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.
Charles D. Beckwith was born about 1832 or 1833 in Broome County, New York. At the age of sixteen, he headed west during the great gold rush of 1849, hoping to start a new life in California. He boarded a ship, the Areatus, in Boston and sailed as a passenger around Cape Horn and arrived in San Francisco in September 1849. Presumably he tried his hand at gold mining but later turned to other work to support himself.[1]