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Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 - March 8, 1887) was a theologically liberal American Congregationalist clergyman and reformer, and author who was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the eighth of nine children of Lyman Beecher by his first wife (and the eighth of thirteen children in all). One of his elder sisters was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

He attended Boston Latin School, graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and then studied at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. First becoming a minister in Lawrenceburg (1837-39) he was then pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana (1839-47), and in 1847, he was appointed minister of Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York.

An advocate of women's suffrage and for temperance, and a foe of slavery, he held that Christianity should adapt itself to the changing culture of the times. He raised funds to buy weapons for those willing to oppose slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, and the rifles bought with this money became known as "Beecher's Bibles". Politically active, he supported first the Free Soil Party and later the Republican Party. During the American Civil War, his church raised and equipped a volunteer regiment.

Publications

• Seven Lectures to Young Men (1844) (a pamphlet)
• The Independent (1861-63) (periodical, as editor)
• Christian Union (1870-78) (periodical, as editor)
• Summer in the Soul (1858)
• Life of Jesus Christ (1871)
• Yale Lectures on Preaching (1872)
• Evolution and Religion (1885)

Biographies

• Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday, June 2006)

External links

• Mr. Tilton's statement from the Brooklyn Eagle
• Article on Beecher-Tilton Scandal from the Brooklyn Eagle
• Susan B. Anthony's Statement about the scandal from the Brooklyn Eagle

• 1813 births
• 1887 deaths
• American abolitionists
• Congregationalists
• Welsh-Americans