City Point’s Wiseman Family
The Yankee Soldier met Miss Wiseman at the town well – and married her after the war.
The Wiseman family had settled in City Point many years before Mary Catherine Wiseman married Frederick Belch in 1865. He was a Yankee soldier bivouacked along the waterfront during the Civil War. A granddaughter said, “The town well was next door to grandmother's home which was on the bluff overlooking the James River, and one day he and my grandmother met there.” Belch was mustered out in his hometown of Philadelphia. He returned to City Point soon after and married Miss Wiseman. Fred Belch got a job as the keeper of the lights on the James. Of the couple's six children, five settled in City Point. Their sons worked on the river as lamplighter, river steamer captain, and harbormaster.
Nearby are three family homes – 500, 501, 505 Prince Henry Avenue.
Marker is at the intersection of Pelham Street and Prince Henry Avenue, on the right when traveling west on Pelham Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
