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From: MRS GINA M REASONER< >
Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY PART 35
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 17:45:59, -0500


HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO By Henry Howe LL.D., 1898

HAMILTON COUNTY - part 35

Another member of our circle was JUDGE JAMES HALL, then editor of
the Western Monthly Magazine, whose name is known both in Europe and
America. He also, in the long time that elapsed before his death,
accomplished much and good work as the writer, citizen and man of business.
The Western Monthly Magazine, which he then edited, was an excellent
periodical, to which many of the literary young men of Cincinnati
contributed. Judge Hall left the magazine to become cashier and president
of the Commercial Bank, a much more profitable business. In the meanwhile
he published several stories, novels, and essays on the West, which made
him widely known, and deserves the success they receive, by their very
pleasant style and pictures of Western life.
Professor Calvin E. Stowe, then a comparatively young man, was also
present, and contributed his share to the conversation. He is the best
Biblical scholar I ever knew. His first wife, a new England lady, quite
handsome and interesting, also attended the reunions. His present wife,
then Miss Harriet Beecher, was just beginning to be known for her literary
abilities. Two or three years after this time, I published in the
Cincinnati Chronicle what I believe was her first printed story. I had
heard her read at Miss Pierce's school, in Litchfield, Conn., her first
public composition. It surprised every one so much that it was attributed
to her father, but in fact was only the first exhibition of her remarkable
talents. In the reunion I speak of she was not distinguished for
conversation, but when she did speak, showed something of the peculiar
strength and humor of her mind.
Her first little story, published in the Chronicle, immediately
attracted attention, and her writings have always been popular.
Notwithstanding the world-wide renown of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" her real
genius and characteristics were as much exhibited in her short stories as
in her larger books. Her sister, Miss Catharine Beecher, was a far more
easy and fluent conversationalist. Indeed, few people had more talent to
entertain a company, or keep the ball of conversation going than Miss
Beecher, and she was as willing as able for the task.
Conspicuous in our circle, both in person and manners, was Mrs.
Caroline Lee Hentz, whom none saw without admiring. She was what the world
called charming; and though since better known as an authoress was
personally quite remarkable.
I have thus mentioned, out of a small circle gathered in a parlor,
names which have been renowned both in Europe and America, and whose public
reputation has contributed to the fame of our country. I have dwelt more
particularly on these meetings to illustrate what I think I've seen in
other cases, and to which, people in general seldom give due weight. I mean
the influence of social sympathy in forming and developing individual minds.
About the year 1833 was founded what was called "The College of
Teachers," which continued ten years, and was an institution of great
utility and wide influence. Its object was both professional and popular;
to unite and improve teachers, and, at the same time, to commend the cause
of education to the public mind.
At that time public education was just beginning, and almost all in
the Ohio educational system was created and developed after that period. To
do this was the object in view and, accordingly, a large array of
distinguished persons took part in these proceedings. I doubt whether in
any one association to promote the cause of education there was ever in an
equal space of time concentrated in this country a larger measure of
talent, information, and zeal.
Among those who either spoke or wrote for it were Albert Pickett,
the president, and for half a century an able teacher: Dr. Daniel Drake,
the Hon. Thos. Smith Grimke, the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, Alexander Kimmont
and James H. Perkins, Professor Stowe, Dr. Beecher, Dr. Alexander Campbell,
Bishop Purcell, President McGuffey, Dr. Aydelotte, E.D. Mansfield, Mrs.
Lydia Sigourney and Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz.
The BEECHERS lived in Cincinnati (Walnut Hills), from 1832 to 1852,
twenty years, and were so closely connected with the anti-slavery and
educational history of this region as to require a further notice than that
given by Mr. Mansfield. Dr. Lyman Beecher, the head of this remarkable
family, was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1775, the son of a blacksmith and
the direct descendant of the Widow Beecher, who followed the profession of
midwife to the first settlers there about 1638. Lyman was educated at Yale,
but as we heard in our youth could not "speak his piece" on graduating day
from the inability of his father to supply him with a suit of new clothes
in which to appear. He studied theology under the famous Timothy Dwight,
and was settled as an Orthodox Congregational minister successively over
churches at East Hampton, Long Island; Litchfield, Conn.; and Hanover
Street Church, Boston. To fight evil in whatever form he saw it and help on
the good was the love of his life. Old men who remember him in his prime
pronounce him the most eloquent, powerful preacher they ever heard,
surpassing in his greatest flights of oratory his highly gifted son Henry Ward.
In 1814, in New England, the vice of intemperance had become so
demoralizing, even the clergy at their meetings often indulging in gross
excesses, that Dr. Beecher arose in his might and wrote his wonderfully
eloquent six sermons against it, which were translated into many languages,
and had a large sale, even after the lapse of fifty years. The rapid and
extensive defection of the Congregational Churches under the lead of Dr.
Channing was the occasion of his being called to Boston to uphold the
doctrines of Puritanism; which he did with such great power as to soon be
regarded as "unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness,
eloquence of appeal, sparkling wit, vigor of thought and concentrated power
of expression." His personal magnetism was intense and his will unconquerable.
Mansfield in his Personal Memories writes that "Dr. Beecher's
spells of eloquence seem to come on by fits." One hot day in summer and in
the afternoon says he, I was in church and he was going on in a sensible
but rather prosy half sermon way, when all at once he began to recollect
that we had just heard of the death of Lord Byron. He was an admirer of
Byron's poetry, as all who admire genius must be. He raised his spectacles
and began with an account of Bryron, his genius, wonderful gifts, and then
went on to his want of virtue and want of true religion and finally
described a lost soul and the spirit of Byron going off and wandering in
the blackness of darkness forever! It struck me as with an electric shock.
The Lane Theological Seminary having been established at Walnut
Hills and the growing importance of the great West having filled the
thought of the religious public at the East, a large sum of money was
pledged to its support, on the condition of Dr. Beecher accepting the
presidency, which he did in 1832. Then to eke out his salary for ten years
he officiated as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Cincinnati.
One of his first acts here was to startle the Eastern orthodoxy by a tract
upon the danger of Roman Catholic supremacy at the West.
Soon after, in consequence of a tract issued by the abolition
convention, at Philadelphia, the evils of slavery were discussed by the
students. "Many of them were from the South; an effort was made to stop the
discussions and the meetings. Slave-holders went over from kentucky and
incited mob violence in Cincinnati, and at one time it seemed as though,
the rabble might destroy the seminary, and the houses of the professors. In
the absence of Dr. Beecher, a little after, the board of trustees were
frightened into obeying the demands of the mob by forbidding all discussion
of slavery; whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A few returned, while
the seceders laid the foundations of Oberlin College.
Dr. Beecher in person was short and substantially built, his
complexion was florid and he had such a genial, fatherly expression and
withal was so very odd one could not but smile on meeting him. He was
proverbially absent-minded, cared nothing for the little conventionalities
of life; as likely as anything else when out taking tea with a parishioner
to thrust his tea-spoon into the general preserve dish and eat direct
therefrom; evidently unconscious of his breach of manners. Like many not so
great, he never could remember, where he put his hat. Topics of vital
welfare to humanity seemed to fill his mind to the exclusion of thoughts of
himself, or to what people thought of him, or where he had last put his
hat. In 1846 we made his acquaintance and walking with him on Fourth street
one day he described the situation at the time of the mobbing of the
Philanthropist. The seminary was some three miles distant and over a road
most of the way up-hill, ankle deep in clayey, sticky mud, through which,
the mob to get there must of necessity flounder, even without being filled
as they would undoubtedly have said with Old Bourbon. The mud was really
what probably saved the theologian. "I told the boys," said he, "that they
had the right of self-defence, that they could arm themselves and if the
mob came they could shot," and then looking in my face and whispering with
an air that was irresistibly comical, he added, "but I told them not to
kill 'em, aim low, hit 'em in the legs! hit 'em in the legs!"
Those who knew the road to Walnut Hills in those days will remember
it was largely a mere shelf cut out of the mud of the side hills whereupon
omnibuses and single vehicles were often upset. The old divine coming down
one night after dark was crowded off by some careless teamsters, and went
rolling down the precipice perhaps some thirty feet, and so badly hurt he
could not preach for three weeks. The stupid teamsters, attracted by his
cries for help, came to the verge and peering down in the darkness
hollowed, "How can we get there?" "Easy enough," he answered, come down as
I did!"
On one occasion a young minister was lamenting the dreadful
increasing wickedness of mankind. "I don't know anything about that, young
man," replied he in his whispering tones. "I've not had anything to do with
running the world the last twenty-five years. God Almighty now has it in charge."
This good man was wont, after preaching a powerful sermon, to relax
his mind from his highly wrought state of nervous excitement, sometimes by
going down into his cellar and shovelling sand from one spot to another;
sometimes by taking his "fiddle," playing "Auld Lang Syne," and dancing a
double shuffle in his parlor. His very eccentricities only the more
endeared him to the public. He was great every way. On a platform of a
hundred divines, his was the intellect that all felt was their master. No
American, except Benjamin Franklin, has given utterance to so many pungent,
wise sentences as Lyman Beecher. In the power of concentrated expression he
has been rarely equalled, and in his more sublime solemn outbursts he was
like a thunderbolt.
Lyman Beecher was married thrice and had thirteen children; his
seven grown sons all became Congregational clergymen, and his four
daughters mostly gained literary and philanthropic distinction. Henry Ward,
his most distinguished son, was educated at Lane Seminary; and it was on
Walnut Hills that his daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe, met the originals of
the persons that figure in her novel of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and got filled
up for that famous work, which was published on her return East.
Her maiden sister Catharine's entire life was marred by a tragic
event. She was betrothed to Prof. Fisher of Yale College, who lost his life
in 1822, by the wreck of the packet ship, Albion off the coast of Ireland,
at the age of twenty-seven years. He was a young man of extraordinary
genius, thought to be akin to that of Sir Isaac newton, and his loss was
regarded as national. In the Yale Library to-day is an exquisite bust of
him in marble. The face is very beautiful and refined. Evidence of his
masterly power was shown by the opening article (an abstruse paper on the
science of music) in the first volume of Silliman's Journal of Science,
issued in 1818.
In conversation, Miss Beecher was humorous, incisive and
self-opinionated, but kindly. While at the head of a female seminary she
became a convert to the Graham system of diet, and practiced it upon
herself and pupils, whereupon some of them invited her to partake of a good
generous dinner at a restaurant. It operated to a charm, converted here,
and she came to the conclusion that a rich, juicy, tender, well-cooked
beefsteak, with its accompaniments, was no object for contempt with a
hungry soul.
An anecdote of her we heard in our youth was that, on being
introduced at a social gathering in Hartford to the poet Percival, she went
at him in an exciting adulatory strain upon his poetry, which had then just
appeared and was eliciting general admiration. Percival, who was then a
very young man, and the most shrinking of mortals, was completely
overwhelmed; he could not answer a word, but as soon as possible escaped
from her, and then, in his low, whispering tones, inquired of a bystander,
"Is not that the young lady who was engaged to Prof. Fisher?" "Yes." "Ah!"
rejoined he, "it is well he died."
No American family has so much influenced American thought as the
Beechers, and on one, through its genius and eccentricities, has been so
interesting; and it did Ohio good that she had possession of them for
twenty years. It used to be a common expression forty years ago that the
United States possessed two great things, viz. the American flag and the Beechers.

-continued in part 36

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