1809-1884
William A. Beach was born in 1809, in Saratoga County, New York, the son of a wealthy merchant. After attending military school in Vermont he studied law with his uncle, Judge William Warren, and was admitted to the Bar in 1833. He was elected District Attorney of Saratoga County from 1843 to 1847. In 1851, Beach moved to Troy and practiced law there until 1870, representing prominent railroad corporations and gaining a reputation as an excellent trial attorney.
Gifted with remarkable oratorical abilities, he immediately sprang into prominence as a jury pleader, and, possessing also the substantial qualities of thoroughness and conscientious attention to detail in the preparation and prosecution of his cases, his reputation as one of the consummate lawyers of the day steadily grew.[1]
In 1870, Beach moved to New York City “at the solicitation of Honorable Charles A. Rapallo . . . to take the place in the latter’s law firm made vacant by his election to the bench of the Court of Appeals.”[2] In New York City, “he maintained his high reputation as a lawyer and as a brilliant and successful pleader,” and was involved in many celebrated cases.[3] Beach represented Cornelius Vanderbilt and other railroad magnates in complex litigation; was lead counsel for Judge George G. Barnard in his impeachment proceedings; joined with William Fullerton in supporting the District Attorney’s prosecution of Edward Stokes for the murder of Wall Street titan James Fisk; and was lead counsel for the plaintiff in Tilton v. Beecher, the “trial of the century,” who sued Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, widely considered the most famous man in America at the time, for having an adulterous affair with his wife.
William A. Beach died in June 1884 while living in Tarrytown, New York.
[1] History of the Bench and Bar of New York, New York History Co., 1897, at 256.
[2] Id.
[3] “Mr. Beach’s Sudden Death,” New York Times, June 29, 1884.