The Alchemist-Lewis J. Beam-He changed iron into gold: Part 2 of 2

by Joy Lewis –

 Continued….

Lewis Story was three years older than Lewis Beam.  He’d been in California for half a decade and was recently married.  Having tried his hand at mining, then at hotel keeping, he’d come to the conclusion that his erstwhile occupation of farming was the better choice for a man of his experience.  Mr. Story settled on a fertile property forty miles east of San Francisco, a property known as the Adobe Tract.  (His farm today, Rancho Solano, is the site of a prestigious golf course in the town of Suisun.)  He had a blacksmith shop on his farm and in the autumn of 1856 he hired Lewis Beam as blacksmith.

For more than twenty years Beam lived with the Story family, managing the smithy and the buggy shop associated with it.  He ventured into real estate, husbanding his capital and multiplying his investment.  He became a very wealthy man.

Twice in the next quarter century Lewis returned home to Canadice to visit his family.  Then in 1883 he came home to stay.  He bought an 80-acre farm on West Lake Road and the next year another larger farm across the road bordering Honeoye Lake.   The hillside house of the first property was painted white, then further embellished with balconies and balustrades.  A wide veranda overlooked the lake and along the shore he had planted a long row of Lombardy poplars.   A winding cement walk came up to the house, bisecting the green carpet of lawn.  The park-like grounds were decorated with a pleasing arrangement of maples, elms, and evergreens.  The large orchard bore fruit of every description, and was flanked by a trellised vineyard.  A good-sized barn was put up beside the house (Lewis’ brother Daniel, the contractor) and on its gable end was painted “California Ranch.”

Lewis Joy Beam was born in Starkey (Yates County), New York, the fifth son of Jacob and Mary Ross Beam.  Married about 1820 in Sussex County, New Jersey, Mr. and Mrs. Beam were the parents of two sons – Peter and Freddie – when they came by oxcart to upstate New York in 1826.  Three more sons were born in Starkey: Stephen, Elias, and Lewis.  The baby was named in honor of his uncle Lewis Joy Partridge, who was married to Mary’s sister Jane.

When the youngest Beam son, Lewis, was four years old the family relocated again, settling in Canadice.  They had a farm toward the western end of (today’s) Cratsley Road.  Later that summer another son was born, Daniel, and in the course of time two more boys arrived: Doctor Willard (named after the man who assisted at the delivery: Dr. Willard Doolittle; they called the boy “Doc”) and John.

John was not yet ten when his father died.  The older boys worked the farm for their mother, until one by one they ventured afield, each taking up a trade.  Daniel built a roller mill south of Hemlock, then another in the center of village itself, and yet a third in Lakeville.  Peter was a shoemaker; neither he nor his brother Fred were men long-lived.  Stephen and Elias emigrated to Michigan.  Doc was a house carpenter and a farmer, grower of hops on his Canadice farm.  John Beam owned a hardware store in Hemlock, and Lewis was a blacksmith plying his trade in Solano County, California, until he returned home to Canadice in his early forties.

On July 8, 1888, at age fifty-four, Lewis married his much-younger cousin Alice Partridge, the daughter of Lewis and Jane (Ross) Partridge.  The wedding took place at her parents’ farm on (present-day) Luckenbach Hill Road.  The Ontario County Journal of July 13, 1888, carried notice of the wedding: “Canadice – On Sunday afternoon L. J. Beam and Alice L. Partridge of Canadice were united in marriage by Rev. J. L. Humphrey of Springwater, and it is probable that very few ceremonies performed in a similar way are on record. Mr. Beam, who is somewhat of an eccentric person, purchased a new carriage four years ago, but had not allowed a horse to be hitched to it. He bought it and kept it for this special occasion and insisted upon having the ceremony performed out of doors in front of the bride’s home, the bride and groom sitting in the buggy. Immediately after the marriage service, Mr. Beam and his bride drove to their elegant new home. Mr. Beam made a fortune in California some years ago.”

The wedding buggy was never used again.  It was kept in a place of honor in the barn, polished and repaired once a year on his anniversary, and displayed in the lawn for a day or two.

A well-known character in Honeoye, Lewis was small of stature, trim – surprising for a man who’d made his living at the forge.  He was a well-dressed man, with a neatly groomed Vandyke beard.  A dapper fellow, he was an accomplished violin player and an appreciator of this world’s “finer things.”  Mid-morning of every day but Sunday Lewis drove into town to get his mail riding in a little dog cart drawn by a sorrel mare.  Sundays saw him stay-at-home for he did not give credence nor thought to the hereafter.

Known far and wide for the beauty of its grounds and the elegance of its home, the Beams’ California Ranch was celebrated as well for its hospitality.  In 1907 the Beam Family Reunion was held here.  The following summer mention was made in the Livonia Gazette (July 18, 1908): “Lewis J. Beam of California Ranch on the west side of Honeoye Lake, had the pleasure of an afternoon visit from Miss Ethel Roosevelt [daughter of the sitting president Theodore Roosevelt] who came with a party on  horseback from Avon…The party was fascinated by the lakeside home of Mr. Beam and the beauty of the countryside surrounding it.”

It seems that Mrs. Herbert Wadsworth of Avon was hostess to a large party of out-of-state guests including Miss Roosevelt, a Mrs. Rice of Boston, Congressman Andrew Peters of Massachusetts, and three young Army officers from Washington. D. C.  The group were out for a day’s ramble over the country roads from Ashantee.  Coming along the west shore of Honeoye Lake, they espied a lovely well set in a most inviting grounds.  And so they stopped and asked for a drink of water.  They were greeted cordially and offered refreshments.  Later Mrs. Beam told her friends that Miss Roosevelt remarked upon the view of the lake and hillside that the Beams enjoyed from their veranda.

Lewis and Alice lived contentedly in their lakeside home until his death February 25, 1914; he was nearly eighty years old.  Alice sold the house and property two years later.  She lived more than thirty years a widow, dying November 24, 1949.  Both he and she are buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Honeoye.

The account of Lewis Beam’s trip to California is based on the memoir: “A Trip Across The Plains in the Spring of 1850, by James Abbey” (http//www.Joe.gov/resource/calbk); and quotations in this part of the narrative are taken from this work.