Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/256

 I5KACH.

BEACH.

tioiis. ill which he was eminently successful. In lN4t!. feeling' the need of more iielp in Ids eilufii- tiunal enterprises, he journeyeil to France, and there procured Jesuit fathers to take charge of St. Joseph's college at Spring Hill, and a company of Brothers of the Sacred Heart for St. Mary's male orphan a.sylum. In 1847 he was nominated by the sixth council of Baltimore for the see of Vincennes. rendered vacant bj- the resignation of Bish(i]> De L;j Hailandiere. He was consecrated at Vinc.Mines. and ditxl there April 23, 1848.

BEACH, Alfred E., journalist, was born at Springfield, Mass., in 1826; son of Moses Y. Beach, who established the New York Stm. After obtainingan academic education at Monson, Mass.. he entered his father's office, where he ac- quired a practical knowledge of newspaper work. In 1846 he founded, with Orson D. Munn, a former schoolmate, the firm of Mimn & Co., publishers, as- suming control of the Scientific American, which at that time was the only weekly journal of a scientific character j^ublished in America. For nearly fifty years Mr. Beach was active in the ed- itorship of the Scien- tific A7ne7'ican, and in the direction of the extensive patent business of the firm. With liis inherent taste for mechanics and all branches of science he was well adapted for the business he had chosen. His sj'mpathy with inventors and men of genius rendered him very helpful to that class of people. About 1852 he invented a type- writing machine, which was exhibited in operation at the World's fair, crys- tal palace. New York, and at the American in- stitute exhibition in New York city from 18.j2 to IS.').'). It received the gold medal of the institute as one of the most ingenious and important in- ventions then exhibited. The machine had a keyljojird. a pot of type-bars, an ink ribbon and a spacing bar, the paper being moved by the keys. Alxiut the year 1865 Mr. Beach devised a system of carrj-ing letters by means of underground pnetunatic tubes from the street lamp-posts directly to the central po.st-office, and invented many devices to jn-rfect it. This led to the or- ganization of the Beach pneumatic transit com- pany, of which he was president. In 1867, at the American in.stitute fair in Fourteenth street. New York, he had in operation, suspended from the ceiling, a .section of a pneumatic elevate<l railway in which many persons rode. The success

of this experiment so convinced him of the value of jmeumatic i)ower for the projiulsion of cars that he soon conceived the idea of constructing a tunnel under Broadway, and planned a system of underground railways for New York. In 1869, legislative authority having been granted, he constructed a section of underground railway ex- tending from Warren street to Murray street. This work was executed while traffic was going on overliead, by means of the Beach hydraulic shield, the first example of the machine which was afterwards used in the construction of the great railway tunnel under the St. Clair river at Port Huron, the underground railwaj' tun- nels in liondon and Glasgow, the Hudson river tunnel, and similar works. In 1860 Mr. Beach founded and maintained a private school, with a full corps of teachers, at Stratford, Conn., where he resided up to 1870, and soon after the close of the civil war he founded the Beach insti- tute at Savannah for the education of freedmen. He died in New York city Jan. 1, 1896.

BEACH, Mrs. H. H. A. (Amy Marcy Cheney), musical composer, was born at Henniker, N. H., Sept. 5, 1867. She came of a musical family, who carefully fostered the talent displayed almost from her cradle. Her mother was her first teacher. From the time her hands could reach the keyboard of the piano she would find melo- dious combinations of notes and play the little airs she had heard. Reading music seemed to be instinctive with her, and when a mere child she could read at sight almost anything put before her. She also improvised with remarkable taste, and composed several little airs with odd and pretty accompaniments. At as early an age as was deemed expedient she was placed under the best Boston instructors, and her progress was phenomenal. In 1883 she played in Boston the G-minor concerto of Moscheles, with grand or- chestra. She was married in 1885 to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a prominent Boston phy- sician. Mrs. Beach composed a Mass in E-flat, which was performed in 1892 by the Handel and Haj'dn societ)', and which has been pronounced one of the grandest musical compositions ever produced by a woman. In 1893 '* Festival Jubi- late," written for the World's Columbian ex^x)- sition at Chicago, attracted much favorable comment. During the season of 1895-"96 she played with the Boston symphony orchestra. Among lier compositions are a scena and aria, " Eilende Wolken,'' for contralto, with orches- tral accompaniment; cantatas for male and female voices, with and without orchestra, and more than sixty shorter works for piano, violin and one or more voices; a .sonata for piano and violin, and the" Gaelic " .symphony, performed in 1896 by the Boston symphony orchestra.