Peter Paul Beck was born in Germany. He and Elizabeth Hess were married in 1841, just a few months before emigrating to America. They sailed from LeHavre, France in January of 1842 on the ship Sully, and landed in the port of New York on the 30th of January. (The passenger manifest of the Sully shows the 34 year old Beck traveling together with 19 year old Elizabeth Hess, which leads to question whether they were actually eloping. However the next census shows Elizabeth and Peter Beck living with her parents and siblings under one roof, so any family drama that existed in 1842 had been amicably resolved by 1850). Once ashore in the New World the newlyweds resided in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before moving west to Pittsburgh. At the end of 1842 they settled in the town of Wheeling in western Virginia .
Peter Beck came to America as a common laborer and learned the cooper trade, which is perhaps how he became acquainted with the beer business. He learned the Brewer's art, most likely at the Moore and Morris firm. When Moore died in around 1846 his business rival George W. Smith bought the Moore & Morris Brewery from the bank the next year. Beck established the Franklin Brewery. He employed brewers Lewis Bayha and Henry Lorence, who were also likely former employees of Moore & Morris.
In 1852 Beck's brother-in-law George Reymann arrived in Wheeling. George had been an educator back in Germany and Beck brought him in to the business either as a brewer or perhaps running the Rhinedale Brewery Saloon. George's son Anton apprenticed at the brewhouse, and on July 6th 1862 Anton married Beck's oldest daughter Thusnelda.
Peter Paul Beck died just nine days after his daughter's marriage on the 15th of July, 1862. He was said to have been in the best of health and only 55 years of age. Although his fortune was estimated to be at $100,000 his wife Elizabeth and daughter Emma continued in the brewery with the help of the Reymanns. On October 15th 1864 a notice in the The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer announced the partnership Elizabeth Beck and Anton Reymann in the Franklin Brewery. Beck and Reymann dissolved their partnership a few years later, and Reyman established a brewery of his own on the east end of 17th Street in 1867.
