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Joseph Grant Beale
HON. JOSEPH GRANT BEALE, of Leechburg, Armstrong Co., Pa., who represented
his district in the Sixtieth Congress, has been one of the foremost business
men of that part of Pennsylvania practically throughout the period of his
residence there–over forty years. He has been associated with the more
progressive undertakings of the region, has been a leader in public as well as
in business life, and has developed various enterprises of the utmost
importance in the advancement of his section. He is at present serving as
president of the Leechburg Banking Company, now giving all his time and
attention to his coal and banking interests.The Beale family is of Norman-English origin and one of the oldest in the
State. Its first ancestor in America, a Quaker, came to this country with
William Penn, so the Beales claim to be thoroughly Pennsylvanian. As he was a
civil engineer by profession, he was employed by the proprietary to lay out
the city of Philadelphia. The family afterward settled in the Tuscarora
valley, east of the mountains, where they engaged in agricultural and
manufacturing pursuits. Washington Beale, grandfather of Joseph Grant Beale,
crossed the mountains in the year 1800 and settled in what at that time was
almost a wilderness, near Natrona, the site of the soda works in the northern
part of Allegheny county. He accumulated a valuable property there and the
family fortunes flourished, as was natural when the enterprise and
intelligence of its members had adequate scope.Washington Beale, Jr., father of Joseph Grant Beale, settled near the
paternal homestead and engaged in farming and stock raising. To him the people
of that section are indebted for at least one practical, noteworthy advance.
Seeing the necessity for a better class of heavy draft horses in the
manufacturing districts, he went to England in 1859 and purchased and imported
into this country the first English draft horses ever brought into western
Pennsylvania. From these horses descended the fine stock for which the
locality has since become noted. His son, Joseph G. Beale, has also taken
considerable interest in this matter, and in 1875, after a visit to Scotland
with his father, imported a superb draft horse from that country. Washington
Beale married Rosanna McCune, of Greensburg, Pa., who was of Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian stock.Joseph Grant Beale was born March 26, 1839, in Allegheny county, Pa., and
was reared in his native township, upon his father’s farm. He received a
liberal education, attending the common schools and later graduating from the
Caton Academy, at Turtle Creek, Pa., and from the Iron City Commercial
College, of Pittsburgh. When the Civil War broke out he was drilling for oil
in the Kanawha valley, engaged in his first business enterprise. Under the
first call for volunteers he enlisted in the Iron City Guards of Pittsburgh,
for three months. But before the term had expired he reenlisted, for three
years, in what was known as the Friends’ Rifles, being a member of Company C.,
9th Pennsylvania Reserves. He was wounded on the sixth day of the seven day’s
fight, June 30, 1862, at Charles City Cross Roads, and was left on the
battlefield, where he lay for seven days and nights, with no food but a few
crackers, until taken prisoner. He was taken to Richmond and placed in
confinement in Libby prison, was released on parole, and sent to Fortress
Monroe, and while invalided by his wounds pursued the study of law under the
instruction of Samuel M. Purviance and Nathaniel Nelson, of Pittsburgh. After
the engagement in which he was wounded, he was promoted to captain; he never
recovered sufficiently to return to active service.Mr. Beale did not practice law long, leaving it to engage in 1865 in the
coal business at what was at that time known as Squirrel Hill, meantime making
his home at Hazelwood, Allegheny Co., Pa.. During the time he was engaged in
mining there he removed coal from underneath what are now some of the most
aristocratic portions of the city of Pittsburgh. In the spring of 1868 Mr.
Beale sold out and came to Leechburg, in Armstrong county, where he has ever
since resided. Having bought the Leech property, he resolved to make the most
of his purchase, and at once began a systematic course of development which
has proved the wisdom of his ideas, not only advancing his own prosperity but
encouraging others in their enterprises. Thus there is hardly a citizen that
has done more for the material upbuilding of Leechburg. In 1872, by giving
land and extending other aid, he succeeded in securing the establishment there
of large iron works for the manufacture of fine sheet iron and tin plate. It
was in this mill that natural gas was first used as a fuel, being obtained
from a well put down by Mr. Beale in 1869-70. It was the first one used in
this country, or in the world so far as is known, from which gas was used for
metallurgical purposes. In 1875, the company which built the works having
failed, Major Beale, with some others, bought the plant and carried on the
manufacture of iron very successfully until 1879. In that year he sold out his
interest and built the West Pennsylvania Steel Works, the first established in
Armstrong county and the first steel works in the world in which natural gas
was utilized, and he was the sole owner of this establishment. Although he had
a number of other heavy interests, among them the ownership of a large body of
land in the Shenandoah valley, in Virginia he devoted almost his entire time
and energy to the management of the steel works, until absorption of his plant
by the United States Steel Corporation (See Leechburg chapter). In maintaining
and building up this manufacturing establishment, which he founded, he did
much for the business prosperity of the borough. He has since devoted himself
to the management and development of his coal and banking interests. In 1906
he was elected on the Republican ticket to represent his district in Congress.Mr. Beale has been a Mason since 1864, when he joined Washington Lodge, No.
253, F. & A. M., of which he is a past master and is now the oldest living
member; he is prominent in G. A. R. circles, belonging to J. A. Hunter Post,
No. 123, of which he is a past commander, and he is a charter member of Camp
No. 1, Union Veterans Legion, of Pittsburgh. After the war he was appointed
major on Gen. Harry White’s staff, and served in that capacity at the time of
the Pittsburgh riots.On Nov. 10, 1864, Mr. Beale married Margaret J. Harrison, daughter of John
and Eliza (Sampson) Harrison, of Harrison township, Allegheny Co., Pa., and
they have had the following children: Frank J. died in 1907 unmarried; Harry
W. is mentioned below; Allison H., division superintendent of the American
Sheet & Tin Plate Company, resides at Vandergrift, Westmoreland Co., Pa.;
Charles G., who resides at Leechburg, has been admitted to the bar in
Allegheny, Westmoreland and Armstrong counties, and is now a practicing
attorney; Edmund H. is mentioned below; Merta M. is the wife of S. J. McCabe,
and resides at Leechburg; Clifford J. is engaged as superintendent of coal
works for his father.HARRY W. BEALE, son of Joseph Grant Beale, was born in Allegheny county,
Feb. 22, 1867, and attended the public schools and academies in Armstrong and
Westmoreland counties. Later he was a student at Iron City College, in
Pittsburgh, from which he was graduated, after which he entered the steel mill
to learn the practical details of the business in which his fathers’ great
success had been made. He became a heater, later a sheet steel roller, and
after following that work for some time became superintendent of the Beale and
Valley Coal Companies, owned by his father. He was thus engaged until his
untimely death, Feb. 3, 1905. He was injured at three o’clock on the afternoon
of that day by an eastbound Pennsylvania railroad cattle train at Leechburg on
the Westmoreland county side, was taken home, and died shortly after. He is
buried in the Evergreen cemetery near Leechburg. Though a young man he had
already made his activity felt in local affairs, and was serving as a member
of the borough council at the time of his death. He was a Republican in
politics, and a Mason in fraternal connection, belonging to Leechburg Lodge,
No. 577, F. & A. M. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church.On Oct. 28, 1887, Mr. Beale married Mary Blanche Armstrong, daughter of Dr.
John A. and Amanda C. (McKallip) Armstrong, of Leechburg, and to them were
born three sons: John, who is learning the steel business at the plant of the
American Sheet & Tin Plate Company, Vandergrift, Pa.; Lewis, who is in the
employ of the same company; and McCune, who is employed as paymaster at the
American Sheet and Tin Plate Co., at Leechburg. Mrs. Beale continues to make
her home at the beautiful residence in Leechburg her husband built in 1901.
She is a member of the Presbyterian Church.EDMUND H. BEALE, son of Hon. Joseph Grant Beale, was born at Leechburg,
June 29, 1873. He received his education in the local schools, and after
working in his father’s employ for a time was engaged in the mercantile
business in his native place, four years as a member of the firm of Irwin
& Beale and four years as a member of the firm of Beale & Richards. In
1897 he went back to his father’s employ in the coal business, and he is now
acting as superintendent of four mines near Leechburg, the Beale, Aladdin,
Denny and Valley coal mines, all of which are owned by his father. He gives
his entire attention to his work in this connection. A citizen of high
character and proved worth to the community, he has served eleven years as
auditor of Leechburg; is a prominent member of the First Presbyterian Church,
which he has served three years as treasurer and eight years as trustee; and
is a high Mason, belonging to Leechburg Lodge, No. 577, F. & A. M., Orient
Chapter, No. 247, R. A. M., of Kittanning, Pa.; and Tancred Commandery, No.
48, K. T. of Pittsburgh. In politics he is a Republican.Mr. Beale’s first marriage was to Maude McLaughlin. After her death he
married Ann Lees, daughter of James Lees, and all his children are by this
union, George E., Edith J. and Frank L.Source: Pages 448-450 Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and
Present, J. H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed September 1998 by James R. Hindman for the Armstrong County Beers
Project
Contributed for use by the Armstrong County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/armstrong/)Armstrong County Genealogy Project Notice:
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