Charles Clinton Beatty was born in Ireland, between 1712 and 1715. He left for America in 1729 and matriculated at the Log College in Neshaminy, PA. In 1743 he succeeded William Tennent as pastor of the Neshaminy Church. In 1754 Beatty traveled as a missionary to North Carolina and Virginia. During the 1760s he, with George Duffield, traveled as pioneer missionaries to the Native Americans. Beatty was also involved in the earliest efforts to establish a fund for the relief of poor and distressed Presbyterian ministers. He died in 1772.

In 1746, Beatty married Anne Reading, daughter of the president of the Council of New Jersey. They had ten children. John, the eldest, was born in 1749. He became a doctor, setting up his first practice in Hartsville, PA in 1772. He volunteered for the Continental Army in 1776, was captured in the battle of Fort Washington, and was not exchanged until 1778. He was then appointed commissary general of prisoners and promoted to the rank of colonel. After the war, Beatty settled near Princeton, New Jersey. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1784-85 and as a member of the Third Congress of the United States from 1793-95. He died in 1826.

For information on other members of the Beatty family, please see the detailed genealogy in Folder 17.