Lyman BEECHER, REV.

                   SOURCES:
      1. This family group sheet compiled by Marion Grace Jewell Nicholls, of Gilbert, AZ.
      2. "Life of Harriet Beecher Sotwe" by her son Charles Edward Stowe. Published 1889 (recently republished) 1987. Book was compiled from her letters and journals.
NOTES:
      1. Presbyterian minister.
      2. A Calvinistic divine.
      3. This family was scattered by finally had a beautiful family reunion. Theyhad a circular letter to keep the family in touch. As it traveled through family, each added something and sent it on. At the end it was sent back to the one who started it.
      4. George Beecher- possibly a nephew of Harriets?
      5. Miss Harriet Porter- of Portland Maine (his children loved her).
      6. Excerpts for this sheet taken from book "Harriet Beecher Stowe" by her son Charles Edward Stowe- published in 1889 by Riverside Press, Cambridge, Republished by Gale Research Co. Book Tower, Detroit 1987.
      7. Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher A Calvinist Congregational Church yet an aunt toldher the father was a Presbyterian minister. His first wife Roxanna Foote was mother of 9 children. She died at age 25. Harrite Beecher Stowe was a child of 4 when she died. She can remember the look on her mothers face when she discoveredthat Harriet had persuaded the other children to eat some bulbs she found in thehouse. She told them they were onions. They were disappointed in the odd sweetish taste. It turned out to be the tulip bulbs that her brother John had sent toher. Roxanna sat down and said "My dear children, what you have done makes mammavery sorry. Those were not onions but roots of beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have next summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you never saw". They were very sad.
      8. Aunt Harriet Foote took her to visit grandmother in Nut Plains. When shewas age 6 her father married again. His second wife- Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine. A year later she had a baby. 1. Frederick H. Beecher, born: abt 1818, died: June 1820 of scarlet fever. 2. Isabella Beecher, born: 1822. 3. James Beecher, born: abt 1823/24 (Harriet was age 12-13). 4. Thomas Beecher.
      9. Catherine, oldest child of Lyman and Roxanna wrote in a little batteret journal a short sketch of her life, written at age 76 in a tremulous hand she began: "I was born at East Hampton, IL. 5 Sep. 1800 at 5 p.m. in the large parlor opposite father's study. Don't remember much about it myself". She had little ripple of fun throughout her life. Her father moved to Litchfield, CT. when she wasage 10. At age 20 she was in Boston. She formed an acquaintance of Professor Alexdander Metcalf Fisher, of Yale College. In Jan of 1822 they became engaged. Inthe spring he sailed for Europe to purchase books, etc. for the school. On 22 Apr. the ship was wrecked on the coast of Ireland. Professor Fisher was killed.
      10. Harriet Beeche Stow, somewhere between age 12-13 was placed under the care of her older sister Catherine, in Hartford, CT. She was a teacher and this younger sister was put into school.
      11. There was uncle Sam Foote and Uncle John Foote that she was with in thewinter of 1833-34. Here she discovered a literary club named "Semi-Colons". Someof the members were: Porfessor Stowe- unsurpassed in biblical learning, Judge James Hall, her unlce Samule Foote. This was in Cincinnati, OH. She was in this area for the next 18 years of her life.
      12. Harriet tells of a deception she pulled on the Semi-Colon Club. "So I conceived the design of writing a set of letters from a friend." She wrote the first one with an imaginary situation, Mr.& Mrs. Howard a pious couple, literary and agreeable. "I threw into the letter a number of little particulars & incidental allusions to give it the air of having been really a letter." "Yesterday I finished my letter, smoked to make it look yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed it and scratched out the direction, postmarked it with red ink, sealed itand broke the seal, all this to give credibility to the fact of its being a realletter. Then I enclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was part of a set which had incidentally fallen into my hands." Note: she was discouraged and depressed at this time she was doing this. This may have been her way to lift her spirits. She wrote all of this to her best friend Georgianna May in CT. "This envelope was written in a scrawny, scrawly, gentelmans hand. I put it into the officein the morning, directed to Mrs. Samuel E. Foote and then sent word to sister that it was coming, so that she might be ready to enact the part. Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced that it must have been a real letter."
      13. Her dear friend, in 1834 Eliza Tyler (wife of Prof. Stowe) died. Harriettried to comfort he childless widower. It started as sympathy it ripened to love. After a short engagement they married.
      14. Her husband (Prof.Stowe) went to Europe to by books for the school. Shegave birth to twin daughters. She called them Eliza and Isabella but her husbandinsisted on naming them Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher when he reached New York. She had been living in Cincinnati with her father and brothers. Both Harrietand Porf. Stowe had years of persistent ill health. She went to a water cure clinic in Brattleboro, VT. and stayed a year or two. Her husband went there a few years later because his health became so poor.
      15. See back of Prof. Stowe's sheet for more of her married life and accomplishments. Their is an Aunt Esther Beecher dear to the family.