Henry Charlton Beck

Life and writing career

Beck was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania., He began his journalism career at the Camden Courier-Post, where he eventually became State Editor. All plots revolved around newspaper and newsroom settings.

While employed as a reporter at the Courier-Post in the early 1930s, he began to write about small southern New Jersey towns. Eventually he came to specialize in the state's rich folklore, criss-crossing the state and interviewing hundreds of its citizens about local legends and lore. In 1936, publisher E.P. Dutton collected these charming stories and published them under the title Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey. A January 1937 review in The New York Times explained: Mr. Beck, a Camden editor, set out one day to find a place whose name had long been merely laughed at—Ong’s Hat. He found the site of the settlement, and the last inhabitants, and the story behind the absurd name. And this so captured his imagination and stimulated his ambition that he went all over Southern New Jersey seeking other lost towns. He found so many that he had now brought out a book of thirty-seven chapters, each chapter dealing with a different community; some, indeed, with two or three.

While interviewing strangers about their towns, he said, "I learned many things. One of these was that those most reluctant to talk say loudly afterward that they were overlooked when I came around. Another was that others with things to say knew little for certain, but this in no way prevented sieges of volubility. Still others who seemed shy and, from appearances, lacking in what I sought, were revealed as among my best sources."

William Hugh Jansen, in a 1945 review of Beck's Jersey Genesis, offered a profile of Beck's approach to chronicling local lore: Not far removed from the Ain’t-Nature-Grand school of nonfiction ... is the these-are-the-people-unspoiled-by-the-world-outside school. And to that school, I fear, belong Mr. Beck and his latest book. And lest it be thought that I am facetious, Mr. Beck himself applies the terms “unspoiled by the world outside, entirely uncontaminated” to the finely-drawn old — and they are almost all old in years — men and women who people the banks of southern New Jersey’s Mullica River, the setting of his book. For all his attitude of the man of the world looking at the “natives,” Mr. Beck upholds the unpalatable thesis that these people have chosen the blessings of their pastoral life in the little river towns in preference to the humdrum monotony of the complicated metropolitan life. Mr. Beck says he originally intended a novel. In some ways, the published product reads like the notes for a novel. But the author says he surrendered the idea of a novel because of his fear that nothing except the setting would be believed. According to him, “The truth is ... almost too good. ... All these people are real. These villages are as I know them and as these people know them.” A 1967 posthumous biographical profile of Beck noted, "His knowledge of the state made him the logical choice to be editor of Rutgers University Press for a brief tenure (1945–1947). His emphasis on folklore led to the founding [in 1945] of the New Jersey Folklore Society, with Henry C. Beck the only possible choice for president." He held this position until the group disbanded in 1950.

Despite his writing's focus on the past, Beck was keen to link events long ago with the present to demonstrate that across centuries, much human behavior does not change. In his story "Fairfield, Fairton, New England Crossroads," from Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, Beck described an 18th-century colonial-era clash between an existing community and new arrivals. The sudden mingling of these people, those who had been Puritans seeking a new kind of freedom, and West Jersey colonists, resenting in some measure the intrusion, provided an atmosphere charged with all sorts of lightning. Each faction sought favor with the Royal Governors to its own advantage. Judges, justices and jurors were chosen through backstage maneuvering. Devices and trickery, often looked upon as the modern legacy of politics, were employed in all forms during those early days. Illegal votes were counted. Legal ballots were thrown out if they weren't on the chosen side. Clamor of riots often disturbed the villages and their polling places.

Career as a cleric

In the late 1940s he served as director of field and publicity for the Diocese of New Jersey and as editor of the diocese's newsletter, Church News. He is buried at Harleigh Cemetery, Camden, New Jersey.

Books Fiction Murder in the Newsroom (E.P. Dutton, 1931) Cakes to Kill (E.P. Dutton, 1932) Society Editor: A Newspaper Mystery Story (E.P. Dutton, 1932) Murder in the Newspaper Guild (E.P. Dutton, 1937) Fare to Midlands: Forgotten Towns of Central New Jersey (E.P. Dutton, 1939) The Roads of Home: Lanes and Legends of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press, 1956) A New Jersey Reader (various authors anthology, foreword by Beck; Rutgers University Press, 1961) The Jersey Midlands (retitled reprint of Fare to Midlands: Forgotten Towns of Central New Jersey; Rutgers University Press, 1962) Tales and Towns of Northern New Jersey (Rutgers University Press, 1964)

Cartoon books (with W. Bolte Gibson)

Fun in Church (Calvary Church/Trenton Printing Co., 1952) More Fun in Church (Calvary Church/Trenton Printing Co., 1953) Lapses in the Apses (Calvary Church/Trenton Printing Co., 1954) Clerical Errors (Gilbert Press, 1955) No Jack in the Pulpit (Trenton Printing Co., 1956) Dearly Beloved Brethren (Trenton Printing Co., 1958) Excess Prophets (Trenton Publishing Co., 1960) There’s One in Every Parish (Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1966)