Biography

He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and arrived in New York around 1850. By 1860, he was a successful physician living with his wife Mary in Seneca, NY and also employed. An outspoken Southern sympathizer, he was forced to flee to Canada to avoid arrest during the early months of the Civil War. His first wife evidently died during this period. On February 4, 1862, Dr. Beattie married CCS, niece of WHS, a widow with three children. The wedding may have been a shot gun wedding... (scandalous).
After the war, Beattie moved his family south to Henrico County, VA. He purchased several other properties, making the county his permanent home and raising his expanding family (seven more children were born to the couple) there. He died at his summer home in Succasunna, NJ.