Beecher, Henry Ward

Henry Ward (1813-1887), an American clergyman. He was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24, 1813, and died at Brooklyn, New York, March 8, 1887. He was a member of the famous Beecher family. The father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, was instrumental in the founding of Lane Seminary at Cincinnati, and was one of the most influential clergymen of his day. He was the father of thirteen children, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Isabella Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, and seven other clergymen. He was credited with being the "father of more brains than any other man in America."

Henry Ward was a shy boy, and wanted to go to sea. After graduating from Amherst and studying theology at Lane, he edited an anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati. He was pastor at West Sutton, Massachusetts, and then at Indianapolis. In 1847 he accepted the pastorate of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, with a roll of but nine members. Under his charge, the church became one of the largest and most noted in the United States.

Mr. Beecher had a reputation as a pulpit and platform orator second to none. He ranked with Spurgeon and Talmage in ability, but added to their fervent eloquence an element of culture and scholarship that they did not possess. During the political struggle that preceded the Civil War, Beecher agreed in politics with Abraham Lincoln that slavery should be unmolested in the territory it then occupied, but should not be allowed to expand. He spoke so often and so powerfully against slavery, however, that he was classed by the Southern leaders with Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and was hated thoroughly as a black abolitionist. During the Civil War, he undertook a series of lectures in England with a view to creating sentiment for the North. His experience in Manchester before an immense audience of mill hands, who had been thrown out of work because Southern cotton could not be obtained, is one of the most remarkable instance of oratorial pluck and endurance on record. The workmen hooted at him, and attempted to yell him down, but Beecher felt that he stood before the audience as the representative of the American flag. He held on, appealing to the Englishman's love of fair play, until he won their attention, and told them what he believed to be the merits of the great contest then carried on between the two sections of the American Union.

He supported President Johnson in his policy of reconstruction, took part in the Greeley movement against Grant's second term, and voted for Cleveland in 1884. He was a constant advocate of free trade and of suffrage for women.

Mr. Beecher was a contributor to the Independent for twenty years, and at one time acted as its editor. He founded the Christian Union, now known as the Outlook, and was for a long time a contributor to the Ledger. His works fill many separate volumes, but have not been brought together in a uniform edition.

See Stowe