Samuel Bellamy Beach


Samuel Bellamy Beach was an American author, publisher, manufacturer, and postal official.

Early life and education

Beach was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, and raised in Whitestown, New York, the son of Ashbel Beach and Anna Bellamy Beach. He graduated from Yale College in 1805.

Career

In 1822, Beach published a poem of 109 pages, titled Escalala, an American Tale. 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.

Personal life

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. 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.