City Point's Wiseman Family

City Point's Wiseman Family. Four Centuries: City Point, Virginia 1613 A.D.. , 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., [Captions:] , Mary Catherine Wiseman, wife of Frederick Belch, a former Union soldier under General Grant at City Point., The home on the right (505 Prince Henry Avenue) is the Belch House (circa 1832 as it looked before it was "modernized." Family tradition identifies this as the house being used to shelter wounded soldiers prior to June, 1864., Henry Sherman's circa 1912 house (449 Prince Henry Avenue) stands approximately on the site of City Point's first Freedmen School, sanctioned by the Federal government just after the Civil War for the education of freed slaves. Residences and businesses lined Main Street, one of two central commercial streets, the other being the waterfront., William Arnold stands at the end of Main Street (Prince Henry Avenue). In the background is the City Point House. Immediately behind Mr. Arnold is 505 Prince Henry Avenue. An early 19th century school house, is thought to be City Point's first institution for private education. It was later the residence of Edward Comer, whose son, Charles, was a courier with General J.E.B. Stuart., 500 Prince Henry Avenue (circa 1912) was owned by Willie belch, a river steamer captain. In the background is the 1914 Du Pont laundry plant.