governor lawyer military politician
Samuel Beall was born on September 26, 1807, in Montgomery County, the son of Lewis and Eliza Beall, was descended from Ninian Beall, a member of a well-known Scottish family of royalist stock, who came to Maryland and settled in Calvert County shortly after 1650.
Samuel received his education at Union College, Schenectady. He graduated in 1827.
On his graduation in 1827, Samuel Beall was, through the influence of Chief Justice Taney, appointed receiver for the sale of public lands in the northwest, whither he proceeded, establishing the first land office at Green Bay, Wisconsin, and taking an active part in opening up the sparsely settled territory immediately west of Lake Michigan. In 1834 he returned to the East and took up his residence in the vicinity of his wife's relatives at Cooperstown, where his house became the center of a brilliant group of literary notables, including Washington Irving. In 1840 the lure of the wild again drew him to Wisconsin. He first located at Tychora, Marquette County, shortly afterward removing to Taycheedah in Fond du Lac County, where he engaged in farming, and for a short time was Indian agent with the Stockbridge tribe.
In 1836 Wisconsin had been detached from Michigan and made a separate territory, and the advisability or otherwise of forming a stategovernment became a subject of much controversy. Beall threw himself with ardor into the fight on behalf of statehood. He was a delegate from Marquette County to the constitutional convention held at Madison, October 5, 1846, was chairman of the committee for the organization of state government, and took a prominent part in the proceedings. When the constitution as then drafted was submitted to the people, April 6, 1847, it was rejected. A second convention was thereupon summoned for December 15 at Madison, which Beall attended as a delegate from Taycheedah, being a member of the committee on general provisions. The constitution then prepared was ratified by the people, March 13, 1848. Beall's activities at these conventions had brought him into considerable prominence, and on Wisconsin's being admitted as a state he was recognized as one of its leading figures. In 1850 he was elected lieutenant-governor, serving in this position for two years, following which he again became Indian agent, in this capacity escorting the tribal chiefs within his district to Washington.
Always enamoured of frontier life, in 1859 he was leader of an exploration party to Pike's Peak, Colorado, and assisted at the location and founding of Denver. The growth of the new city was such that he was sent specially to Washington to procure the grant of a charter. He returned to Wisconsin in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, and in 1862 was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 18th Wisconsin Regiment, with which body he took part in much severe fighting. Wounded at both Shiloh and Vicksburg, he was incapacitated for active service during the last stages of the conflict. At the conclusion of the war he returned to Wisconsin for a short time and then moved to Helena, Montana. He was shot and killed in the office of the Montana Post, at Helena, September 25, 1868, by George M. Pinney, manager of the Post, in the course of an altercation relative to certain articles reflecting on Beall's character which Pinney had published.
Samuel Beall was a member of the first and second Wisconsin Constitutional Conventions from Marquette County.
Beall was a curious compound of strength and instability. His intellectual endowment was of a high order and his general culture wide. As a man of affairs, he was respected for his invariable courtesy and undoubted integrity. He was a fluent speaker, and the embodiment of dignity when the occasion demanded. Unfortunately he always seemed to act on the impulse of the moment. Of an intensely restless nature, during the last twenty years of his life he was unable to live anywhere but on the fringe of civilization. Many tales are told of his warm-heartedness and generosity. One most characteristic action was on the occasion of the death of his mother who had bequeathed him a small patrimony in Maryland and some thirty slaves: though Beall was not in very good financial circumstances he at once gave the slaves their freedom, at the same time selling the property and devoting the proceeds to their support until they could find employment.
When only a student Samuel Beall married Elizabeth Fenimore, daughter of Isaac Cooper of Cooperstown, New York, and niece of J. Fenimore Cooper, the novelist. They had seven children.
