Originating in New England, one particular Beecher family in the 19th century was a political family notable for issues of religion, civil rights, and social reform. Notable members of the family include clergy (Presbyterians and Congregationalists), educators, authors and artists. Many of the family were Yale-educated and advocated for abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights. Some of the family provided material or ideological support to the Union in the American Civil War. The family is of English descent.
The American Beecher family began with John Beecher from Kent, England. Along with his wife and son Isaac, the Beechers embarked with a company of emigrants and arrived in Boston on June 26, 1637. During its early days, Boston welcomed all Puritan emigrants, though many of these emigrants were not content to settle in the vicinity of Boston, owing, in part, to the difference in religious opinions. In September of that year, John was a member of an expedition party to explore the surrounding lands for plantation settlement. He was one of seven men left to winter in what would become New Haven, Connecticut. John died during that winter. His bones were discovered in 1750 in digging for a cellar of a stone house. The main body of settlers arrived in New Haven harbor in April, 1638.[1] Isaac Beecher was then fifteen years old. From him all the New Haven families of the name are said to have descended, and from whence the name has spread throughout the surrounding country, numbering, among the direct descendants, the West Haven branch of the Beecher family and the Lyman Beecher family, which would become an American religious force throughout the 19th century.
American educator known for her forthright opinions on female education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education.
American abolitionist and author, best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances on social issues of the day.
Charlotte Perkins (1860–1935), feminist; m. Charles Walter Stetson in 1884 and had one child, divorced in 1894; married her first cousin George Houghton Gilman in 1900 (see below)
Emily Baldwin Perkins (1829–1912), married Edward Everett Hale in 1852 and had eight sons and one daughter, Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), an artist
Charles E. Perkins (b. 1832)
Catherine Beecher Perkins (b. 1836), married William Charles Gilman. They had four children, including
George Houghton Gilman
Harriet Beecher (1808–1808)
George Beecher (1809–1843) Yale graduate, m. Sarah Buckingham in 1837
Thomas Kinnicut Beecher (1824–1900), a Congregational minister in Elmira, New York,[13] married Olivia Day (1826–1853), the daughter of the president of Yale, Jeremiah Day, in 1851, and after her untimely death married her cousin Frances Juliana Jones (1826–1905), one of the granddaughters of Noah Webster, in 1857.
James Chaplin Beecher (1828–1886), colonel of the 35th United States Colored Troops.
Caskey, Marie. Chariot of Fire: Religion and the Beecher Family. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1978.
French, Earl A. and Diana Royce. Portraits of a Nineteenth Century Family. Hartford, Connecticut: The Stowe-Day Foundation, 1976.
Gatta, John. "The Anglican Aspect of Harriet Beecher Stowe." New England Quarterly 73.3 (2000): 412–433. online
Hooker, John. Some Reminiscences of a Long Life With a Few Articles On Moral and Social Subjects of Present Interest. Hartford, Connecticut: Belknap and Warfield, 1899.
McFarland, Philip. Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Grove Press, 2007. ISBN978-0-8021-1845-5. Her "loves" are husband Calvin, father Lyman, and brother Henry.
Rugoff, Milton. The Beechers: An American Family in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. online review
Stowe, Lyman Beecher. Saints, Sinners and Beechers. Indianapolis, Indiana: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1934.
Van Why, Joseph S. Nook Farm. Hartford, Connecticut: The Stowe-Day Foundation, 1975.