Lyman Beecher

Early life

Beecher was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to David Beecher, a blacksmith, and Esther Hawley Lyman. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was committed to the care of his uncle Lot Benton, by whom he was adopted as a son, and with whom his early life was spent blacksmithing and farming. But it was soon found that he preferred study. He was fitted for college by the Rev. Thomas W. Bray, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale College, graduating in 1797. He spent much of 1798 at Yale under the tutelage of his mentor Timothy Dwight.

Ministry

Ministry on Long Island in New York (1798–1810)

In September 1798, he was licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association, and entered upon his clerical duties by supplying the pulpit in the Presbyterian church at East Hampton, Long Island, and was ordained in 1799. Here he married his first wife, Roxana Foote. His salary was $300 a year plus firewood, after five years increased to $400 (equivalent to $9,000 in 2025), with a dilapidated parsonage. To eke out his scanty income, his wife opened a private school, in which he was an instructor. Following Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton's 1804 duel, Beecher gained popular recognition when he gave a sermon before the Presbytery of Long Island which was promptly published as The Remedy for Duelling in 1806.

Ministry in Litchfield, Connecticut (1810–1826)

Finding his salary wholly inadequate to support his growing family, he resigned the charge at East Hampton, and in 1810 moved to Litchfield, Connecticut, where he was minister for 16 years at First Congregational Church of Litchfield, the town's Congregational church. There he started to preach Calvinism. He purchased the home built by Elijah Wadsworth and reared a large family.

Alcohol intoxication or drunkenness, known as intemperance at the time, was a source of concern in New England as well as in other areas of the United States. Heavy drinking occurred even at some formal meetings of clergy, and Beecher resolved to take a stand against it. In 1826 he delivered and published “Six Sermons on Intemperance”. They were sent throughout the United States, ran rapidly through many editions in England, and were translated into several languages in Europe, enjoying large sales even 50 years later.

During Beecher's residence in Litchfield, the Unitarian controversy arose, and he took a prominent part. Litchfield was at this time the seat of the famous Litchfield Law School (1784–1833) and several other institutions of learning, and Beecher (now a doctor of divinity) and his wife undertook to supervise the training of several young women, who were received into their family. But here, too, he found his annual salary of $800 inadequate.

Ministry in Boston (1826–1832)

The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregational churches in Boston and vicinity, under the lead of William Ellery Channing and others in sympathy with him, had excited much anxiety throughout New England. In 1826 Beecher was called to Boston's Hanover Church, where he began preaching against the Unitarianism which was then sweeping the area.

Leadership of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati (1832–1852)

The religious public had become impressed with the growing importance of the great West; a theological seminary had been founded at Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, Ohio, and named Lane Seminary, after one of its principal benefactors. Beecher's Hanover Street Church was severely damaged by fire in 1830, and the Board of Lane Seminary, hoping this might dispose him to a move, later that year offered him the presidency, with a salary of $20,000 (equivalent to $1,209,000 in 2025), but he turned it down. He accepted a second offer, in 1832. His mission there was to train ministers to win the West for Protestantism. Along with his presidency, he was also professor of sacred theology, and pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati (later merged with First Presbyterian into modern-day Covenant First Presbyterian Church). He served as a pastor for the first ten years of his Lane presidency.

Beecher was also notorious for his anti-Catholicism, and soon after his arrival in Cincinnati authored the nativist tract "A Plea for the West". His sermon on this subject at Boston in 1834 was followed shortly by the burning of the Catholic Ursuline Sisters' convent there. Catholics blamed Lyman, and charged that the arsonists had been "goaded on by Dr. Lyman Beecher", but Lyman insisted that the sermon "to which the mob ascribed" was preached before his presence in Boston was generally known, and on the very evening of the riot, some miles distant from the scene, and that probably not one of the rioters had heard it or even "knew of its delivery". Nevertheless, the convent was burned, and just at the season when Lyman was alerting Massachusetts to danger from the "despotic character and hostile designs of popery".

Authors disagree as to whether Lyman Beecher's three anti-catholic speeches triggered the burning. For example, Ira Leonard, author of American Nativism, 1830-1860, notes that the three anti-catholic speeches "by Lyman Beecher" ultimately "ignited the spark["]. This statement implies that some of the individuals involved in the burning attended one of Beecher's three sermons. Conversely, Ray Billington understands the two events to be more coincidental. Billington notes that, although the convent burned the evening of Beecher's sermons, the group of working-class men who organized the burning met on three separate occasions, two of which [preceded] Beecher's sermons. Furthermore, Beecher spoke at upper-class churches which the workers would not have attended. "In all probability," Billington comments, "the [convent] would have been attacked whether or not these sermons were delivered."

Move from Cincinnati to New York City (1852–death in 1863)

After the slavery controversy, Beecher and his co-professor Calvin Ellis Stowe remained and tried to revive the prosperity of the seminary, but at last abandoned it. The great project of their lives was defeated, and they returned to the East, where Beecher went to live with his son Henry in Brooklyn, New York, in 1852. He wished to devote himself mainly to the revision and publication of his works. But his intellectual powers began to decline, while his physical strength was unabated. About his 80th year he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and thenceforth his mental powers only gleamed out occasionally. After spending the last years of his life with his children, he died in Brooklyn in 1863 and was buried at Grove Street Cemetery, in New Haven, Connecticut.

Legacy

Beecher was proverbially absent-minded, and after having been wrought up by the excitement of preaching was accustomed to relax his mind by playing "Auld Lang Syne" on the violin, or dancing the "double shuffle" in his parlor.

Lyman Beecher's house, on the former campus of the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, became the Harriet Beecher Stowe House. Harriet, his daughter, lived here until her marriage. It is the only Lane building still standing. It is open to the public and operates as an historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Lane Seminary, and the Underground Railroad. The site also documents African-American history. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is located at 2950 Gilbert Avenue, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Personal life

In 1799, Beecher married Roxana Foote, the daughter of Eli and Roxana (Ward) Foote. They had nine children: Catharine Esther, William Henry, Edward, Mary, Harriet (1808–1808), George, Harriet Elisabeth, Henry Ward, and Charles. Roxana died on September 13, 1816. The following year, he married Harriet Porter and fathered four more children: Frederick C., Isabella Holmes, Thomas Kinnicut, and James Chaplin. Of the thirteen Beecher children, nine went on to become writers. Harriet Porter Beecher died on July 7, 1835. On September 23, 1836, he married Samuel Beals' daughter Lydia Beals (September 17, 1789 – 1869), who had previously been married to Joseph Jackson (1779/10 – December 1833). Lydia and Beecher had no children.

Works

Beecher was the author of a great number of printed sermons and addresses. His published works are:

Beecher, Lyman (1806). A sermon, occasioned by the lamented death of Mrs. Frances M. Sands, of New-Shoreham, formerly an inhabitant of East-Hampton, (L.I.), composed and now made public at the request of her afflicted partner, and delivered at East-Hampton October 12th, 1806. Sag Harbor, New York.

Beecher, Lyman (1809). The Remedy for Duelling. A sermon, delivered before the Presbytery of Long-Island, at the opening of their session, at Aquebogue, April 16, 1806. New York.

Beecher, Lyman (1819). The Design, Rights, and Duties of Local Churches: A Sermon Delivered at the installation of the Rev. Elias Cornelius as associate pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Salem, July 21, 1819. Andover, Massachusetts.

Beecher, Lyman; Garrettson, Freeborn (1820). Address of the Charitable Society for the Education of Indigent Pious Young Men, for the Ministry of the Gospel : published by Rev. Lyman Beecher, chairman of their committee of supplies. And now re-published with Rev. Mr. Garretson's letter, and some additional notes, by another hand. Concord, New Hampshire. ISBN 9780608436739. OCLC 191281079. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

Beecher, Lyman (1827). Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance. Boston.

Beecher, Lyman; Nettleton, Asahel (1828). Letters of the Rev. Dr. Beecher and Rev. Mr. Nettleton, on the "New measures" in conducting revivals of religion : with a review of a sermon, by Novanglus. New York: G. & C. Carvill.

Beecher, Lyman (1828). Sermons Delivered on Various Occasions. Boston.

Beecher, Lyman (1829). The Gospel according to Paul. A sermon, delivered Sept. 17, 1828, at the installation of the Rev. Bennet Tyler, D.D., as pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. Boston.