My father, Larkin Beck, was born June 6, 1805, in Virginia, but his parents soon moved with him to Tennessee, 20 miles north of Nashville. In 1818 they moved to Shelby County, Illinois – the year that Illinois became a state. Father went to a subscription school for three months and learned to read and write, but I believe that this education was obtained after his marriage. He studied first that he might read the Bible. He was a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and being a man of strong convictions and very aggressive, he made many enemies and was persecuted in many ways. He had an ambition to learn everything that he possibly could and was among the few of that frontier settlement to take newspapers, - his first ones being the "Prairie Farmer" published at St. Louis, and the "Cincinnati Times". These papers, I remember were preserved in a great roll for years, and used for reference. He gradually acquired a splendid library for that time and place, among which were Dick's Works on Astronomy, Josephus on the Bible, Isaac Watt on the Minds of Fallen Men, Designs of Popery in America, Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, A Thousand Reasons Why in Natural Laws, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Boone, David Crockett, Histories of the Colonies, Indian Wars and War with Mexico, books regarding animals and birds, and other good and useful books. These were the books which I perused, and which guided me in my literary taste, and in my beliefs and character. Whittier was my favorite poet.
My father was a farmer by occupation, but could do many things besides, such as manufacturing rope, raising nursery trees, tanning leather and even making shoes. He was interested in politics and was an old line Whig. He was of German decent, but it was very remote. He had 3 brothers, David, John, and James and but one sister, Amanda, who married Allen Wakefield.
(From A Brief Autobiography of Christopher Beck)