Husband Joseph Grant Beale 1 2 3
Born: 26 Mar 1839 - Allegheny Co, PA 2
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Father: Washington Beale, Jr. (1821-1885) 1 2 3
Mother: Rosanna McCune ( -1881) 1 2 3
Marriage: 10 Nov 1864 4
Wife Margaret J. Harrison 4
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Father: John Harrison ( -1879) 5 6
Mother: Eliza Jane Sampson ( - ) 6 7
Children
1 M Frank J. Beale 4
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Died: 1907 4
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Spouse: Did Not Marry
2 M Harry W. Beale 8
Born: 22 Feb 1867 - Allegheny Co, PA 4
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Died: 3 Feb 1905 4
Buried: - Evergreen Cemetery, near Leechburg, Allegheny Twp, Armstrong Co, PA
Spouse: May Blanche Armstrong ( -Aft 1914) 8
Marr: 28 Oct 1887 4
3 M Allison H. Beale 4
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4 M Charles G. Beale 4
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5 M Edmund H. Beale 9
Born: 29 Jun 1873 - Leechburg, Armstrong Co, PA 4
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Spouse: Maude McLaughlin ( - ) 4
Spouse: Anna Lees ( - ) 4
6 F Merta M. Beale 4
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Spouse: S. J. McCabe ( - ) 4
7 M Clifford J. Beale 4
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General Notes: Husband - Joseph Grant Beale
He was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and was reared in his native township, on his father's farm. He received a liberal education, attending the common schools and later graduating from the Caton Academy, at Turtle Creek, 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 days' 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, however 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 County. In the spring of 1868 Mr. Beale sold out and moved to Leechburg, in Armstrong County, where he then resided. 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 America, 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 the absorption of his plant by the United States Steel Corporation. He then 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 was a Mason beginning in 1864, when he joined Washington Lodge, No. 253, F. & A. M., of which he was a past master and eventually became the oldest living member. He was also prominent in G. A. R. circles, belonging to J. A. Hunter Post, No. 123, of which he was a past commander, and he was 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.