lawyer, politician, soldier, b. Montgomery County, Md. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. (B.A., 1827), and studied law in the East. About 1829 he moved to Wisconsin, settling in Green Bay where he was admitted to the bar and practiced law. In 1835 he was appointed receiver in the Green Bay land office. Within a year he acquired a fortune through land speculation and late in 1836 or early in 1837 he moved to Cooperstown, N.Y., where his home became the center of wealthy and literary society. His speculative fortune largely destroyed in the Panic of 1837, he returned to Wisconsin about 1840. After moving frequently, he settled in Marquette County and about 1847 in Taycheedah. A Democrat, he was a member of the constitutional conventions of 1846 and 1847-1848, and served as lieutenant governor of Wisconsin (1850-1852). During the Civil War he served as lieutenant colonel with the 18th Wisconsin Regiment (1861-1863). He was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, resigned his commission (Aug. 1863), and for the remainder of the war was in charge of an army prison camp in New York. After returning briefly to Wisconsin at the close of the war, he moved to Helena, Mont., where he was shot and killed in an argument. Dict. Amer. Biog.; W. A. Titus, Hist. of the Fox River Valley . . . (3 vols., Chicago, 1930); J. R. Berryman, ed., Bench and Bar of Wis. (2 vols., Chicago, 1898); WPA MS; Milwaukee Sentinel, Nov. 26, 1907; New York Times, Oct. 13, 1868.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Samuel Beall Biographical Sketch for details.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]