Thomas Dykes Beasley was born at Woodbury, Cambridgeshire, England, June 23, 1850, and was educated at the Grantham grammar school, in Lincolnshire. In 1868, with two sisters, he came to California, crossing the Isthmus of Panama shortly after the completion of the railroad, and arriving in San Francisco just in time to be impressed by the big earthquake whih occurred in the spring of that year, but which he, viewing it as "the custom of the country," accepted as a matter of course.
His first experiences were on a sheep ranch at Jolon, Monterey county, owned by his father, to join whom, he and his sisters had left the old country. His father being anxious to make a lawyer of him, at the end of a year, he came to San Francisco and studied faithfully in a lawyer's office, doing office drudgery the while, for two years, when arriving at the conclusion that the law was the profession for which he was the least suited, he abandoned Blackstone and Kent. After various experiences which included acting as tutor to the three sons of Mr. Edward Taylor of San Mateo, for many years and at the time of his death cashier of the Pacific Mail Company, he took up a timber claim in the heart of the Santa Cruz mountains, situated on the divide between Bear creek and the San Lorenzo river, becoming at the same time a citizen of the United States.
Here he lived the life of a backwoodsman for seven or eight years, in a climate unsurpassed the world over for invigorating qualities, with the result that a somewhat weak constitution and slender physique, were toughened and rendered fit to cope with life's struggles. By the advice of friends he was induced to take a step, since much regretted, of abandoning a life which, but for occasional loneliness, he much enjoyed and, returning to San Francisco, became in 1881 a draughtsman in the office of the United States surveyor general. The coming into power of the democrats under Cleveland led to the speedy decapitation of himself with many others in the office. After an interval of a few weeks spent in roaming the country afoot he was employed by the Coronado Beach Company, among other things making the plat of the town of Coronado. This work led to making the official map of San Diego county, followed by that of San Bernardino county.
Becoming interested in literary work, in partnership with F. E. A. Kimball he founded in San Diego, and for four years edited a weekly illustrated journal, The Seaport News. The town, however, at this time, just after the collapse of the "boom," was little short of moribund. Greatly to his disappointment he was forced to abandon the enterprise and accepted the editorship of a new evening daily, The Tribune, still in existence. Being unable to accept corporation dictatorship, after a six months' experience, he resigned the editorship and though it was twice offered him at intervals of time with the positive assurance he would be given a free hand, he abandoned journalism for good having found by bitter experience the temptations that beset a man who tries to do his duty by the people, his conscience and his employers.
Having by these ventures lost all the money he had accumulated by many years' hard work, he once more became a wanderer, spending a year in the Hawaiian islands just after annexation. While there he made what is now the official map of the island of Oahu. Finding that the languid climate was sapping his strength, he abandoned excellent opportunities and returned to California, vowing mentally he never again would forsake "God's country."
Gradually he became absorbed in the drama, having written while in San Diego, in collaboration with a friend, a little Chinese tragedy, "The Golden Flower," afterwards successfully produced in Albany, New York, Miss Miriam Nesbit playing the heroine. Some years ago it was produced by the Century Club of San Francisco to a fashionable audience of ladies only, all the parts being played by members of the club. It has also been produced by the Larchmont Club, New York.
About this time, he wrote the libretto of a musical comedy, "The Ahkoond of Swat," for Gerard Barton, a well known composer, at that time organist of St. Stephen's Church, San Francisco, and later an organist of the Episcopal Cathedral, Honolulu, and professor of music at the Oahu College. This musical comedy under Mr. Barton's direction was produced in Honolulu with great success, the parts being taken by the leading society people of that city.
The premature death of Gerard Barton--a cousin by the way, of Fitzgerald, who wrote the beautiful translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam--a year later at Toronto, Canada, was a great blow to Mr. Beasley; for apart for his friendship for a man beloved by all who knew him, Mr. Barton was, when carried off by a sudden attack of pneumonia, arranging for a professional production of "The Ahkoond of Swat" at Toronto.
Mr. Beasley had by this time reentered the service of Uncle Sam in his former capacity of draughtsman in the office of the United States surveyor general, where he is, in fact, today employed. During the past ten years he has worked steadily during spare hours on literary subjects, having among other things written two librettos of comic operas, to one of which, the music has been recently written by a composer of great professional experience. An inherent love of nature and an out-door life led to tramping as his chief form of exercise, amusement and study of human nature. A little volume, "A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country," recently published by Paul Elder & Company, San Francisco, which is meeting with favor both from the press and the public, was a natural outgrowth of his love for "hiking" and the "hard highway."
Shortly after the big fire Mr. Beasley was married to Miss Margaret Isabella McKellar, who was born in New Zealand, but came as a child, with her parents and brothers and sisters, to the United States. Mr. McKellar made his home in New Mexico, going into sheep-raising on a large scale. His surviving sons and daughters still reside in that state. Mr. Beasley's father died in England many years ago. His sisters are living in Berkeley, the elder, now the wife of Charles W. Jackson, has a beautiful home at Claremont Court; with her, his younger sister, Mrs. Dora Amsden, well known as the author of two books on Japanese art, is now residing. His own home is in Alameda, where he had resided for years previous to his marriage. There are also two sisters in England whom he has not seen for nearly half a century, but the fates permitting, he still hopes to at least bid "hail and farewell."
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1914
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 7/01/2008, Pages 383-385
Alameda County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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