If you secretly have a deeply-felt (but timey-wimily paradoxical) desire to meet Thomas Beale, then you may well be thrilled to find out that the George C. Marshall Museum in Lexington, VA will be hosting “a special, one-time only presentation” on 1pm on Saturday 20th June 2015 that features “Thomas Jefferson Beale” himself. Or rather, slightly less confusingly, Bedford resident Tim Flagg who “has portrayed Beale on stage and in several film productions aired on BBC, the Travel Channel and PBS”.

Will Flagg/Beale reveal the location of his treasure? I’ll let you into a secret here: because Ward’s pamphlet only ever referred to the man as “Thomas Beale” (and never as “Thomas Jefferson Beale”), anywhere that you see ‘Jefferson’ inserted into the name (was it the Innises who first did this?) is likely to be just a tad unreliable. So perhaps you won’t be going back to that Virginian mini-digger hire company for their “Weekend Beale Deale” any time soon. 😐

In other Beale news, mystery writer Jenny Kile recently visited Buford’s (which I always presumed had long been bulldozed by the passage of time), and found that Buford’s original chimney was still standing. (Though it’s probably not a good idea to breathe in too deeply in the page’s comments section, secondary theory inhalation can have nasty long-term health consequences).

John Piper’s Beale Decryption

But I also recently found that Reverend John L. Piper claims to have “found the key to the Beale Cipher” back in January 2014, and “is working to complete the two decoded pages to a final draft.”

Piper’s blog posts are marked as being for “members only”, so do not currently appear on the web. Yet, oddly enough, two of Piper’s comments on those pages are publicly visible.

One comment links to a New Orleans public library probate listing for “Beale, Thomas, Estate of Beale, Thomas, absent heirs of” dating to 1824. The same listing has related probate claims made by “Henderson, C.L.” (1825); “Canterbury, P.” (1824); “Oakey, Samuel W.” (1824); and “Beale, Thomas, Jr., Estate of” (1824), which I would expect Piper has looked through too.

In the other comment, he quotes from a Cowand genealogy webpage which describes how a family member (Jesse Cowand) was “a Corporal in Captain Thomas Beal’s Company of Orleans Riflemen”: and that’s a whole different story I haven’t previously covered here…

Captain Thomas Beale

There’s quite a lot written about Captain Thomas Beale’s (somewhat ad hoc) Company – which numbered 62 or 78 men, depending on which source you believe – and the part it played in the Battle of New Orleans. It was composed of “distinguished New Orleans businessmen and civic leaders, most of them from Virginia. Each member wore a blue hunting shirt, black slouch hat and carried a Kentucky longrifle.”

This Thomas Beale was, according to “Fifty Years In Both Hemispheres” (1854) by Vincent Nolte, “a man of advanced years, a native of Virginia, and then residing in New Orleans, where he had some reputation as a fine marksman.” (p.206) Along with almost bar one of his company, Captain Beale survived the famous 23rd December night-battle (though by running away and hiding, according to the none-too-fond Nolte).

Confusingly, there was both a Thomas Beale Senior (who died in September 1820 in New Orleans) and a Thomas Beale Junior (who died in October 1823, also in New Orleans). The existence of 1824 probate documents (as noted by Piper) seems to imply that Beale Junior died without a will.

Beale treasure hunter forum members have raked through these archival coals many time since. For example, ‘ECS’ noted as recently as Jan 2015 that:

* Thomas Beale [Senior] shot Major James Risqué in a duel that concerned Risqué niece,Julia Hancock. (For a time, Julia stayed with her cousin, George Hancock Kennerly in St Louis. Kennerly also fought in the War of 1812- Julia, later married William Clark of Lewis & Clark).
* Thomas Beale [Senior] fled Virginia after this duel.
* Thomas Beale [Senior] had an affair with Chloe Delancy of Botetourt county and fathered Thomas Beale Jr.
* Thomas Beale [Senior] went to New Orleans, married Celeste Boucher de Grandpre, had an uptown plantation, the Planters & Merchants Hotel, and gambling and sporting houses.
* During the Battle of New Orleans, Thomas Beale [Senior] led a militia, Beale’s Rifles, composed of New Orleans merchants and lawyers.
* Thomas Beale [Senior] died Sept 1820 in New Orleans, and in his will, bequeathed everything to Thomas Beale Jr, which caused several claims against the Beale Estate to occur,including claims by Celeste Beale (widow) who was represented by John Randolph Grymes, Samuel W Oakley, P Canterbury, C L Henderson.
* Thomas Beale Jr died at the Planters & Merchants Hotel, Oct 1823, which brought Chloe Delancy to New Orleans to make her claim against the Beale Estate./em>

Which Beale Is Which?

Let’s try to get some clarity here. 🙂

I think we can identify Thomas Beale Senior as having been Captain Thomas Beale, who Nolte identified as “a man of advanced years”.

And we can also surely eliminate Thomas Beale Senior as a possible author of Beale Paper ‘B2’, because the cipher plaintext states clearly that the second load of treasure was deposited in “Dec[ember] Eighteen Twenty-One”, more than a year after Beale Senior died.

All of which leaves Thomas Beale Jr., who by 1821 was not ‘Junior’ any more but just plain “Thomas Beale”: might he be the same “Thomas Beale” who Ward asserted left the ciphered note?

On the plus side, both the father’s and the son’s intimate connection with Virginia seems intriguingly sensible: and the fact that Thomas Beale Junior died in October 1823 (somewhat unexpectedly, it would seem?) seems consistent with the dates in the ciphertext.

Moreover, Emilee Hines, in her (2001) “It Happened In Virginia: Remarkable Events That Shaped History“, says that though fathered by Thomas Beale Senior, Thomas Beale Junior was actually born in West Virginia and raised there by his mother Chloe Delancy: and that “when he went to New Orleans to locate his father, his father was dying and his stepmother wanted nothing to do with this Virginia son.” Geographically, Botetourt County (where Chloe Delancy lived) is immediately adjacent to Bedford County – the Blue Ridge mountains run through them both.

On the minus side, however, we know next to nothing else about Thomas Beale Junior. So right now it’s an intriguing possibility – and very arguably the best one we have – but that’s as far as it all goes for the moment.

Perhaps there is much more in the archives to be found out about Thomas Beale Junior: after all, you couldn’t really get much more specific than naming a person, his parents, and his places of birth and death, could you?

11 thoughts on “The two Thomas Beales…

  1. Michael Brooks on May 24, 2015 at 11:37 am said:

    A minor point, but there was no West Virginia in the 1820s. It was all just Virginia.

  2. Michael: text fixed. 🙂

  3. bdid1dr on May 24, 2015 at 3:04 pm said:

    Nick, I’ll do a little research on the “Battle of New Orleans” history. I have a vague recall that the date was 1819, but haven’t done a lot of research pre-Civil War and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Glass-plate photographers were very active in photographing the hundreds of dead soldiers — many of whom had their boots stolen. Who knows: perhaps the Beale Treasure got re-buried on one battle-field or another.
    beady

  4. bdid1dr on May 26, 2015 at 7:06 pm said:

    Nick, while researching various ancestors (my husband’s and mine) I discovered that Boutetort ‘County’ actually encompassed three states. Huge! I’ll be going back to my various family lines to double check my memory;
    which seems to remember older-in-the-distance of some thirty family histories for my husband; and three for my father’s parents, and nothing for my mother, who was basically left on the doorstep of an orphanage. I was still able to discover that her mother was an escapee from the oyster bed community near the current-day “Kennedy compound”.

  5. bdid1dr on May 29, 2015 at 2:52 pm said:

    I’ll be backtracking, also, on the history of the “Louisiana Purchase” — which may account for the scrambled land/real estate issues (from Nova Scotia south to Florida and the Carolinas). Who knows, we may all end up looking at the “Vinland Map”. 🙂

  6. Justintime on June 26, 2015 at 12:16 am said:

    The Beale mystery is much older than the predated letters in the box, time must lapse before the box is opened, so that,” people involved would no longer be numbered with the living… hint- it was Sr…thanks

  7. Celeste Beale wife of Captain Thomas Beale had her last child in 1824-5. There were a few other Thomas Beale’s in the area of New Orleans at the time of 1820. A Private Thomas Beale was in the Battle of New Orleans as well.
    # 401 on this website http://genealogytrails.com/lou/eastbatonrouge/1860census4.html

    You will see Celeste Beale wife of Captain Thomas Beale and the last daughter of Cap Beale
    Celeste J Beale

  8. Justintime on July 1, 2015 at 3:00 pm said:

    Time must lapse, by the the time you read this letter, none of us,are to be numbered with the living. The letters were pre written , the box premade, the design of the plan, that the letters clearly state. 1820 time period, is not the time frame of the treasure being buried. There was a treasure roundup, see these legacies that the Beale letters speak of, was a rediscovery of treasure caches that was hidden along tome,ago. The goal was to round up all the caches and locate them to one vault, starting in late 1700s, when Bedford was,less populated. People was the delima, and what caused the big after plan to happen, anywhey, the letters and testimonials in the BP are separate, for the treasure cannot be lost forever, Ward saved the story, a savior of the quest…goodluck

  9. Looking for an agency qualified to certify my decoding of the Beale Ciphers. Professor Bauer suggested the NSA. But it would seem they have more interesting things to do with there time. The Smithsonian dose not have someone who works with 200 year old Ciphers, I was told . The University of Virginia seems to think I am authoring a book. A book may be the way go. Suggestions are welcome!

  10. Just reached the end on of my list for the BEALE name. I will now be starting on my BEAL list now. The only name left on the BEALE list is Captain Thomas Beale, but I have not found his grave in New Orleans as of yet to be able to remove him from the list of possibilities. I have the transfer paperwork for his assets to Jr 11 pages of them, but it is always possible that the Captain could have faked his death at the time of the yellow fever out breaks of the day.

  11. Rev. Piper on March 12, 2021 at 3:54 pm said:

    After some time of research into the Beale’s of the New Orleans area, I have come to the conclusion of three persons with the name Thomas Beale. We have the 1. Thomas Beale Register of Will’s, 2. Captain Thomas Beale, and his son 3. Thomas Beale jr. It would seem the Thomas Beale Register of Will’s died in Sep 1820 with Yellow Fever.

    Thomas Beale jr died on Oct 23rd, 1823. His estate after many lawsuits reverted back to Thomas Beale Sr. The sale of all property by Sr to Jr was not legal due to Jr being born out of wedlock. And was labeled a false sale by the courts. In 1825 Jefferson Parish Louisiana was created. March 24, 1829, Celeste Beale filed for Natural Tutrix of the children.

    Captain Thomas Beale Sr has a certificate of death by his son’s hand James William Beale that claims he died September 1818 at age 45. This is a problem for the transfer of property in April 1819 to Jr. And the fact that he and his sister would not have been conceived. Captains Beale’s youngest Daughter was born in May 1821.

    So you see I still have Captain Beale left on my possibility list. In 1821 in a book about Gen Jackson. Captain Beale’s name was spelled, Beal. In Franklin Mo, there are letters held for Thomas Beall. The E in Beale has been mistaken for an L. Military mail would have the rank of the person after the name. So Lieutenant Thomas J Beall of the Army would not be an issue.

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