Samuel Bellamy Beach
Samuel Bellamy Beach (ca. 1780 – July 31, 1866) was an American author, publisher, manufacturer, and postal official.
Early life and education
[edit]Beach was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, and raised in Whitestown, New York, the son of Ashbel Beach and Anna Bellamy Beach.[1] He graduated from Yale College in 1805.[2]
Career
[edit]In 1822, Beach published a poem of 109 pages, titled Escalala, an American Tale.[3][4][5] In 1837, after the election of President Martin Van Buren, he was appointed to a clerkship in the Post Office Department at Washington, in which department he remained for most of the time until after President Abraham Lincoln's election. He was long a resident of Oneonta, New York, and identified with many public improvements there. He was the original projector of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad.[1]
Personal life
[edit]Beach married twice, to Ann Porter in 1815 and to Martha M. Bates after 1834; they had several children. He died in Oneonta in 1866, in his mid-eighties.[1] In 1867, his youngest son Victor killed his mother, Martha Bates Beach; Victor survived a suicide attempt at the same time, and was institutionalized after the incident.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Wallace, W. Stewart, A Dictionary of North American Authors Deceased Before 1950 (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1951): 33.
- ^ "New Haven". Hartford Courant. 1805-10-02. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-06-15 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Beach, Samuel Bellamy (1824). Escalala: An American Tale. W. Williams.
- ^ "The Idler's Notebook". The Atlanta Journal. 1891-05-02. p. 17. Retrieved 2025-06-15 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Escalala note in London paper". The Morning Chronicle. 1822-09-03. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-06-15 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "A Horrible Affair at Oneonta, N.Y." Stoughton Reporter. 1867-07-09. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-06-15 – via Newspapers.com.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Yale Obituary Record.