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 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.Yale Genealogy and History of Wales, Rodney Horace Yale, Milburn & Scott Co., Beatrice, Nebraska, 1908, p. 237 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.
Charles Yale Beach graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. 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.Yale University, "Yale University Catalogue, 1864" (1864). Yale University Catalogue. 47, p. 12Department of Philosophy and the Arts, Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, Yale University, 1860-61, New Haven, p. 12The Berkshire County Eagle, October 17, 1917, Wed ·Page 2
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.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 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.Fort Sumter, The Brooklyn Union, April 16, 1866, p. 2
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.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. 17Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871, p. 494 Other passengers included President Ulysses Grant, General Sherman and the young Theodore Roosevelt.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).
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.Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 17, March 30, 1880, p. 710The Morning Journal-Courier, 02 Apr 1880, Fri ·Page 4 He received his patent in 1880.Charles Y. Beach, 1880, India-rubber and Other Gum Compounds for Surfacing Cloth and for Other Purposes, US Patent 226017, filed 21 January 1880Charles 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 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.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. 119,005Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the U.S. Patent Office, United States. Patent Office, Washington, January 1880, p. 821-822
In 1880, he was involved with the Broadway Underground Railway Company of his uncle, Alfred Ely Beach, along with his cousin Frederick C. Beach.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. In 1884, Charles Yale Beach is recorded exchanging letters with Mark Twain, along with his father, Moses S. Beach.Charles Y. Beach to Samuel L. Clemens, 31 March 1884 • Brooklyn, N.Y., (MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41853)Moses S. Beach to Samuel L. Clemens, 31 March 1884 • Brooklyn, N.Y., (MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41854) 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.Beach's Appeal, Connecticut Reports, Cases Supreme Court 1903-1904, Vol. 76, July 1903, pp. 120-125
Later life
In 1891, a property inherited from his father, the Old Commercial Advertiser Building, was burned down, bringing losses of about $400,000.Fall River Daily Evening News, September 15, 1891, p. 1Centralia Fireside Guard, September 18, 1891, p. 2The Brooklyn Citizen, September 15, 1891, p. 1 In the same year, Beach is recorded acquiring 37 building lots on Wood Avenue in Bridgeport, Connecticut.The Morning Journal-Courier, December 1, 1891, p. 2The Bucyrus Evening Telegraph, 16 Sep 1891, Wed ·Page 1 The Commercial building was situated on Fulton Street, Manhattan and was one of the landmarks of downtown New York. 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.
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.Hartford Courant, January 24, 1896, p. 3The Connecticut Quarterly (Hartford, Conn., 1903-04) Vol. 8, p. 640 In 1903, Beach moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and became treasurer of the Morewod Lake Ice Company.The Berkshire Eagle, July 7, 1908, p. 11
His wife, Frances W. Stenvenson, died in the city in 1904.The Berkshire County Eagle, November 2, 1904, p. 12 Beach would remain active with the company until 1909. 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.The Berkshire Eagle, January 3, 1911, p. 2 He acquired about 100 acres of land on South Mountain, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with partner Dewitt Bruce, to connect their existing properties.The Berkshire Eagle, December 26, 1902, p. 2
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.The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, January 25, 1916, p. 12"A DAY'S WEDDINGS.; Seeley -- Tuttle", New York Times, December 31, 1896. 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. Park Club members included mayor Hezekiah S. Russell, mayor Allen H. Bagg, mayor Kelton B. Miller, Senator William A. Burns, and others.The Berkshire Eagle, December 19, 1911, p. 10
Death Charles Yale Beach died in Atlantic City on October 16, 1917, and was buried at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut.The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, 17 Oct 1917, Wed, p. 7 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. His wife was a niece of merchant John McAllister Jr., of the wealthy McAllisters of Philadelphia.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.John A. McAllister Collects the Civil War, in The Magazine Antiques 170, no. 2 (August 2006), pp. 102-107. 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.The Berkshire Eagle, March 23, 1903, p. 4Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Cooke, Rollin Hillyer, The Lewis Publishing Co., New York, 1906, p. 252Western Massachusetts; a history, 1636-1925, Lockwood, John H., Lewis Historical Publishing Co., New York, 1926, p. 111
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