New-York tribune., 1921-06-03
hin of House
OF Beresford
Dies a Pauper'
Body of Once Wealthy Irish.
man Saved From Burial
in Potter's Field bv
Justice John McCrate
Made Fortune in Iron
Money Gone, He Was Found
Starving in Doorway; Be-
lieved Age Was Eighty

lieved Age Was Eighty
The body OF Charles Beresford, q
! relative of the late Admiral Lord
Charles William de la Poer Beresford,
was saved yesterday by one Of his old
friends from burial in potter's field
( Through the intervention of Supreme
/ Court Justice John McCrate, of Brook
lyn, funeral services will be held to-
morrow at 122 Messerole Avenue,
Brooklyn, for the unlucky Irishman.
Had not Justice McCrate, who prob
ably knew the old man as we'll as he
permitted any one to know him since
misfortune overlook him, noticed a
paragraph in newspaper yesterday
telling of his death in Metropolitan
! Hospital, Blackwell's Island, Charles
Beresford's body would fill pauper's
grave to-day.
Avoided Friends
| Beresford himself had taken no steps
to prevent it. Since his final stroke OF
i'll luck, which cost him $4,000, he had
avoided the haunts and friends that
knew him in his prosperous days as an
| iron manufacturer. Several times he
/ had been in city institutions in the
f; last year, each time registered simply
as Charles Beresford. sixty-seven years
old, no home.
Justice McCrate said yesterday that
misfortune doubtless had blurred the
once keen mind of the vagrant Beres-
! ford and that he had undergone insti-
tutional catechisms in. q purely me-
that came into his head. His real age,
| Justice McCrate said, probably was
nearer eighty years than sixty-seven.
! Like the late Admiral Lord Beres-
| ford, his relative took to the sea as
| boy Lord Charles's acceptance as a
midshipman, however, was somewhat Of
relief to his family, worried by his
{, boyish escapades, while Charles Beres-
! ford ran away from home to ship as
cabin boy without his family's knowl-
edge.
! Both. however, found themselves at
approximately the same time, though
/ in vastly different fields Of endeavor.
When the future admiral, then COM
mander of the gunboat Condor, was
! silencing the batteries at Alexandria
the other wild Beresford was estab-
fishing himself as an iron manufac-
turer near Albany, after years of more
or less profitable adventuring in Aus
/ tralia.
! Made a Fortune
| The foundry made him fortune, and
| twenty-five years ago. or more, he re-
| tired from business in comfortable cir
! L. $,,~1 f.
as ill-omened as the banshee of Cur
raghmore itself, however, seemed to
| stalk Charles Beresford. His fortune
vanished, just how his friends never
knew, and he took up one unsuccess-
| full venture after another, losing lit
| tie ground with each.
| A wear ago it seemed that his luck
had changed. He had managed to
scrape together the money to take him
to the South Of Ireland, where property
i was being held subject to his claim,
and after some litigation. proved his
! title. The amount he realized was SAID
to be about $4,000.
II was more money than he had pos
sessed for years and he was among
the friends of his boyhood. who insist
| cd that their homes were his. Not
for long time had the future seemed
so bright. During political disorders,
! however. looters broke into the mouse
where he was staying and stole all his
/ funds except guinea and few shill-
;ngs more which he had in his pocket.
The next morning he learned that
| the GREAT house where he was guest
was was not tbs only one to suffer from
| the marauders. They had visited a
cottare near by and stolen from s,
widow the money she had received
| the day before for her four pigs;
| Charles Beresford visited her and
emptied his pocket on the table.
Found Starving
| "Take it," he said. "It will be Of
more use to you than to me-" !,
/ He had had enough Of Ireland and
returned to the United States as soon
as he could borrow the passage money.
His luck did not change when he
| crossed the water, however. Not long
sitter his arrival here he was picked
/ up starving in q hallway In Jamaica,
! Queens, into which he had craw!ed TO
| die. His purpose was frustrated. An
!, ambulance took him to Kings County
Hosuital, and, after few weeks care,
l he was discharged, feeble, broken
/ old man. who was unable even to die
when he wished to. Last November he
was taken to Bellevue Hospital Tor
I treatment for an affiiction of the eye.
| He was transferred to the Metropoli-
| tan Hospital, where he remained until
/ his death, without seeking to commune
cate with any of his friends.