By Gary Berton
The Beacon, a freethought journal by Gilbert Vale (1788-1866) was a pivotal, influential social and political publication in the mid-19th century, publishing 587 issues from 1836 to 1851.
In the mid-19th century, The Beacon helped to forge a movement against the age’s undemocratic, religious, anti-labor, anti-women cultural and political forces. The Beacon prepared society for the Progressive Era. The Beacon further played a central role in restoring the reputation and legacy of Thomas Paine.
A weekly print publication for its first 10 years, The Beacon voiced ideas from Paine and others from The Enlightenment, contributing freethinking to public conversations, as did the transcendentalists. The Beacon then published quarterly before going monthly for two years, closing as a bi-weekly called Sunday Beacon.
In our era, 170 years after the last Vale edition, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association in 2021 relaunched The Beacon as its official member publication. Entering our third year as a bi-monthly, counting Vale’s 14 volumes, this edition is Vol. 17, No 1.
Gilbert Vale, “Citizen of the World,” made another crucial contribution to the Paine legacy — his vision for the Paine farmland in New Rochelle, a former Tory farm that New York State gifted to Paine in 1784.
At the farm entrance, Vale in 1839 erected the Paine Monument, the nation’s first monument for any Founder of the Republic. The monument stands at North Avenue and Paine Avenue (once the main farm road). It’s 30 feet north of Paine’s long-empty gravesite, now under widened North Ave.
An 1850 report says Vale,“legally holds title in the Paine farm but that the management of the farm is in the hands of the subscribers and that the cemetery is now being laid out.” Also,“subscribers to the Paine farm are now an incorporated body.” The three planned projects were a cemetery, industrial school and college, plus a rural retreat. None of the projects were realized, because Vale’s health began to weaken, and the following year he retired.