Encountering Moses Beach

It’s entirely fitting that I would have first come across the name Moses Yale Beach in a copy of an old newspaper article.   

As I began to look into the life of this man, I would come to realize that it was also fitting that he’d only been mentioned as an aside — a point of interest within the main story.  That is how Moses Beach and his legacy seem to have been treated over the last nearly two centuries ~ as more of a historical footnote than historic figure. 

And it’s a sturdy old Yankee name,  “Moses Yale Beach”. 

Biblical, with notes of the Founders and New England farmland.   

The tones struck by the name are evocative of the times in which Beach lived his fascinating and nearly forgotten life ~ the early decades of the new United States of America.   In our own tumultuous era, the name and those times may ring a more provocative bell;  at least for some.   In fact, even some of my own preconceptions would be contradicted by the record.   

Still, in terms of those “Oh, right! That guy!” run-of-the-mill-bells, the name Moses Beach doesn’t quite ring them.  So, in way of a brief introduction:

Moses Yale Beach (1800-1868) was the sole proprietor and publisher of the newspaper credited as being the first successful “pennypress” to be printed in America:  The Sun.   Published in New York City, the paper had been started by Beach’s brother-in-law, Benjamin Day, in 1833.   The Sun sold for a penny, an alternative to the existing six-cent dailies and weeklies such as the Evening Post; and its content was aimed towards serving the teeming numbers of immigrants and laborers flocking to the city of New York.  However, Beach’s most notable contribution is this:

In 1846,  during the War with Mexico, Beach proposed to his competitor newspaper owners — some with whom he’d had very contentious relations — the establishment of the first news syndicate, to defray the costs spent individually on transporting — by ship, steam rail, and pony express — the most current news from the US/Mexico conflict.  They would all share in the effort, the expenses, and in the news reports.   

It would be called The Associated Press.

That Moses Beach.   That’s who I’m talking about.  He’s the guy who created the AP, back in 1846.  Yeah, I hadn’t heard of him, either.  If I’m being honest, I can’t say that he’s someone who would have piqued my interest all that much, had I encountered him in any other way. 

The old news article that I’d uncovered had been published in 1958, in an edition of The Hartford Courant.  The story concerned the sale of a Rocky Hill, Connecticut farm by the octogenarian son and nephew of two Irish brothers named Dowling.  It told of how, in the 1840s,  the Dowling Brothers left behind the back-breaking quarry work in nearby Portland in a search for California gold; then had returned to Rocky Hill in 1860, and purchased the 120-acre farm with the gains which they had wrested from their western adventure.  Nearly one hundred years and three generations later, the farm was being sold to another family. 

At the time, I had been researching another Irish family — named Kelly — which had settled in Rocky Hill a quarter of a century earlier;  it was the “Kelly farm” that the Dowling brothers had purchased in 1860.   I had only recently learned that these Rocky Hill Kellys were closely related to my own Kelly line, which had settled in nearby Middletown.   I’d discovered that a Michael Kelly had purchased the farm in 1835,  owning it up to his death in the late 1850s.   Some of his adult children held adjoining or nearby farm land.   I’d learned about the Kelly farm being sold to the Dowlings, and had come across the article related to this later sale.   However,  the part of the article in which I immediately became most interested was the bit that mentioned from whom the Brothers Dowling had purchased their farm, back in 1860.  It wasn’t someone named Kelly, as I’d expected to find, but rather:

 “Moses Y. Beach and his wife from Wallingford” (CT).  

Again, some might have recognized the name; fortuitously, after his telling of the Dowlings’ story, the writer went on to explain the association of Beach to the 1860 sale of the Kelly/Dowling farm.  He first gave a brief biography of Beach:  Yankee-born son of a farmer, inventor, the Owner/Publisher of The Sun in New York City; and lastly, Beach’s most notable accomplishment as founder of The Associated Press.  

The article continued by noting the land records of the time;  the acquisition of the Kelly farm by a Julia Kelly during the early to mid 1840s, and the subsequent sale to the Dowlings in 1860 by Julia Ann Beach and Moses Beach.   The writer then noted that there was no mention in his biographical sketches of Beach having had a second wife;  what’s more, his first wife Nancy Day Beach was known to have lived until 1880, and was buried in the Beach Family plot in Wallingford, CT.   

The Courant writer had found the association to Beach and the Kelly/Dowling farm an interesting angle to mention in his story, back in 1958.   In 2021, I’d been coming at it from a completely different vantage point;  and I was intrigued by Beach’s appearance in the record.   I also realized that the writer may have overlooked a story within his story.  

Now, with some interest in learning more about this early newspaper publisher and his connection to the Kelly family, I began an internet search, expecting to find a biography or two on “Moses Yale Beach, Olde Time-y Publisher”; or maybe a memoir.   To my surprise, there was very little.  In fact, aside from a 1918 book on the history of The Sun, very little seemed to have been written about Moses Beach.  At first glance, the internet ~ usually replete with information on virtually any subject ~ had little more to offer on Beach than the basics which I’ve shared.  

His “wiki” page was my first source of information, and it could probably be best described as unremarkable.  Pulled from various biographical sketches, the same general beats are hit: Yankee-born, apprentice, cabinet maker, inventor.  His many years spent in Saugerties are briefly referenced, as well.  

“He then invented a rag-cutting machine for paper mills. The invention was widely used, but Beach derived no pecuniary benefit due to his tardiness in applying for a patent.”

Right.  The old “pecuniary benefit” gripe.  The first two paragraphs of his biography are lifted, more or less directly, from various biographical sketches from Beach’s day; composed by Beach himself, or by one of his writers at The Sun. 

Overall, Beach’s tenure at The Sun is given rather brief acknowledgment.  His creation of the first newspaper insert around 1841 is noted, as is his creation of the Associated Press.   Also, an often-repeated and muddled version of a mission to Mexico is referenced.  Of his personal life, the biography simply notes that Beach was married twice; and lists five of his sons and a granddaughter, Emma Beach Thayer.  It also lists an illegitimate daughter, named Julia Ann.   

Other searches yielded similar results.  The entry for Moses Beach’s newspaper The Sun (pub.1833~1959) is devoid of any mention of the man, save for one. 

One.   

Under a list of Journalists at The Sun :

                                              

“Moses Yale Beach, an early owner of The Sun.”

Now, this is something worth griping about, if I were Mr. Beach.

More recently, in 2002 the AP published a brochure commemorating the restoration of a portrait Beach had commissioned, circa 1846.  His great-great grandson, Brewster Yale Beach, had submitted the portrait along with a collection of documents which included a hand-written note by Moses’ eldest son, Moses Sperry Beach, noting the date and circumstances of the formation of the Associated Press.   The note had been written in 1872, after the death of the founder of the New York Herald and Beach’s long-time editorial nemesis, James G. Bennett, Sr.   In perhaps the most stinging of historical slights against Beach,  the creation of the AP had long been misattributed to Bennett.  He had often made the claim, himself; and he had once again received the credit in his death notices and obituaries.  Although the 2002 piece gave Beach’s biography a fairly broad stroke, a more fulsome accounting of Beach’s role in its creation was made by the Director of the AP Archives, in a photo/blog series done for the syndicates 175th anniversary in 2021.  

 

Beach wasn’t much of a writer;  he’d left others to do the writing during his time at The Sun.  Thus, having never written a memoir, Beach’s life story had been left to anecdotes found in the biographies of his contemporaries, and scattered about the Northeast in town histories and brief biographical sketches.  

It seems that in his day, Beach’s own star had risen and set, coming to rest just below the horizon line of history.

Balderdash!  To borrow a word from Beach’s day. 

By the 1830s,  New York City had become the busiest port city in the country; beating out Boston and Philadelphia.   Goods coming to and from the Midwest ~ via the recently finished Eerie Canal ~ had brought an economic boon to the city.  It was a major hub for trade and finance; as well as for the ever increasing numbers of people from all over the world.   

And all of it, up to this point, had been driven by wind and water; by sail and wheel.   Steam power was just beginning to grow in usage.   In the dark evenings, The Evening Post was read by candle or whale oil lamp; gas had only just begun to light the better streets.  The fountain pen was still a fad item for the wealthy.   It was the beginning of a century of invention; the eve of the Industrial Era. 

And Moses Yale Beach, in his time, was the first “King of Media”.   

With Beach at its helm, The Sun became an immensely popular newspaper, sparking the creation of similar papers in other cities; and its influence was felt in New York, Washington, and even abroad.   As his own competitors grew in number, Beach would outpace them with innovation and ingenuity.   From the seemingly more mundane mechanics of the printing process, and improving upon them; to a summer of mania stirred up by a major Moon Hoax; and even the platoon of “pigeon reporters” — yes, YES! — housed on the rooftop of The Sun Building,  Moses Beach was at the leading edge of the news industry.  

In 1841, Beach created ~ with some panache ~ the first syndicated news story and, ostensibly, the first newspaper insert.   Along with his daily, Beach would also print special, weekly, and monthly editions  ~ including one with his old friend, P.T. Barnum ~  along with wood-cut prints and books.   

Included in this was his annual booklet entitled “Wealthiest Citizens of New York”;  a directory containing the alleged, assume, or otherwise ascribed “net-worths” of the movers and shakers of the city, accompanied by brief biographies of similarly spurious authenticities. 

Beach was also a financier and banker; having held a stake in a number of banks, beginning in his time in Saugerties.  His detractors often attempted to paint him as abusive to the poor ~ specifically, Irish immigrants ~ for the rates on his ‘shaved notes’.   At least some of which appears to have been mostly driven by Bennett’s animosity towards Beach.   Bennett would, in fact, attempt to give many nicknames to Beach over the years.  Liddle Biddle.  Oysterman.   The latter due to the fact that Beach did, indeed, sell oysters from the cellar of his Sun Building; and for a pretty good reason.

And what would the first media king be without a little bit of controversy?   Way back there, in those early decades of the Republic, Moses Beach was making news in ways that still today would have his name buzzing across the very syndicate wires he would soon establish.    

The years leading up to 1846 had found Beach often in attendance at the NY Chancery Courts.  Most often, it was as the defendant.  One libel suit, involving a character by the name of Epenetus Gray, I mention solely due to the plaintiff’s utterly Dickensian name.  But there were far more serious affairs afoot, as well.   As the owner of The Sun, Beach had been sued by his top competitor and editorial foil, James Bennett, for libelous comments made against the character of Bennett’s young Irish wife; even questioning the paternity of their newborn son.   Beach’s brother-in-law and former partner, Benjamin Day, had likewise filed suit against Beach and The Sun – the very newspaper that he’d founded — for publishing comments which had called into question his character and associations.   While at the same time, Beach had been sued for a divorce by his wife of twenty-five years, Nancy Day Beach; for infidelity, with…well, a whole lot of women.  Scores.  

By 1846, Beach had emerged relatively unscathed by the scandals of the previous four years.  He’d brought his two eldest sons, Moses Sperry Beach and Alfred Ely Beach,  into business with him at The Sun.   Both men would follow on their father’s successes with their own.   In the spring, he’d welcomed a daughter – Julia Ann Beach – with his second wife.  And, of course, he’d established the Associated Press, along with the similar New York Harbor Association. 

But Beach had even bigger pursuits planned in that year; and in August he traveled to Washington, DC.   Meeting with then Secretary of State, James Buchanan, and eventually with President Polk,  Moses Beach managed to get himself named a “Confidential Agent” of the US government.   

Moses Beach was a Secret Agent.  

Beach traveled undercover to Mexico City with his daughter Druscilla, and his writer from The Sun – a woman named Jane McManus Storms.  Seemingly part “influence mission” and part business trip, it ended without success on either front.   However, sending back reports under her pen name of “Cora Montgomery," Storms may have been the first woman war correspondent —  the first, certainly, to have reported behind enemy lines.

Yes.  That Moses Beach.   

Just beneath that stuffy old Yankee veneer, Moses Beach had turned out to be a far more interesting figure than my early internet search had led me to believe.   

Which brings me back to that initial list of results, where I discovered another historical misfire; and one which took me by surprise.   It was the image of a daguerreotype held by the Smithsonian Institute.   Taken circa 1853 by the early pioneer of photography, Jeremiah Gurney, it is catalogued as being a portrait of Moses Yale Beach and his wife, Nancy Day Beach.   I knew at first glance that this information wasn’t correct.   I really needed no further proof than that of my own reaction upon seeing the woman’s face.  

That woman was Irish.   

And, not only that…she was a Kelly!

The daguerreotype was the image of Moses Beach and his second wife.

That was Julia Ann Kelly.  

Mrs. Beach may have been excessive in her claims of Moses’ infidelities; but she hadn’t been completely off the mark.  Beach had been having an affair with one young woman, in particular.    Moses Beach had, himself, fallen in love with a young Irish lass.  Eighteen years his junior, she was a farmer’s daughter from the Queen’s County.  Her name was Julia Kelly.   

Yet, she has somehow remained hidden from the news reports and legal proceedings of the day.  Had her identity been known, it would have surely been fodder for both, especially Bennett!   It begs the question:  Had Beach’s relationship with Julia been the actual motivation behind his newspapers assaults on Bennett and Benjamin Day?  

Next:  Two Farmers