Daniel Wesley Beal

     Daniel Wesley Beal was born on 10 March 1865 at Bucyrus Township, Crawford County, Ohio. He was the son of Benjamin Beal and Maria Stoltz. Daniel Wesley Beal married, at age 23, Eva Minerva Beall, daughter of James Perry Beall and Mary Ann Keckler, on Thursday, 4 October 1888.
     History of Crawford County, Ohio, 1912, pp. 914-917

WESLEY BEAL, a substantial citizen of Crawford county, O., proprietor of a productive farm near Bucyrus, is president of the Crawford County Mutual Fire Insurance Company and is active in all public spirited movements in his section. He belongs to a very highly regarded old family of this part of Ohio, one that has many representatives. He was born in Bucyrus township, Crawford county, March 10, 1865, and is a son of Benjamin and a grandson of John George, and a great-grandson of John George Beal. Benjamin Beal was born in Lycoming county, Pa., in 1840, and in 1843 accompanied the family to Crawford county, where he was reared and attended school to such good purpose that he was a satisfactory teacher in early manhood, afterward becoming a farmer and when he moved to Bucyrus, in 1889, in order to give his children better educational opportunities, he was the owner of two valuable farms. Here he shortly afterward became secretary of the Crawford County Mutual Fire Insurance company, an office he retained until the close of his life, in 1898. He was a Republican in politics and was interested in the election of suitable men to office but he never countenanced irregular methods in that connection nor in any other. He was known as an honest and upright man. He was one of the organizers of Bucyrus Grange, No. 705, and was master and secretary for some years, and was identified also with the Masons and the order of the Eastern Star. In early life he was a member of the German Methodist church but at the time of death and some years before, he was united with the English Methodist Episcopal church and was an official. He was also secretary of the Crawford County Agricultural Society for many years. Benjamin Beal was married first in Bucyrus township, Crawford county, to Mary Stoltz, who was born in Whetstone township, her people having come to this county from Pennsylvania three generations ago. She died in 1868 and in 1870 Mr. Beal was married to Lydia A. Rexroth, who died in 1889, the mother of eight children, the following of whom survive: Benjamin, Jr., who lives in Bucyrus township and has three children; Mary A., a graduate of the Delaware University, who is the wife of Rev. Thomas Housel, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church at Delaware and has two children; Edward G., a graduate of the law department in the Delaware University, who is cashier of the First National Bank at Bucyrus, and who married Rachel Monnett; William D., who has but recently returned from a missionary labor of seven years in India, being a Methodist minister and who married a daughter of Bishop Robinson, a missionary of the Methodist church in India; and Bertha E., who is a graduate of the Delaware University and later a teacher in the Bucyrus High School. To the first marriage of Mr. Beal three, children were born: Albert, Wesley and Emma. The eldest son died in 1908. He was a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware and then spent four years in the Boston Theological Seminary and subsequently served the Methodist Episcopal church as a minister for eight years in Massachusetts and then was transferred to Ohio and continued in his religious work until his death. He married Mary McCully, who survives and resides with her father at Crestline, and has one daughter, Beatrice. Emma, the only daughter, is the wife of Charles E. Ensminger and they live on the old Beal homestead. Their children are Gertrude, Arthur and Edgar. Wesley Beal, after completing his education, turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. In 1903 he purchased one of the Beal farms and since then has carried on farming and stock raising. For a number of years he has been a director of the Crawford County Mutual Fire Insurance company and since 1910 has been its president. He is one of the influential Republicans of the county and is a man of high standing in business and politics as well as personally. In 1888 Mr. Beal was married in Bucyrus township to Miss Eva Beall, born in 1868, a daughter of James P. and Mary A. (Keckler) Beall, natives of Harrison County, O. They came to Crawford county some 50 years ago and settled in Bucyrus township, where he became a man of consequence. He died in 1904 and was survived by his widow until 1911. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Of their nine children, two died in infancy, seven grew to maturity and five are yet living. To Mr. and Mrs. Beal the following children have been born: Ruth M., Dorsey A., E. Naomi and James B. The family as a unit, belongs to the Methodist Episcopal church.