Lyman Beecher (October 12, 1775 – January 10, 1863) was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist. He fathered 13 children, over half of whom became writers or ministers, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Catharine Beecher, and Thomas K. Beecher.
According to his son Henry, Beecher was "largely engaged during his life-time in controversy". However, "he was also the most respected religious voice of his era. ...[H]e seemed also to embody all of the nation's moral ideals, in representing the established clergy, who looked to him for leadership."
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
left|thumb|upright|Lyman Beecher
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 (), 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. He purchased the home built by Elijah Wadsworth and reared a large family.
Temperance
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. 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 (), 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.
Lane debates
Beecher's term at Lane came at a time when slavery became an even larger issue, threatening to divide the Presbyterian Church, the state of Ohio, and the nation.
Like most important men of the 1820s, Beecher was a colonizationist, one who supported the American Colonization Society's program of helping free Blacks emigrate to West Africa and set up there a black colony. He is reported to have reacted positively to an announcement of the planned debates on that topic at Lane. However, a June 4, 1834, meeting of the Cincinnati Colonization Society "was addressed at length, by the Rev. Dr. Beecher, president of the Lane Seminary, who defended the society in an able manner, against some of the many charges brought against it, and endeavored to show the friends of abolition, that they might and ought to act in concert with the Colonization Society." He is quoted again as participating in a meeting of the same body on October 31, 1834.
But against a background of the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution of 1830, the agitation in England for reform and against colonial slavery, and the punishment by American courts of citizens like Reuben Crandall who had dared to attack the slave trade carried on under the American flag, news about the brutal treatment of American slaves began to be heard. John Rankin's Letters on Slavery had begun to direct the attention of Americans to the evils of slavery, and a new organization, the American Anti-Slavery Society, held its initial meeting in Philadelphia in 1833. Its president, Arthur Tappan, through whose generous donations Beecher had been induced to head the new Lane Seminary, forwarded to the students a copy of the address issued by the convention, and the whole subject was soon under discussion.
The well-reported events contributed significantly to the growth and spread of abolitionism in the northern United States. Beecher was neither aware of nor interested in Lane's key role in publicizing abolitionism. and, on an appeal to the general synod, he was again acquitted, but the controversy engendered by the action went on until the Presbyterian church was divided in two. Beecher took an active part in the theological controversies that led to the excision of a portion of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in 1837-38, Beecher adhering to the New School Presbyterian branch of the schism.
Move from Cincinnati to New York City (1852–death in 1863)
thumb|Beecher with his children [[Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher, taken sometime after 1858.]]
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.
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
thumb|upright|Cover of "The Remedy for Dueling", a pamphlet with the text of his 1806 sermon
Beecher was the author of a great number of printed sermons and addresses. His published works are:
He made a collection of those of his works which he deemed the most valuable (3 vols., Boston, 1852).