An overview of the life of Rev.Edward Beecher, a son of Rev.Lyman Beecher and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

East Hampton, New York

Edward Beecher was the third child of the Rev. Lyman Beecher and his wife Roxana, and was born in East Hampton, New York in 1803. He attended South Farms Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut, where his father pastored the Congregational church. Entering Yale College in 1818, he helped to pay for his education by teaching when he had the opportunity. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1819, his father refused to buy him a watch and chain for the key, calling it 'foppery.'

Hartford Grammar School

After graduation, Edward became the Head Master at the Hartford Grammar School, and he contributed regularly to his father's ever-increasing family expenses. He was able to pay for his brother George to attend a first-class preparatory school. Beecher was a very disciplined man, as this excerpt from a letter to his sister Catharine in 1822 reveals:

"I am obliged to go every day a quarter of an hour before time...in order to hear all the students. I always employ at least seven hours in the school, sleep seven hours, exercise one hour, and allow forty-five minutes for all three meals.Then I allow about one and one-half hours for reading the Bible and prayer.

Rev. Elijah Lovejoy

In November, 1837, Lovejoy, the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Observer, was reported assassinated by a mob at Alton, Illionis, while attempting to guard his printing press. Edward Beecher, his friend and supporter, had assisted Lovejoy the night before the raids in moving his printing press to safety. Thinking the situation was stable, Beecher went home. If he had not left then there is a strong possibility that he, too, would have been killed.

Underground Railway

In 1849 Edward was appointed editor of the Congregationalist, which he helped to found, and served in that capacity for four years. However, he could not resist a call to found a Congregational church in Galesburg, Illinois, at the urging of his brother, Henry Ward.

In back of his home in Galesburg there lived a railway conductor with whom he became friendly, and Edward later worked with him assisting slaves to escape to Canada. So it could truly be said that Beecher's house was indeed a station on the "Underground Railway."

Brooklyn, New York

1871 saw Edward Beecher in retirement in Brooklyn to be close to brother Henry Ward

In his life Edward was responsible for the founding of several Congregational churches in different parts of New Jersey, and at the age of 81 he returned to active preaching, taking the pulpit at the Parkville Congregational Church in Brooklyn. He lived for six more years, dying at his home at 182 Macon Street in Brooklyn aged ninety-two. His wife Isabelle Porter Jones Beecher , mother of their eleven children, survived him by only a few months.

Beecher lived a life devoted to his church, the freeing of slaves and education at the highest level.

Source:

Saints, Sinners and Beechers, by Lyman Beecher Stowe. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1934.

For further information about the Beecher Family see:

The Beecher Dynasty

Rev.Charles Beecher

Who was Catharine Beecher?