Edward Bech

Edward Bech (May 4, 1812 – July 9, 1873) was a Danish diplomat and businessman who lived in the United States. His former home is now part of Marist College.

Edward Bech
Danish Consul in New York
In office
1838–1858
Personal details
Born
Edvard Bech

(1812-05-04)May 4, 1812
Copenhagen, Denmark
DiedJuly 9, 1873(1873-07-09) (aged 61)
Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg
Spouse
Elizabeth Hossack Braëm
(m. 1846)
RelationsAugust Willads Bech (brother)
Children4, including Sophie
Parent(s)Ellen Sophie Magdalene Meyer Bech
Jørgen Peter Bech
Alma materUniversity of Copenhagen

Early life

Nybrogade in Copenhagen: Bech's birthplace is the building to the right and the one to the left is where he was raised from 1816 (now No. 24).

Bech was born on May 4, 1812, in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was a son of Ellen Sophie Magdalene (née Meyer) Bech (1784–1846) and Jørgen Peter Bech (1782–1846), a prosperous Copenhagen merchant and friend of Crown Prince Frederick who served as Danish Consul General in New York. His younger brother was August Willads Bech, who owned Valbygård at Slagelse and Borupgård at Borup. The family lived at Nybrogade 24 (until 1816 in a now demolished building at Np. 22) and had an estate south of Copenhagen, near the border in territory that was later absorbed into Germany.[1]

Bech studied in Berlin and attended the University of Copenhagen before going to Lübeck for a commercial education.[1]

Career

Bech immigrated to New York in 1838 becoming the Danish Consul in New York. He remained in that position for the next twenty years and was knighted by King Frederick VII on October 5, 1854.[1]

In 1842, after working for others, Bech formed his own firm which traded in wine (where he partnered with Michael Lienau) and iron (where he worked with Joseph Tuckerman). Bech and Tuckerman invested in several joint ventures in the mid-Hudson River area. After moving to Poughkeepsie, New York in 1851, he became involved with the pig iron trade and started the Tuckerman and Bech Iron Company, a successful riverfront business that prospered with the advent of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Railroad. Bech also became a partner in the Cunard Steamship Company.[1]

After his father died in 1853, Edward inherited money which he used to invest in the Poughkeepsie Iron Company, eventually buying out Tuckerman's share in the business and purchasing another site further along the Hudson River where he could produce pig iron for sale to other foundries. At the time of his death he was President of the Port Henry Iron Company of Lake Champlain and senior member of the firm of Edward Bech & Co of New York City..[2]

Personal life

On September 11, 1846, Bech was married to Canadian born Charlotte Elizabeth McCarty (née Hossack) Braëm (1808–1900), the widow of Rudolph Gothard Sighart Braëm. From her first marriage, she was the mother of two sons, the Danish consul Henri Monad Braem (who married Emily Maria Forbes Bridge, a sister-in-law of Stuyvesant LeRoy).[3][4] Together, they were the parents of two daughters and two sons:

Bech died from tuberculosis on July 9, 1873, in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. His body was returned to the United States and he was buried at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery in a mausoleum was designed by Detlef Lienau in 1862 for Bech's eldest son Edward who died young.[6] At his death, Bech left an estate valued at $1,837,342 of which one third went to his son George, and 1/9 each to his daughters. The remaining third was left in trust for his widow from which she received about $25,000 per year. His son George continued managing his businesses until his death in 1890.[7]

Hudson River estate

One of the buildings designed by Detlef Lienau for Bech at Rosenlund

In 1851, Bech moved his family to Poughkeepsie where they lived at 57 Market Street, across from the Court House, for nearly ten years. In 1863, the Bechs purchased a 65-acre country estate in Poughkeepsie, New York known as Hickory Grove from David Ely Bartlett, who had operated a school for the deaf on the property which formerly was the farm of Abraham Van Anden. Between 1863 and 1868, he pieced together five parcels, which the Bech's renamed Rosenlund.[1] He hired Danish architect Detlef Lienau, the younger brother of his wine trading partner, Michael Lienau, who designed a gatehouse, gardener's cottage, carriage house, and a main house in the Gothic Revival style, but died before the main house was built.[10]

The Rosenlund estate passed to his widow Elizabeth and, after her death in May 1900, it was willed to her son Henri, who died in Vienna in February 1900, therefore, it passed to her granddaughter, Pauline Elizabeth (née Braem) von Nauendorf (1871–1916). After the Braem estate was settled in 1905, Pauline sold Rosenlund to Brother Louis Zephiriny of the Marist Brothers in 1908, which increased their property to 150 acres (0.61 km2) and eventually became Marist College.[11]

References

  1. Foy, Richard (15 November 2020). "Edwin Bech Estate". Marist Archives & Special Collections Publication. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  2. "Bech parcel". academic2.marist.edu. Marist College. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  3. "MARRIED". The New York Times. 19 January 1862. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  4. Miller, Tom (13 May 2019). "The Lost Henri M. Braem House - 15 East 36th Street". Daytonian in Manhattan. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  5. "Linden, Karl Graf von - Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Deutsche Biographie. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  6. Buechele, Virginia A. (September 22, 2007). "EDVARD (Edward) BECH 1812-1873 POUGHKEEPSIE IRONMASTER" (PDF). Friends of Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  7. "OBITUARY". The New York Times. 18 April 1890. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  8. "WEDDING IN BALTIMORE.; A. BECH, OF NEW-YORK. BALTIMORE, Md, Feb. 16.--An event of". The New York Times. 17 February 1887. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  9. Hendricks, William (26 February 1956). "Mrs. Babcock's Hospital For Poor a Near Reality". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 21. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  10. "The Bech Estate". www.fieldtripper.com. Field Trip. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  11. "Chronology of Marist College: 1858–1969". James A. Cannavino Library, Archives & Special Collections.
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