60 



BEAL, ABRAHAM. 



years High-Sheriff of the county of Kent, and 

 many of his relatives among the gentry of the 

 county. At an early age his great, sympathiz- 

 ing heart seems to have been affected by the 

 condition of the unfortunate and the prisoner. 

 When but eighteen years of age, he walked 

 thirty-three miles to defend and obtain the re- 

 lease of a young man unjustly imprisoned. 

 Very soon after his marriage and establishment 

 in business in London, he became convinced 

 of the great injury which intemperance was 

 causing to the interests of working-men, and 

 he devoted himself with the most earnest zeal 

 to the propagation of the doctrines of temper- 

 ance, or rather of total abstinence. The tem- 

 perance cause was less popular then in Eng- 

 land than in this country, and he encountered 

 much opposition and some serious persecution. 

 In his efforts to rescue intemperate men from 

 imprisonment and punishment, with a view to 

 their more thorough reformation, he was led 

 to make his appearance at the courts as their 

 advocate; and soon acquired the title of "the 

 Prisoner's Friend." In 1848, he emigrated to 

 the United States, where a part of his family 

 had preceded him. He commenced business 

 here, but his heart was still with the prisoner, 

 and the wretched victims of intemperance, and 

 it was not long before he was in attendance 

 upon our courts and endeavoring to aid those 

 who were unjustly imprisoned or condemned. 

 He made himself very thoroughly familiar 

 with the criminal laws of New York and 

 other States, not to enable any hardened of- 

 fender or deliberate villain to escape its penal- 

 ties for to these he was uniformly a stern 

 and severe accuser and judge but to pluck, if 

 he might, as brands from the burning, those 

 who had been unjustly accused, or who had 

 through ignorance or sore temptation, and not 

 from vicious intent, violated the laws. In 

 ]863, soon after the death of the lamented 

 Isaac T. Hopper, Mr. Beal was offered and ac- 

 cepted the position of General Agent of the 

 New York Prison Association, and for more 

 than eighteen years he had been the indefati- 

 gable and sympathizing friend of the prison- 

 er. More than ten thousand prisoners re- 

 leased, pardoned, or their sentences suspended 

 through his active agency, were restored to 

 society, and became good, respectable, and 

 many of them honored citizens. Thousands 

 of ^ discharged prisoners reformed from their 

 evil habits were by his efforts provided with 

 situations, where they could and did earn an 

 honest livelihood. Thousands of drunkards, 

 too, were led by his urgent appeals and his 

 unwearied efforts to sign the temperance 

 pledge, and, if they fell into temptation again, 

 to renew the pledge till they could once more 

 stand up as free men. Realizing, also, that, 

 without a radical reform of the heart and 

 moral nature, there could be little hope of per- 

 manent reformation of the outward life, he 

 was, in the highest sense, a preacher of right- 

 eousness, and great was his success. In this 



great and good work he wrought so wisely 

 and prudently as to win the confidence of all 

 whose confidence was desirable. The judges 

 of the criminal courts trusted him implicitly. 

 They knew that he investigated every case 

 thoroughly and honestly, and if Mr. Beal sug- 

 gested that a prisoner should be discharged, 

 or that sentence should be suspended, they 

 were ever ready to do it, because they knew 

 that he would not abuse their confidence. 

 The Governors, in whom, in New York, inheres 

 the pardoning power, were always greatly in- 

 fluenced by his reports. Every case presented 

 to them was very thoroughly investigated, and 

 all the evidence pro and con clearly presented. 

 In the record of pardons published by Gov- 

 ernor Hoffman nearly a year ago, the sentencfc 

 occurs over and over again, " at the recom- 

 inendation of Abraham Beal, Esq., Agent of 

 the New York Prison Association," and the 

 record of pardons, by those Governors w T ho had 

 preceded him, would tell the same story. He 

 had great influence with the Presidents of the 

 United States in cases which came within 

 their jurisdiction. And it should be said to 

 his honor that this influence was never 

 abused. Often was he offered large sums of 

 money by the friends of wealthy scoundrels, 

 if he would only put his name to petitions for 

 their pardon, but, though he was poor, their 

 proffers roused his indignation as nothing else 

 could. At one time some friends of one of 

 these cormorants who had amassed a vast for- 

 tune by fraudulent contracts with the Govern- 

 ment, and who had come to grief through 

 Secretary Stanton's watchfulness, came to Mr. 

 Beal's office, and pleaded with him to sign a 

 petition for his pardon. "No ! " he said, " I 

 cannot do that. I don't believe his sentence 

 is so severe as it should be." "But," said one 

 of them, drawing near to him " Mr. Beal, you 

 stand in your own light. You can have forty, 

 fifty thousand dollars, if you will sign this 

 paper ! " Instantly his face was aflame, and 



turning to his clerk, he said " J , show these 



people down-stairs!" But his philanthropy 

 was not confined to prisoners. All the poor 

 and wretched shared his sympathy, and his 

 bounty, even to his own continual impoverish- 

 ment. To the immigrant who found himself 

 penniless and a stranger in a strange land, he 

 was peculiarly tender; in hundreds of cases 

 he procured situations for immigrants, or, fail- 

 ing in doing so, or finding them incapable and 

 longing for their old home, obtained for them 

 a return-passage. These favors were not only 

 done without thought of fee or reward, but it 

 was very seldom the case that he was not out 

 of pocket from thirty to a hundred dollars by 

 them. He was for many years an efficient 

 officer of the New York Port Society ; and so 

 wide and beneficent had been his labors for 

 good that, whenever he visited adjacent 

 States, he was always surrounded at once by 

 those who desired to show their gratitude to 

 him for rescuing them from sorrow and 



