (San Francisco to New York:), Columbia bar pilotBuried Riverview Cemetery, Portland (Linklater plot.).

Bachelor

Uncle Aleck’s Chapter is short because he has no descendants

to memorialize him. I think hedeserves a place in our familymemory. I have only two

  pictures of him. This studio

 portrait, probably about 1915 in

Astoria, Oregon, shows himwith some of swagger you

might expect from a sea captain

and Columbia River bar pilot.

Aleck, son of John McBeath,

the Inverness ferryman,followed the sea as a young

man. He rose to captain sailing

vessels at a time when steamwas driving sail from the sea.

He finally dropped the hook at

Astoria, Oregon. We children

were told that he was a pilotthere, conducting large vessels

across the treacherous

Columbia Rive Bar, and that he

later operated the pilot boat thattook the pilots to the ships. He

may have done a little fishing.I remember that he stayed with

us on the farm several times

and that he told wonderful tales

of the sea. He used a woodentool to make hammocks out of 

homemade fish nets. He rolled his own cigarettes and smoked, but never in our house, always

outdoors or in the barn. [Most people accepted smoking in those days. The president smoked.The vice president smoked. And, it seemed, all of the major league baseball stars smoked or 

said they did. Only the quaint and ‘ignorant’ “fundamental Christians” --like my parents--objected that smoking was sinful, and unhealthy as was alcohol. That wasn’t the last time thatthese despised anti-intellectuals were right for unfashionable reasons. Later it was “Godless

communism.” Doubtless you can think of others.]

Some of my generation suspect that Aleck drank too much and consorted with women he

obviously didn’t meet in church. If he did I hope that the Good Lord found it in his heart to

forgive a lonely bachelor who never harmed anyone and certainly provided great company for 

his grand nephews.

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Aleck McBeath at age 61Astoria, 1930

Chapter 4 - 2

He was finally struck down by cancer. His sister, my Gammie, and his niece, Flora Hood,cared for him those last long and painful days. I remember that my cousin Dave, then 22 years

old, showed me his razor cut face and told me that Great Uncle Aleck had undertaken to teach

him how to shave. Perhaps he saw Dave as the son he never had.

Years later I stopped in Astoria and spoke by phone to the self-styled historian of the Columbia

Bar Pilots Association. He said he remembered no McBeath pilot and said he was sure he

would since he was a Malcom and a McBeath had murdered his ancestor. I pointed out that itwas in a fair fight. But he adamantly stuck to Shakespeare’s mangled history. Was he getting

revenge? Was Great Uncle Aleck really a bar pilot? I say he was.

Ruth Ross, grand niece, remembers Aleck...the seaman:

 I was but a little girl with those memories. Folks said he was a pilot, for the Columbia River 

 ships, bringing them across the bar, into or out of the river. He was also a commercial 

 fisherman. Before I was born the family had a small three-room beach house in Manzanita.

 Behind it were two good trees from which hung a great hammock: made of one of Aleck’s old  fishing nets. I have very few memories of him, though he was a sandy haired, single ol’ man.a

little rough around the edges, as I recall.

Doug Hood, grand nephew, remembers [Based on my memory of a telephone

conversation with Doug Hood, 3/25/01: Doug remembers that he and his family once visited 

 Aleck in Astoria. He lived in a hotel. [Doug amends: I believe it was the Astoria Hotel. He

may have had dinner there and lived elsewhere.]  People there treated him respectfully. He

 seemed quite friendly with women that Doug [then just a child and somewhat naïve] now

thinks may have been prostitutes.

Jean (Watkins) Hall remembers:

Uncle Alec [Editor’s Note: GREAT

UNCLE ALEC McBeath]  was a

  fisherman in the Astoria area. Every year he would come to the farm and 

would sit by the back door and make  fishnets. Every season he would send 

a barrel of salted fish for us. I don’t 

remember much about him, but in mymemory’s eye, I see him making 

  fishnets. Then when our son decided 

to be a commercial fisherman, I 

thought of him again.

Flora Hill, grand niece, remembers:  I remember Great Uncle Alec as smiling, sorta of grizzled (little beard 

maybe). We visited him, or tried to,

once or twice in Astoria. He lived in aboarding house.