Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale (February 4, 1822 â€" April 22, 1893)
was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a
naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian
affairs superintendent, California rancher, diplomat, and friend of
Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody and Ulysses S. Grant. He fought in the
Mexicanâ€"American War, emerging as a hero of the Battle of San
Pasqual in 1846. He achieved national fame in 1848 in carrying to the
east the first gold samples from California, contributing to the gold
rush.In the late 1850s, Beale surveyed and built Beale's Wagon Road,
which many settlers used to move to the West, and which became part of
Route 66 and the route for the Transcontinental railroad. As
California's first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Beale helped
charter a humanitarian policy towards Native Americans in the 1850s.
He also founded the Tejon Ranch, the largest private landholding in
California, and became a millionaire several times over. He received
appointments from five U.S. Presidents: Andrew Jackson appointed him
to the Philadelphia Naval School, Millard Fillmore appointed him
Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California and Nevada, James
Buchanan appointed him to survey a wagon road from New Mexico to
California, Abraham Lincoln appointed him Surveyor General of
California and Nevada, and Ulysses S. Grant appointed him Ambassador
to Austriaâ€"Hungary."Beale successfully pursued a personal El Dorado
of adventure, status, and wealth," wrote Gerald Thompson. "In doing
so, he mirrored the dreams of countless Americans of his day."Ned
Beale was born in Washington, D.C. His father, George Beale, who was a
paymaster in the U.S. Navy, had earned a Congressional Medal for Valor
in the War of 1812. His mother, Emily, was the daughter of Commodore
Thomas Truxtun of the U.S. Navy. Ned was a student at Georgetown
University when, at the solicitation of his widowed mother, President
Jackson appointed him to the Philadelphia Naval School. From 1837 to
1842, Beale was an acting midshipman on naval ships that sailed to
Russia, Brazil and the West Indies. He graduated from the Naval School
as a midshipman in 1842, and sailed for two years in Europe and South
America. In 1845 he was assigned to the squadron of Captain Robert F.
Stockton, a wealthy New Jersey businessman and inventor as well as a
career naval officer, who was an intimate of presidents. Beale sailed
with Stockton's squadron to Texas, where Stockton met with the Texas
Congress, which accepted annexation by the United States. Edward Fitzgerald Beale Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter