Charles D. Beckwith (c. 1832/1833 – July 13, 1891) was an early frontier photographer who operated studios in California, Utah and Idaho during the late nineteenth century.
He boarded a ship, the Areatus, in Boston and sailed as a passenger around Cape Horn and arrived in San Francisco in September 1849.
In June 1859, he returned to Yreka where he reopened his gallery, offering to produce portraits as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and melainotypes, along with "all the latest style of pictures.
"[2] With the outbreak of the American Civil War, the governor of California was called upon to raise volunteer regiments to fight back east and to guard the Overland Trail.
[4] Concerned about increasing depredations along the immigrant trails through the west, several regiments of California Volunteers were assigned to Colonel Patrick Edward Connor and sent to Utah Territory despite protests about not being used to fight the Confederate Army.
Beckwith was with the column that departed Camp Alert in July 1862, reaching Fort Churchill, Nevada Territory, the following month.