John Henry Beacom was born on January 1, 1857 in Wellsville, Ohio. Little is known about his parents or his early life along the river in eastern Ohio. He attended Oberlin College, for three years (1875-78) before leaving as a sophomore to accept an appointment at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Upon graduation in 1882, he was assigned as a second lieutenant to the Eighteenth Infantry and a year later to the Third Infantry. During 1889-90, he received instruction at the Willet’s Point torpedo school. His subsequent postings were varied and distinguished. These include commanding an Indian company in his regiment in the Dakotas and Minnesota, accompanying a British expedition to the Sudan, and serving as a tactical officer at West Point.

In 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and soon thereafter became adjutant-general to the Seventh Army Corps. The following year, as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Department of Santiago, he organized the Forty-Second Volunteer Infantry at Fort Niagara and took it to the Philippines. He was military attache to the American Embassy in London from October 1903 to January 1907, serving as an inspector-general until November 1915 when he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was assigned first to the Fourth and then the Sixth Infantry. While on active duty, Colonel Beacom died suddenly in Mexico, September 17, 1916. Commenting on his “deplorable loss” to the military General George Pershing wrote, “[He] was one of the ablest officers in our army. His services…have been of the highest order and second to none.”

In 1915, shortly before assuming his final post, Colonel Beacom met with his brother, Madison W. Beacom (AB, Oberlin, 1879), who told him of his decision to leave the bulk of his estate to Oberlin College. A few months before his death the following year, Colonel Beacom prepared his own will bequeathing most of his estate to Oberlin to establish the John H. and Madison W. Beacom Scholarship. This fund has supported hundreds of Oberlin graduates for general scholarship purposes.

Colonel Beacom’s papers in the Oberlin College Archives (1877-1917) consist of some 38 letters written by prominent persons, 14 documents captured from Philippino insurrectionists (1899-1902), and Beacom’s commissions and appointments. There is at least one letter from each of the following: Senator Calvin S. Brice, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Julian Byng, Lord Charnwood, General J.D.P. French, Francis V. Greene, George Bird Grinnell, R.B. Haldane, Sir Ian Hamilton, John Hay, General Henry W. Lawton, William McKinley, General George Pershing, Theodore Roosevelt, Fred Sleigh (Robert), Francis Hopkinson Smith, Mrs. Henry M. Stanley, Melville E. Stone, Alfred Turner, Sir Francis Vincent, Spenser Wilkinson, Owen Wister, and General Leonard Wood. A number of these are perfunctory.

John Henry Beacom Papers (RG 30/82)

Obituary, New York Evening Post, September 23, 1916

Obituary, Oberlin Alumni Magazine, December, 1916

“The Story of the Beacom Brothers,” Oberlin Alumni Magazine, April, 1920