Charles Yale Beach

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The landmarked Commercial Advertiser Building on Fulton Street, Manhattan, property of Charles Yale Beach, from Moses Yale Beach's estate

Charles Yale Beach (March 4, 1847 – October 16, 1917) was an American real estate investor, inventor and businessman from New York. He was among the largest real estate owners of Bridgeport, Connecticut, behind Senator Nathaniel Wheeler and Clinton Barnum Seeley, grandson of P. T. Barnum.

He was also a correspondent of Mark Twain, who was with the Beach family among the Quaker City excursion of 1867, covered in Twain's Innocents Abroad. Beach's New York historical landmark, the Commercial Advertiser Building, burned down in 1891.

Biography[edit]

Charles Yale Beach was born in New York City on March 4, 1847, to Chloe Buckingham and politician Moses S. Beach, members of the Yale family.[1][2] He was a brother of Emma Beach Thayer, wife of artist Abbott Handerson Thayer, member of the Boston Brahmin Thayer family. His uncles were Alfred Ely Beach and William Yale Beach.[2]

Charles Yale Beach graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.[1] He then studied philosophy at Yale University, at the time of the presidency of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and was recorded a student between 1860 and 1864 until his graduation.[3][4][1]

The brig SS Arago (1855) on which Charles Yale Beach embarked for the excursion to Fort Sumter, following the end of the American Civil War

In 1865, he returned from the excursion of raising the flag at Fort Sumter aboard the brig Arago, with Maj. Gen. Robert Anderson, abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Lt. Gov. Charles Anderson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and others.[5] The excursion was made in the memory of Abraham Lincoln and to celebrate the end of the American Civil War. The Fort Sumter Club would be formed during the flag-raising event, by the passengers of another steamship, which included General Edwin R. Yale, its cofounder and first president.[6]

Beach was among the passengers of the Quaker City excursion of 1867 to the Holy Land, with his father Moses S. Beach, and sister Emma Beach Thayer, joining them in Paris, and the family would become friends with passenger Mark Twain, and have him as a guest at their family home in Brooklyn Heights.[7][8] Other passengers included President Ulysses Grant, General Sherman and the young Theodore Roosevelt.[9]

In 1879, Beach invented a new system to manufacture Indian rubber and other gum compounds for surfacing cloth and other purposes, and recorded his invention at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.[10][11] He received his patent in 1880.[12][13] Beach also had patents to his name in 1871, having invented a new way to manufacture Bone-Black, and another patent in 1879 for a new way to manufacture rubber.[14][15]

In 1880, he was involved with the Broadway Underground Railway Company of his uncle, Alfred Ely Beach, along with his cousin Frederick C. Beach.[16] In 1884, Charles Yale Beach is recorded exchanging letters with Mark Twain, along with his father, Moses S. Beach.[17][18] From 1891 to 1892, he acquired a large amount of real estate in New Haven and Bridgeport in Connecticut, acquired from the estate his received from his deceased father.[19]

Later life[edit]

Burning of the Commercial Advertiser Building, New York, in 1891, was owned by Charles Yale Beach, losses at $400,000

In 1891, a property inherited from his father, the Old Commercial Advertiser Building, was burned down, bringing losses of about $400,000.[20][21][22] In the same year, Beach is recorded acquiring 37 building lots on Wood Avenue in Bridgeport, Connecticut.[23][24] The Commercial building was situated on Fulton Street, Manhattan and was one of the landmarks of downtown New York.[22] It was for many years one of the seats of the New York Sun, the penny press newspaper owned by his grandfather, Moses Yale Beach.[22]

In 1896, Beach attended the Church Club of Connecticut, along with Colonel Louis N. Van Keuren, and under the presidency of Colonel Jacob Lyman Green, president of the Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company.[25][26] In 1903, Beach moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and became treasurer of the Morewod Lake Ice Company.[27][1]

His wife, Frances W. Stenvenson, died in the city in 1904.[28] Beach would remain active with the company until 1909.[1] A year later, the enterprise would be involved in what would be known as the Morewood Lake Ice Company explosion, and Beach would be a witness during the investigation.[29] He acquired about 100 acres of land on South Mountain, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with partner Dewitt Bruce, to connect their exising properties.[30]

In 1916, Beach is recorded among the largest real estate owners and tax payers of Bridgeport, Connecticut, a few positions behind Senator Nathaniel Wheeler and Clinton Barnum Seeley, grandson of P. T. Barnum, who owned multiple estates.[31][32] Beach was a board director of the YMCA, a member of the Park Club, seated at the Berkshire County Savings Bank Building, and was a member of the country clubs.[1] Park Club members included mayor Hezekiah S. Russell, mayor Allen H. Bagg, mayor Kelton B. Miller, Senator William A. Burns, and others.[33]

Death[edit]

Charles Yale Beach died in Atlantic City on October 16, 1917, and was buried at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut.[1][34] He was married to Frances Wardale Stevenson, daughter of wealthy merchant John M. Stevenson, and was for many years vestryman of St. John's Episcopal Church.[34][1] His wife was a niece of merchant John McAllister Jr., of the wealthy McAllisters of Philadelphia.[35][36] Her brother and her nephew, John McAllister Stevenson, went to Yale University, and another brother, Holland Newton Stevenson, became a Commodore in the U.S. navy.[37][38][39]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h The Berkshire County Eagle, October 17, 1917, Wed ·Page 2
  2. ^ a b Yale Genealogy and History of Wales, Rodney Horace Yale, Milburn & Scott Co., Beatrice, Nebraska, 1908, p. 237
  3. ^ Yale University, "Yale University Catalogue, 1864" (1864). Yale University Catalogue. 47, p. 12
  4. ^ Department of Philosophy and the Arts, Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, Yale University, 1860-61, New Haven, p. 12
  5. ^ Return of Some of the Excursioniste Mr. Beecher and Family Remain Behind Compliment to Capt. Gadsden, of the Arago, The New York Times, April 20, 1865. Accessed February 25, 2024
  6. ^ Fort Sumter, The Brooklyn Union, April 16, 1866, p. 2
  7. ^ HIRST, ROBERT H., and BRANDT ROWLES. “William E. James's Stereoscopic Views of the Quaker City Excursion.” Mark Twain Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, 1984, pp. 15–33. JSTOR, Accessed February 26, 2024, p. 17
  8. ^ Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871, p. 494
  9. ^ Journey Abroad with an American Legend at the New-York Historical Society, Mark Twain and the Holy Land, On View (October 25, 2019 – February 2, 2020).
  10. ^ Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 17, March 30, 1880, p. 710
  11. ^ The Morning Journal-Courier, 02 Apr 1880, Fri ·Page 4
  12. ^ Charles Y. Beach, 1880, India-rubber and Other Gum Compounds for Surfacing Cloth and for Other Purposes, US Patent 226017, filed 21 January 1880
  13. ^ Charles Y. Beach, 1880, Manufacture of Rubber or Other Gum Cloth and Compositions Thereof, US Patent 223874, filed on November 29, 1879, and issued January 27, 1880
  14. ^ Charles Y. Beach, of Brooklyn, New York, Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the United States Patent, United States Patent Office, Washington, September 19, 1871, p. 119,005
  15. ^ Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the U.S. Patent Office, United States. Patent Office, Washington, January 1880, p. 821-822
  16. ^ N. Y. Supreme Court, Case on Appeal from Order, Association of the Bar, Library City of New York, J. Dickinson Steam Printers, New York, 1880.
  17. ^ Charles Y. Beach to Samuel L. Clemens, 31 March 1884 • Brooklyn, N.Y., (MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41853)
  18. ^ Moses S. Beach to Samuel L. Clemens, 31 March 1884 • Brooklyn, N.Y., (MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41854)
  19. ^ Beach's Appeal, Connecticut Reports, Cases Supreme Court 1903-1904, Vol. 76, July 1903, pp. 120-125
  20. ^ Fall River Daily Evening News, September 15, 1891, p. 1
  21. ^ Centralia Fireside Guard, September 18, 1891, p. 2
  22. ^ a b c The Brooklyn Citizen, September 15, 1891, p. 1
  23. ^ The Morning Journal-Courier, December 1, 1891, p. 2
  24. ^ The Bucyrus Evening Telegraph, 16 Sep 1891, Wed ·Page 1
  25. ^ Hartford Courant, January 24, 1896, p. 3
  26. ^ The Connecticut Quarterly (Hartford, Conn., 1903-04) Vol. 8, p. 640
  27. ^ The Berkshire Eagle, July 7, 1908, p. 11
  28. ^ The Berkshire County Eagle, November 2, 1904, p. 12
  29. ^ The Berkshire Eagle, January 3, 1911, p. 2
  30. ^ The Berkshire Eagle, December 26, 1902, p. 2
  31. ^ The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, January 25, 1916, p. 12
  32. ^ "A DAY'S WEDDINGS.; Seeley -- Tuttle", New York Times, December 31, 1896.
  33. ^ The Berkshire Eagle, December 19, 1911, p. 10
  34. ^ a b The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, 17 Oct 1917, Wed, p. 7
  35. ^ Carson, Marian S., Collector, and Marian S. Carson Collection. Stereographs of the Stevenson family of New York and the McAllister family of Pennsylvania, from the Marian S. Carson Collection. New York, None. ca. 1873-ca. 1880. Photograph.
  36. ^ John A. McAllister Collects the Civil War, in The Magazine Antiques 170, no. 2 (August 2006), pp. 102-107.
  37. ^ The Berkshire Eagle, March 23, 1903, p. 4
  38. ^ Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Cooke, Rollin Hillyer, The Lewis Publishing Co., New York, 1906, p. 252
  39. ^ Western Massachusetts; a history, 1636-1925, Lockwood, John H., Lewis Historical Publishing Co., New York, 1926, p. 111
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