Beecher — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Beecher, one of the most remarkable families that America has produced since the settlement of the continent. Its founder settled in 1638 at New Haven, Connecticut; and there LYMAN BEECHER, an eminent divine, was born October 12, 1775. He graduated at Yale College in 1797, and became a Presbyterian minister. He preached at East Hampton, on Long Island, from 1798 till 1810; at Litchfield, Connecticut, from 1810 till 1826; and in the latter year was called to a pulpit in Boston, with the avowed purpose of counteracting the growth of Unitarianism, which, under the influence of Channing and others, was then rapidly advancing. Of an energetic and positive character, Beecher was always among the foremost to combat what he considered the evils of his time. As early as 1806 he attacked the practice of duelling, in a sermon suggested by the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, and he laboured earnestly in the cause of temperance in the early days of that reform. In 1832 he became president of Lane Theological Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, a position which he held for twenty years. Though a professed Calvinist, he was arraigned for heresy by the extremists of his faith, but was acquitted by the presbytery, and thenceforth was a recognised new school leader in the controversy which rent the Presbyterian Church into old school and new school factions. He resigned the presidency of the seminary in 1852, and died January 10, 1863. In 1864 was published his autobiography and correspondence, edited by his son. Mr Beecher was the father of thirteen children—seven sons (all of whom became clergymen) and six daughters.

CATHERINE ESTHER, the eldest child of the family, was born at East Hampton, on Long Island, September 6, 1800. In early life she became engaged to a Professor Fisher, of Yale College, who was lost by shipwreck, and she never married. From 1822 to 1832 she was principal of a seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, and subsequently devoted her energies and her pen to the advancement of female education. She wrote numerous volumes, principally relative to the needs and duties of women. She died May 12, 1878.

HARRIET ELIZABETH (Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe), author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, June 14, 1811. In her childhood she received careful training both at home and at the academy of her native village, and she early developed a fondness for writing—often upon the most abstruse subjects—that amounted almost to a passion. It is recorded that when twelve years of age, at an annual exhibition of the academy, she surprised her friends by the production of an essay on the negative side of the question, 'Can the Immortality of the Soul be proved by the Light of Nature?' On leaving the academy she joined her sister Catherine at her school in Hartford—first as pupil and afterwards as teacher. There she remained until the appointment of their father to the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, when the two daughters established a school at Cincinnati, Ohio, adjoining the slave-state of Kentucky. Here Harriet saw much of the practical workings of the institution of slavery, and became acquainted with many of those scenes and incidents which she afterwards so graphically described in her anti-slavery writings.

In 1836 she married the Rev. C. E. Stowe, a theological professor in Lane Seminary, with whom she subsequently removed to Brunswick, Maine, and in 1849 she issued her first work, The Mayflower, or Sketches of the Descendants of the Pilgrims. In 1851 she engaged to contribute a story to The National Era, an anti-slavery paper published at Washington (the seat of government), the result of which was the production of Uncle Tom's Cabin (unquestionably the most famous novel ever issued in America), which, besides being translated into many foreign languages, has been repeatedly dramatised and represented upon the stage with great success. Probably more than a million copies of this work have been printed in English. Within a year 120 editions, or over 300,000, were issued and sold in America; in four months she had received $10,000 in royalties. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (1854) was a charming volume of letters from Europe. Of Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp (1856), 100,000 copies were sold in Britain in four weeks. Mrs Stowe died at Hartford, Conn., 1st July 1896.

Other works were The Minister's Wooing (1859); The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862); Agnes of Sorrento (1862); Oldtown Folks, a Story of New England Life (1869); Lady Byron Vindicated (1870), a work which, even had its monstrous allegations been true, should never certainly have seen the light; My Wife and I (1871); Poganyue People (1878), &c. See the Life, compiled (before her mind became clouded) from her letters and journals, by her son (2 vols. 1890).

HENRY WARD BEECHER, was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24, 1813. He graduated at Amherst College, Massachusetts, in 1834, studied theology under his father at Lane Theological Seminary, preached for two years at the small town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and in 1839 was called to Indianapolis in the same state, where he laboured for eight years, acquiring considerable reputation as a pulpit orator, and becoming noted also for his active interest in the secular questions of the day. He early became identified with the anti-slavery movement of the country (then in its infancy), and introduced into the synod, amid much opposition, a resolution declaring it to be the duty of every clergyman to preach against slavery, and followed this act by a course of sermons depicting the horrors of the institution as it then existed in the United States. In 1847, on the organisation of Plymouth (Congregational) Church, in Brooklyn, New York, he accepted the pastorate, and practically ignoring formal creeds, announced his determination to preach the gospel of Christ, and to do battle in the causes of temperance and anti-slavery. An immense congregation was attracted by his ministrations, and during his subsequent career of forty years (less a few months) he laboured in this chosen field with an almost unparalleled earnestness. He aided in establishing The Independent, a politico-religious journal, to which he was for nearly twenty years a prominent contributor. He favoured the free-soil party in the presidential campaign of 1852, and denounced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise (1854); and in the contention which followed between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the settlement of the territory of Kansas, he openly counselled the meeting of force with force if necessary in the protection of the Free State settlers in their rights. He was an ardent supporter of the republican candidates in the presidential contests of 1856 and 1860, and on the breaking out of the civil war, his church raised and equipped a regiment of volunteer soldiers for service in the field. Some rest to his overtaxed powers becoming necessary, he visited Europe in 1863, and on his return to England from the Continent, he delivered addresses on the condition of his country to crowded meetings, often of unsympathetic auditors; and it is not unreasonably claimed by his friends that he did much at this time towards convincing the British public that his government would ultimately triumph. On the close of the war in 1865, Mr Beecher became an earnest advocate of reconciliation between the two sections on the broadest ground of charity and goodwill. He even alienated, by his liberal course, many of his former political friends, among others the editor of The Independent; and his connection with that journal ceased. Later (1870) he assumed the editorship of The Christian Union, the circulation of which increased in one year from 3000 copies weekly to over 30,000. Of the charge of adultery with a member of his church, preferred against him in 1875, it is enough to say that one trial resulted in the disapproval of the jury; whilst another before an ecclesiastical council was decided in Beecher's favour. The decade of active usefulness which followed served to restore to the great preacher a large measure of public confidence and esteem. He visited Great Britain in the summer of 1886, delivering numerous addresses, and on his return resumed his pastoral duties, in the active discharge of which he died of apoplexy, March 8, 1887.

Of his published writings, the principal are Star Papers (1855), first published in The Independent; New Star Papers (1858), republished under the title of Summer in the Soul; Thoughts as they Occur, contributed to the New York Ledger, and republished, under the title of Eyes and Ears (1864); Lectures to Young Men (1844; revised ed. 1850); Aids to Prayer (1864); Norwood, or Village Life in New England (1867); Lecture-room Talks (1870); Yale Lectures on Preaching (3 vols. 1872-74); The Life of Jesus the Christ (2 volumes, 1871-91), &c., besides many separate sermons and addresses. See his Life, by Joseph Howard, jun. (1887), and the largely autobiographical Authentic Biography, by his son and son-in-law (1888).