HARRIET BEECHER STOWEHARRIET BEECHER STOWE(1811-1896)"Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her at the gates."—SolomonFew women's names have made so vivid a mark upon the history of our country as that of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.On June 14, 1811, in the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, Harriet first saw the light of day. She was the seventh child, the eldest being but eleven years of age. Just two years after Harriet was born came a little brother, Henry Ward, who became the renowned pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.Harriet's father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, was a man of marked ability, and her mother, Roxanna Beecher, was a woman whose beautiful life has been a help to many. The family was a large one to be supported on a salary of five hundred dollars a year, and in order to assist, Roxanna Beecher started a select school, where she taught French, drawing,painting and embroidery, as well as the higher English branches.A great grief came to little Harriet, when she was between three and four, in the death of her mother. Certain things in connection with this event, as the funeral, the mourning dresses, and the walk to the burial ground, never left her memory. Her little mind was confused by being told that her mother had gone to heaven, when Harriet had with her own eyes seen her laid in the ground. Her brother Henry suffered likewise from this confusion of thought. He was found one day in the garden digging diligently. When his elder sister Catherine asked him what he was doing, he answered: "I'm going to heaven to find mamma!"When Harriet was six, her father married again. At first the little girl, who had loved her own mother so dearly, felt very sad about this; but she afterward learned to love and respect her new mother.Harriet had a remarkable memory. At seven she had memorized twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She read fluently, and continually searched her father's library for books which might interest her. Very few did she find there, however. Most of the titles filled her childish soul withawe, and she longed for the time when she could understand and enjoy such works as Bonnett'sInquiries, Bell'sSermons, and Bogue'sEssays.One day good luck befell her. In the bottom of a barrel of old sermons she came upon a well-worn volume ofThe Arabian Nights. Imagine her joy! A world of enchantment opened to her. WhenIvanhoefell in her way, she and her brother George read it through, together, seven times.It was in the school of Mr. John P. Brace that Harriet discovered her taste for writing. Her compositions were remarkable for their cleverness; when one of them was read at the entertainment at the close of the year, Harriet's cup of joy was full to the brim.About this time Harriet's elder sister, Catherine, opened a school in Hartford. The circumstances which led her to do so were very sad. Catherine, who was remarkably gifted, had been engaged to Professor Fisher of Yale, a brilliant and promising young man. These young people expected to be married on the return of the Professor from a European trip. But the vessel on which he sailed was wrecked, and he never came back.This almost prostrated Catherine, but her strongnature rose to meet the blow. She determined to devote her life to the work of helping girls. After hard work she raised several thousands of dollars and built the Hartford Female Seminary, where girls studied subjects heretofore taught only in boys' colleges, and received an education more on an equality with that given to boys.People of that time wondered what use girls would make of Latin and philosophy, but Miss Beecher's able management of the school and her womanly and scholarly attainments so filled them with admiration that they gladly put their daughters in her charge. Here also entered twelve year old Harriet, not only as a pupil, but a pupil teacher, that she might help her father in paying the expenses of his large family. The experience of Harriet in this school was of much use in after life. She had to master problems without any assistance from others, and in doing this, she became self-reliant.About ten years after this, her father was called to become President of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio. Catherine and Harriet felt bound to go with him, to help him in the new field of work. The journey, made by stage-coach across the mountains, was very tiresome. They settled inWalnut Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati, where the sisters opened another school.In 1836, Harriet married Calvin E. Stowe, professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature in the Lane Seminary. Mr. Stowe, together with other intelligent men in Ohio at that time, was much interested in the advancement of education in the common schools. In order to study the question and to purchase books for the Lane Seminary, Mr. Stowe was sent abroad. This happened shortly after his marriage.During his absence Harriet lived in Cincinnati with her father and brother, writing short stories and essays for publication and assisting her brother, Henry Ward, who was then editing a small daily paper.The question of slavery had become an exciting topic in Cincinnati. Being near the borderland of Kentucky, a slave state, this city naturally became the center of heated discussions. Many slaves who escaped sought refuge in Cincinnati, and people who were friendly to their cause assisted them to reach Canada, where they were safe from capture by their so called masters.Among the students of Lane Seminary were both Northerners and Southerners, and many fierce debates as to the rights and wrongs of slavery were carried on in that institution. The feeling was very intense and excitement ran high. Dr. Bailey, an editor who attempted to carry on in his newspaper a fair discussion of the slavery question, had his presses broken and thrown into the river.Mrs. Stowe took into her family, as servant, a colored girl from Kentucky. Though by the laws of Ohio this girl was free, having been brought into the state by her mistress and left there, yet it was rumored that some one had come to the city from over the border hunting for her, with the intention of taking her back into slavery. Mrs. Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher drove the poor girl by night twelve miles into the country and left her with an old friend until such time as the search for her should be given up. This incident served Mrs. Stowe as the basis of her description inUncle Tom's Cabinof Eliza's escape from Tom Loker and Marks.Houses of free colored people were burned and even Lane Seminary stood in danger from the mob. Mr. Stowe and his family slept with firearms at hand ready to defend themselves if necessary. When the trustees of the college forbade all discussion of the question of slavery, nearly all the students left the institution.Then Mrs. Stowe opened her house to colored children and taught them. One boy in her school was claimed by a master in Kentucky, arrested and put up at auction. Mrs. Stowe raised sufficient money to buy him and gave it to his distracted mother, who thus saved him. Heart-rending incidents like this were continually brought to the attention of the Stowe family, until at last they felt unable to endure the situation. They decided to come North where Mr. Stowe accepted a position in Bowdoin College, Maine.Very poor was the Stowe family in those days. Mrs. Stowe earned a little now and then, by her writings, and from a few boarders. She had now apparently all she could do, with a family of young children whom she herself taught, with her writing, and with caring for the strangers in the house; but even so, she could never get out of her mind those wretched creatures, her brothers and sisters, who were being bought and sold. What could she do for them?The most frequent topic of conversation everywhere was the proposed law called The Fugitive Slave Act. This law would give the slave-holders of the South the right to bring back into slavery any colored person claimed as a slave, and also commandedthe people of the North to assist in the business of pursuit. Public feeling grew more and more heated, but the law was passed. After its passage many pitiable scenes occurred. The Stowe and Beecher families received frequent letters telling of shocking incidents. Families were broken up, children sold and sent far from their parents, while many slaves who ran away perished from cold and hunger.One day Mrs. Stowe received a letter from her sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward Beecher, which she read to her family. When she came to this passage:Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is, Mrs. Stowe stood up, an expression upon her face which those who saw it never forgot.What she said, however, was simply, "Iwillwrite something! I will, if I live!"Some months after this Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion in the college church at Brunswick, when the scene of the death of Uncle Tom passed through her mind as clearly as in a vision. She hastened home, wrote out the chapter on his death, as it now stands, and then read it to her assembledfamily. Her two sons aged eleven and twelve years burst out crying, saying, "Oh, mamma! Slavery is the most cruel thing in the world!"When two or three more chapters were ready, she offered it for publication to Dr. Bailey, then in Washington, andUncle Tom's Cabinwas first published as a serial in his paperThe National Era. For it Mrs. Stowe received three hundred dollars.When completed, it was published by Jewett of Boston, in March, 1852, meeting with instant success. In ten days ten thousand copies were sold. Thirty different editions appeared in London in six months, and it was translated into twenty foreign languages. It was dramatized, and several theaters were playing it at one time. In less than a year over three hundred thousand copies were sold.Mrs. Stowe "woke up to find herself famous,"—not to say wealthy. Letters of congratulation poured in upon her from all parts of the world. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sent hearty thanks. Charles Dickens wrote, "Your book is worthy of any head and any heart that ever inspired a book." Charles Kingsley wrote, "It is perfect!"The poet Whittier wrote to Garrison, "What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought!Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted, for it gave occasion forUncle Tom's Cabin!"Longfellow also wrote in praise of the book, and letters were received from most of the noted men who opposed slavery.The possibility of making money by the publication of this book was quite remote from Mrs. Stowe's disinterested mind. As she wrote in a letter to a friend: "Having been poor all my life, and expecting to be poor for the rest of it, the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just because I could not help it, never occurred to me." But from this time forth she was to be free from the anxieties of poverty. As the first payment of three months' sale, Mrs. Stowe received ten thousand dollars.The following year Professor and Mrs. Stowe went to Great Britain, having been urgently invited to visit in many Scotch and English houses. Even in foreign lands, Mrs. Stowe found herself known and loved. Crowds greeted her in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. Children ran ahead of her carriage, throwing flowers to her, and officials of the Anti-Slavery Societies met her and offered hospitality.A national penny offering, turned into a thousand golden sovereigns, was presented to her on a magnificent silver salver for the advancement of the cause for which she had written. This offering came from all classes of people.A personal gift which Mrs. Stowe valued highly was a superb gold bracelet presented by the beautiful Duchess of Sutherland who entertained her at Stafford House. It was made in the form of a slave's shackle and bore the inscription, "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken." On two of the links were already inscribed the dates of the abolition of slave trade and of slavery in the English territories. Years afterward, on the clasp of the bracelet, Mrs. Stowe had engraved the date of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.Upon Mrs. Stowe's return from her visit to Europe in the autumn of 1853, she became very active in public affairs. She supported anti-slavery lectures, established schools for the colored people, assisted in buying ill-treated slaves and setting them free, and arranged public meetings for the advancement of anti-slavery opinions, using the money which had been given to her in England to support the work.In addition, she kept up a correspondence with influential men and women on the subject of the abolition of slavery.The books she wrote after this wereSunny Memories of Foreign Lands;Dred, a great anti-slavery story;The Minister's Wooing;Agnes of Sorrento;The Pearl of Orr's Island; andOld Town Folks. All have been widely read, butUncle Tom's Cabin, though lacking in literary form and finish, written as it was at white heat and with no thought of anything but its object, remains her greatest work. It made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law impossible, by making people see slavery in all its inhumanity.In addition to her books, Mrs. Stowe wrote an appeal to the women of America, in which she set forth the injustice and misery of slavery, begging all thoughtful women to use their influence to have the wicked system abolished. Here are a few paragraphs:What can the women of a country do? Oh! women of the free states, what did your brave mothers do in the days of the Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart?For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of America now do her duty!Nobly, indeed, did the women of America respond to her call, for during the Civil War, which was begun before the abolition of slavery was an accomplished fact, the women, though they went not to the war themselves, loyally sent out their fathers, husbands and brothers. Who shall say these women were not heroic?After the close of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe purchased a home in Florida overlooking the St. John's River, where she lived during the winter, going in summer to her old home in Hartford.On her seventieth birthday, June 14, 1882, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company, of Boston, gave a reception for her in the form of a garden party at the beautiful residence of ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts in Newtonville, one of Boston's fine suburbs. Here gathered men and women well known in the literary and artistic world, eager to do honor to the woman whose life had been such an inspiration to others, and whose work of such benefit to mankind. Mr. Houghton made an address of congratulation and welcome, to which Henry Ward Beecher replied. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke, and many poems and letters from noted persons were read.This was the last public appearance of Mrs. Stowe. Her husband died in August, 1886, and she herself, passed away July 1, 1896, at Hartford, at the age of eighty-four. She was buried in the cemetery of the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, next to her husband.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
(1811-1896)
"Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her at the gates."—Solomon
"Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her at the gates."
—Solomon
Few women's names have made so vivid a mark upon the history of our country as that of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
On June 14, 1811, in the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, Harriet first saw the light of day. She was the seventh child, the eldest being but eleven years of age. Just two years after Harriet was born came a little brother, Henry Ward, who became the renowned pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.
Harriet's father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, was a man of marked ability, and her mother, Roxanna Beecher, was a woman whose beautiful life has been a help to many. The family was a large one to be supported on a salary of five hundred dollars a year, and in order to assist, Roxanna Beecher started a select school, where she taught French, drawing,painting and embroidery, as well as the higher English branches.
A great grief came to little Harriet, when she was between three and four, in the death of her mother. Certain things in connection with this event, as the funeral, the mourning dresses, and the walk to the burial ground, never left her memory. Her little mind was confused by being told that her mother had gone to heaven, when Harriet had with her own eyes seen her laid in the ground. Her brother Henry suffered likewise from this confusion of thought. He was found one day in the garden digging diligently. When his elder sister Catherine asked him what he was doing, he answered: "I'm going to heaven to find mamma!"
When Harriet was six, her father married again. At first the little girl, who had loved her own mother so dearly, felt very sad about this; but she afterward learned to love and respect her new mother.
Harriet had a remarkable memory. At seven she had memorized twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She read fluently, and continually searched her father's library for books which might interest her. Very few did she find there, however. Most of the titles filled her childish soul withawe, and she longed for the time when she could understand and enjoy such works as Bonnett'sInquiries, Bell'sSermons, and Bogue'sEssays.
One day good luck befell her. In the bottom of a barrel of old sermons she came upon a well-worn volume ofThe Arabian Nights. Imagine her joy! A world of enchantment opened to her. WhenIvanhoefell in her way, she and her brother George read it through, together, seven times.
It was in the school of Mr. John P. Brace that Harriet discovered her taste for writing. Her compositions were remarkable for their cleverness; when one of them was read at the entertainment at the close of the year, Harriet's cup of joy was full to the brim.
About this time Harriet's elder sister, Catherine, opened a school in Hartford. The circumstances which led her to do so were very sad. Catherine, who was remarkably gifted, had been engaged to Professor Fisher of Yale, a brilliant and promising young man. These young people expected to be married on the return of the Professor from a European trip. But the vessel on which he sailed was wrecked, and he never came back.
This almost prostrated Catherine, but her strongnature rose to meet the blow. She determined to devote her life to the work of helping girls. After hard work she raised several thousands of dollars and built the Hartford Female Seminary, where girls studied subjects heretofore taught only in boys' colleges, and received an education more on an equality with that given to boys.
People of that time wondered what use girls would make of Latin and philosophy, but Miss Beecher's able management of the school and her womanly and scholarly attainments so filled them with admiration that they gladly put their daughters in her charge. Here also entered twelve year old Harriet, not only as a pupil, but a pupil teacher, that she might help her father in paying the expenses of his large family. The experience of Harriet in this school was of much use in after life. She had to master problems without any assistance from others, and in doing this, she became self-reliant.
About ten years after this, her father was called to become President of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio. Catherine and Harriet felt bound to go with him, to help him in the new field of work. The journey, made by stage-coach across the mountains, was very tiresome. They settled inWalnut Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati, where the sisters opened another school.
In 1836, Harriet married Calvin E. Stowe, professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature in the Lane Seminary. Mr. Stowe, together with other intelligent men in Ohio at that time, was much interested in the advancement of education in the common schools. In order to study the question and to purchase books for the Lane Seminary, Mr. Stowe was sent abroad. This happened shortly after his marriage.
During his absence Harriet lived in Cincinnati with her father and brother, writing short stories and essays for publication and assisting her brother, Henry Ward, who was then editing a small daily paper.
The question of slavery had become an exciting topic in Cincinnati. Being near the borderland of Kentucky, a slave state, this city naturally became the center of heated discussions. Many slaves who escaped sought refuge in Cincinnati, and people who were friendly to their cause assisted them to reach Canada, where they were safe from capture by their so called masters.
Among the students of Lane Seminary were both Northerners and Southerners, and many fierce debates as to the rights and wrongs of slavery were carried on in that institution. The feeling was very intense and excitement ran high. Dr. Bailey, an editor who attempted to carry on in his newspaper a fair discussion of the slavery question, had his presses broken and thrown into the river.
Mrs. Stowe took into her family, as servant, a colored girl from Kentucky. Though by the laws of Ohio this girl was free, having been brought into the state by her mistress and left there, yet it was rumored that some one had come to the city from over the border hunting for her, with the intention of taking her back into slavery. Mrs. Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher drove the poor girl by night twelve miles into the country and left her with an old friend until such time as the search for her should be given up. This incident served Mrs. Stowe as the basis of her description inUncle Tom's Cabinof Eliza's escape from Tom Loker and Marks.
Houses of free colored people were burned and even Lane Seminary stood in danger from the mob. Mr. Stowe and his family slept with firearms at hand ready to defend themselves if necessary. When the trustees of the college forbade all discussion of the question of slavery, nearly all the students left the institution.
Then Mrs. Stowe opened her house to colored children and taught them. One boy in her school was claimed by a master in Kentucky, arrested and put up at auction. Mrs. Stowe raised sufficient money to buy him and gave it to his distracted mother, who thus saved him. Heart-rending incidents like this were continually brought to the attention of the Stowe family, until at last they felt unable to endure the situation. They decided to come North where Mr. Stowe accepted a position in Bowdoin College, Maine.
Very poor was the Stowe family in those days. Mrs. Stowe earned a little now and then, by her writings, and from a few boarders. She had now apparently all she could do, with a family of young children whom she herself taught, with her writing, and with caring for the strangers in the house; but even so, she could never get out of her mind those wretched creatures, her brothers and sisters, who were being bought and sold. What could she do for them?
The most frequent topic of conversation everywhere was the proposed law called The Fugitive Slave Act. This law would give the slave-holders of the South the right to bring back into slavery any colored person claimed as a slave, and also commandedthe people of the North to assist in the business of pursuit. Public feeling grew more and more heated, but the law was passed. After its passage many pitiable scenes occurred. The Stowe and Beecher families received frequent letters telling of shocking incidents. Families were broken up, children sold and sent far from their parents, while many slaves who ran away perished from cold and hunger.
One day Mrs. Stowe received a letter from her sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward Beecher, which she read to her family. When she came to this passage:Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is, Mrs. Stowe stood up, an expression upon her face which those who saw it never forgot.
What she said, however, was simply, "Iwillwrite something! I will, if I live!"
Some months after this Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion in the college church at Brunswick, when the scene of the death of Uncle Tom passed through her mind as clearly as in a vision. She hastened home, wrote out the chapter on his death, as it now stands, and then read it to her assembledfamily. Her two sons aged eleven and twelve years burst out crying, saying, "Oh, mamma! Slavery is the most cruel thing in the world!"
When two or three more chapters were ready, she offered it for publication to Dr. Bailey, then in Washington, andUncle Tom's Cabinwas first published as a serial in his paperThe National Era. For it Mrs. Stowe received three hundred dollars.
When completed, it was published by Jewett of Boston, in March, 1852, meeting with instant success. In ten days ten thousand copies were sold. Thirty different editions appeared in London in six months, and it was translated into twenty foreign languages. It was dramatized, and several theaters were playing it at one time. In less than a year over three hundred thousand copies were sold.
Mrs. Stowe "woke up to find herself famous,"—not to say wealthy. Letters of congratulation poured in upon her from all parts of the world. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sent hearty thanks. Charles Dickens wrote, "Your book is worthy of any head and any heart that ever inspired a book." Charles Kingsley wrote, "It is perfect!"
The poet Whittier wrote to Garrison, "What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought!Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted, for it gave occasion forUncle Tom's Cabin!"
Longfellow also wrote in praise of the book, and letters were received from most of the noted men who opposed slavery.
The possibility of making money by the publication of this book was quite remote from Mrs. Stowe's disinterested mind. As she wrote in a letter to a friend: "Having been poor all my life, and expecting to be poor for the rest of it, the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just because I could not help it, never occurred to me." But from this time forth she was to be free from the anxieties of poverty. As the first payment of three months' sale, Mrs. Stowe received ten thousand dollars.
The following year Professor and Mrs. Stowe went to Great Britain, having been urgently invited to visit in many Scotch and English houses. Even in foreign lands, Mrs. Stowe found herself known and loved. Crowds greeted her in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. Children ran ahead of her carriage, throwing flowers to her, and officials of the Anti-Slavery Societies met her and offered hospitality.
A national penny offering, turned into a thousand golden sovereigns, was presented to her on a magnificent silver salver for the advancement of the cause for which she had written. This offering came from all classes of people.
A personal gift which Mrs. Stowe valued highly was a superb gold bracelet presented by the beautiful Duchess of Sutherland who entertained her at Stafford House. It was made in the form of a slave's shackle and bore the inscription, "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken." On two of the links were already inscribed the dates of the abolition of slave trade and of slavery in the English territories. Years afterward, on the clasp of the bracelet, Mrs. Stowe had engraved the date of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States.
Upon Mrs. Stowe's return from her visit to Europe in the autumn of 1853, she became very active in public affairs. She supported anti-slavery lectures, established schools for the colored people, assisted in buying ill-treated slaves and setting them free, and arranged public meetings for the advancement of anti-slavery opinions, using the money which had been given to her in England to support the work.In addition, she kept up a correspondence with influential men and women on the subject of the abolition of slavery.
The books she wrote after this wereSunny Memories of Foreign Lands;Dred, a great anti-slavery story;The Minister's Wooing;Agnes of Sorrento;The Pearl of Orr's Island; andOld Town Folks. All have been widely read, butUncle Tom's Cabin, though lacking in literary form and finish, written as it was at white heat and with no thought of anything but its object, remains her greatest work. It made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law impossible, by making people see slavery in all its inhumanity.
In addition to her books, Mrs. Stowe wrote an appeal to the women of America, in which she set forth the injustice and misery of slavery, begging all thoughtful women to use their influence to have the wicked system abolished. Here are a few paragraphs:
What can the women of a country do? Oh! women of the free states, what did your brave mothers do in the days of the Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart?For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of America now do her duty!
What can the women of a country do? Oh! women of the free states, what did your brave mothers do in the days of the Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's heart?
For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of America now do her duty!
Nobly, indeed, did the women of America respond to her call, for during the Civil War, which was begun before the abolition of slavery was an accomplished fact, the women, though they went not to the war themselves, loyally sent out their fathers, husbands and brothers. Who shall say these women were not heroic?
After the close of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe purchased a home in Florida overlooking the St. John's River, where she lived during the winter, going in summer to her old home in Hartford.
On her seventieth birthday, June 14, 1882, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company, of Boston, gave a reception for her in the form of a garden party at the beautiful residence of ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts in Newtonville, one of Boston's fine suburbs. Here gathered men and women well known in the literary and artistic world, eager to do honor to the woman whose life had been such an inspiration to others, and whose work of such benefit to mankind. Mr. Houghton made an address of congratulation and welcome, to which Henry Ward Beecher replied. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke, and many poems and letters from noted persons were read.
This was the last public appearance of Mrs. Stowe. Her husband died in August, 1886, and she herself, passed away July 1, 1896, at Hartford, at the age of eighty-four. She was buried in the cemetery of the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, next to her husband.