BIO:  Cyrus G. BEALES, Huntington Township, Adams County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 455-456

CYRUS G. BEALES, P. O. York Sulphur Springs, was born near the York Sulphur 
Springs June 15, 1834.  He was trained to the life of a farmer, and during his 
earlier years attended the schools of his vicinity and laid the foundation of a 
good practical education in the English branches, and later finished his studies 
at White Hall Academy, in Cumberland County.  In 1854 he left the farm and took 
charge of a school near York Springs, and subsequently followed the calling of a 
teacher for eight successive sessions, one of them being for six months as 
principal of York Springs High or Graded School.  He has always been an active 
worker and an influential member of the Republican party in his vicinity and 
county, and, in 1862, was appointed and served as United States assistant 
assessor of internal revenue in the Sixteenth Pennsylvania District, until 1866, 
when he was removed for not endorsing the policy of President Andrew Johnson.  
While assistant assessor he was also appointed and served as United States 
inspector of cigars and tobacco for Adams County.  He is an earnest advocate of 
the free school system, and is now serving as borough school director, an office 
that he has filled for the past twelve consecutive years.  Since 1871 he has 
been a justice of the peace, and, as a slight evidence of the acceptable manner 
in which he filled the important trust, he was again elected in the spring of 
1886, by sixty-four majority out of eighty-four votes cast.  In 1872 and 1874 he 
was nominated by his party for clerk of court, and in 1882 was nominated by it 
and ran as a candidate for the State Assembly from Adams County, and was 
defeated by only ninety-three votes, while the Democratic nominee for governor 
received a majority of 578.  He has served twice as a delegate to Republican 
State Conventions, and in 1882 was a candidate for the nomination of Secretary 
of Internal Affairs.  In 1880 he was appointed as alternate delegate to the 
Republican National Convention, at Chicago, when Garfield was nominated.  Mr. 
Beales has also served the public two terms as a juror in the United States 
Courts, at Philadelphia, and was notably and publicly commended by the presiding 
judge, Cadwallader, for his services on that occasion and for his prompt and 
energetic action in promoting the cause of justice.  Mr. Beales is a charter 
member of Hebron Lodge No. 465, A. F. & A. M., at York Springs; has served as 
master and is now its treasurer.  He was one of the organizers and a charter 
member of the York Springs Building & Loan Association, and acted as its 
president for eleven years.  It was chartered in 1869 and continued until 1881, 
and proved a success.  He is now acting as a director of the Adams County Fire 
Insurance Company.  Mr. Beales has the well-deserved confidence of the community 
in which he resides; is constantly employed in his official duties, and attends 
to nearly all the legal business and settlements of estates, etc., etc., in the 
borough of York Springs and vicinity.  He has been twice married; first in 1854, 
to Elizabeth Shaffer, a daughter of Jacob Shaffer, and by this union one child 
was born, now deceased; his wife died in 1860, and September 19, 1865, he 
married Susan R. Hoover, of Carlisle, a daughter of Samuel M. Hoover.  Mrs. 
Beales died April 1, 1877, leaving two children, Florence E., born September 19, 
1866, and Mary Eva, born June 17, 1869, who both reside with their father at 
York Springs.  Mr. Beales is a consistent member of the Lutheran Church.  The 
Beales family is a very old one in Adams County, settling in what is now 
Latimore Township early in the eighteenth century.  The first was Caleb Beales 
and his wife, Mary.  He and wife both died in Latimore Township.  Their son, 
Caleb, died in 1840, aged eighty years, married Lydia Walker a native of Chester 
County, Penn.  A son of the last union was also Caleb, who married Evaline 
Godfrey, a native of Culpeper County, Va., and a daughter of Thomas and Mary 
(Settle) Godfrey.  These three Caleb Beales and their wives all lived and died 
on the farm near York Sulphur Springs, in Latimore Township.  The family were 
originally members of the Society of Friends, and those mentioned are buried in 
the Friends’ burying ground, in Latimore Township.  The Godfreys and Settles 
were Episcopalians and were all of pure English extraction.  Caleb and Evaline 
(Godfrey) Beales were the parents of four children:  Cyrus G., mentioned 
elsewhere; Mary C., who married Dr. I. W. Pearson, of York Springs; Lydia W., 
who died aged four years; and Charles W., of York Springs.