Charles L. Beale was born on the 5th of March, 1824, in the town of Canaan, Columbia county, New York.  His paternal ancestors, consisting of two brothers by the name of Beale, came originally from England; one of them settled in western Massachusetts, whence he subsequently removed to Connecticut; the other in Westmoreland county, Virginia, at a place named Bealeton, after the family.  He became the head of the Beale family of the south, and the ancestor of General Beale, who, while lieutenant, became noted as an explorer in connection with the United States survey, and owned extensive tracts of land in California.  General Beale was late minister plenipotentiary to the court of Vienna.

     Captain Lewis Beale, the paternal grandfather of Charles L. Beale, was a resident of Danbury, Connecticut, where his ancestors had settled in the early days of that colony.  He served as captain in the Revolutionary war, and General Wooster, who was shot during Governor Tryon's retreat from Danbury, fell from his horse into his arms.  He removed to the State of New York, and settled at North East, in Dutchess county, in 1794.  At this place Chester Beale, the father of Charles L. Beale, was born, in 1796, whence he removed to Austerlitz, Columbia county, in 1804, being eight years of age.  He graduated at Union College in 1815, studied law with Elisha Williams in the city of Hudson, was admitted to practice in 1818, and married the same year.  While in college he held the military rank of captain.  Before his graduation he was drafted to serve in the War of 1812-14, and with the militia marched in the expedition to Sacket's Harbor.  He returned and finished his college course, graduating in 1815.  He married Clarissa Wainwright, of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, who was a cousin of Rt. Rev. Jonathan Wainwright, formerly bishop of the diocese of New York, and reared a family of four children, of whom Charles L. Beale was the third.  Three of them only survive at this writing, viz., Chalres L., Sidney C., and Frances L., a maiden sister.

     Charles L. Beale was brought up on a farm in the town of Canaan, and fitted for college under Captain Ashley, a graduate of West Point, who, after serving in the army and being promoted, became principal of an academy in Canaan.  He was a thorough teacher and of excellent character, whose system of educating boys was derived from the method pursued at West Point.  With this preparation he entered the junior class of Union College in September, 1842, and graduated in July, 1844.  He immediately commenced the study of law in the office of Toby & Reynolds, at Kinderhook, and was admitted to practice in September, 1849.  Entering upon his practice in Canaan, Columbia county, New York, where he remained till 1852, he removed thence to Kinderhook, and formed a copartnership with the late David Van Schaack, with whom he remained in practice till May, 1866.  He then removed his office to the city of Hudson, and associated with him in professional business Mark Duntz, his present partner.  Mr. Beale was married at Kinderhook, on the 16th of August, 1855, to Mrs. Catharine Baldwin, widowed daughter of Asaph Wilder, Esq., of Kinderhook.  In his political affiliations he was formerly a Democrat, but since 1855 he has been either Independent or Republican in his preferences, being an earnest politician, and for a portion of his life an unusually effective campaign speaker.

      In 1855 he ran as an independent candidate for county judge, and made a very creditable campaign, being defeated by only a few votes by Judge Peck, the Democratic nominee.  In 1858 he was nominated on the Republican ticket for Congress, and was elected by about two thousand five hundred majority.  He served in the Thirty-sixth Congress till the 4th of March, 1861, during the exciting period when treason was rampant at the national capital, and southern States seceding from the Union.

     After his return, in the summer of 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the Ninety-third Regiment of New York Volunteers, but on account of ill health was incapacitated for taking the field. 

     In 1864 he was chosen presidential elector, and cast his vote for Mr. Lincoln for his second term of the presidency.

     In May, 1867, he was appointed register in bankruptcy, which position he holds a the present time.

     The great affliction of his life fell upon him in 1871, in the loss of his beloved wife, who left three children for him to rear without the care and companionship of a mother.  He has one son, an under-graduate at Harvard University, and two daughters, the elder of whom is a graduate of St. Agnes Diocesan School, at Albany, and the younger a pupil in the same institution.

     As an advocate, Mr. Beale justly holds a very high place.  His learning, knowledge of history, law, and politics, his remarkable command of language, and his earnest, animated gestures, all conspire to render him one of the most eloquent speakers at the bar, especially when some great occasion calls forth all his powers as an orator.  Many such important occasions have occurred during his professional career, when he has been retained as counsel in difficult and noted cases, such, for example, as the trial of Ruloff for murder, at Binghamton, in 1871.  He was in this cause senior counsel for the defense.  The reporter of the trial says:

     "Mr. Beale came into the Ruloff case at a late hour, and contributed, with his great ability, all that could possibly be done to stem the tide of conviction which settled so fast and so surely around his unfortunate client.  His effort was the brave, forlorn hope of the mariner at sea, in a leaky vessel, with the night and the tempest closing around him.  Long will every soul in that court-room, crowded almost to suffocation, remember the closing appeal of Mr. Beale to the jury in this case, when for four mortal hours he stood up there and held the court, the jury, and vast audience spell-bound, as it were, with his magnetic eloquence.  It was only equaled, it was never excelled, by Sergeant S. Prentiss.  It carried us back to the halcyon days of that superb orator, during 'the flush times of Mississippi.'  A man of fair abilities can, with great industry, make himself a good lawyer, but true genuine eloquence must be born in him; he cannot acquire it, and nature is not lavish in her gifts."

     Those best acquainted with the character and reputation of Mr. Beale as a forensic orator and advocate, will not regard the above extract as extravagant, but will consider the statement as a fair illustration, out of many others that might be given, of his well-known abilities as a public speaker.