Edward Beale

Edward Beale was born in Washington, D.C. in 1822. Beale was a student at Georgetown College when, at the solicitation of his widowed mother, President Andrew Jackson appointed him to the U.S. Naval School at Annapolis.

He sailed for California in October 1845 on the frigate Congress under Commodore Robert Stockton. Hostilities with Mexico had begun. Stockton dispatched Beale to serve with the land forces, joining Gen. Stephen Kearney’s column just before the disastrous battle of San Pasqual.

After the Mexican Army surrounded the small American force and threatened to destroy it, Beale and famed scout Kit Carson crept through the Mexican lines and made their way to San Diego for reinforcements.

Beale resigned from the Navy in 1851, working as a manager for W.H. Aspinwall and Commodore Stockton, who had acquired large properties in America’s newest territory. In 1853, President Millard Fillmore appointed Beale Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California and Nevada. Beale held the position until 1856 when California Governor John Bigler also appointed him brigadier general in the state militia to give him authority to negotiate peace treaties between the Native Americans and the U.S. Army.

After Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861, the president appointed Beale Surveyor General of California and Nevada.  Beale used troops to hand dig “Beale‘s Cut” over the Fremont Pass near present day Sylmar. Originally 30 feet deep, it was deepened to 90 feet to allow easy travel to points north. This became the main roadway from Los Angeles to Fort Tejon, Bakersfield, the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco.

After the Civil War, Beale retired to Rancho Tejon (now Tejon Ranch), part of 270,000 acres he acquired near present-day Bakersfield. In 1870 he bought the Decatur House in Washington, D.C., dividing his time between the  two homes.

In 1876 President Ulysses Grant appointed Beale as Minister to Austria-Hungary, a post he held for a year. Beale died at Decatur House on April 22, 1893.