From Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress website, January 15, 2016.

Beck, James Burnie, a Representative and a Senator from Kentucky;

born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, February 13, 1822;

immigrated to the United States in 1838 and settled in Wyoming County, N.Y.;

moved to Lexington, Ky., in 1843 and was graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.,

in 1846;

admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Lexington;

elected as a Democrat to the Fortieth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1867-March 3, 1875);

appointed in May 1876 a member of the commission to define the boundary line between Maryland and Virginia;

elected to the United States Senate in 1876

reelected in 1882, again in 1888, and served from March 4, 1877, until his death in Washington, D.C., on May 3, 1890;

Democratic Conference Chairman 1885-1890; chairman, Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (Forty-sixth Congress); interment in Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Ky.)