Henry Ward Beecher was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on Christ's love has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century.
Lyman Beecher was a Presbyterian minister, and the father of 13 children, many of whom became writers or ministers, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Catharine Beecher, and Thomas K. Beecher.
Plymouth Church is an historic church located at 57 Orange Street between Henry and Hicks Streets in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City; the Church House has the address 75 Hicks Street. The church was built in 1849–50 and was designed by Joseph C. Wells. Under the leadership of its first minister, Henry Ward Beecher, it became the foremost center of anti-slavery sentiment in the mid-19th century. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1961, and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1966. It is part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965.
Woodlawn Cemetery is the name of a cemetery in Elmira, New York, United States. Its most famous burials are Mark Twain and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens. Many members of the United States Congress, including Jacob Sloat Fassett are also interred there.
Jane Lampton "Jean" Clemens was the daughter of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Olivia Langdon Clemens. She founded or worked with a number of societies for the protection of animals.
Charles Beecher was an American minister, composer of religious hymns and a prolific author.
Olivia Langdon Clemens was the wife of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known under his pen name Mark Twain.
Edward Beecher was an American theologian, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher.
Jonathan Blanchard was an American pastor, educator, social reformer, and abolitionist. Born in Vermont, Blanchard attended Middlebury College before accepting a teaching position in New York. In 1834, he left to study at Andover Theological Seminary, but departed in 1836 after the college rejected agents from the American Anti-Slavery Society. Blanchard joined the group as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy" and preached in favor of abolition in southern Pennsylvania.
Originating in New England, one particular Beecher family in the 19th century was a political family notable for issues of religion, civil rights, and social reform. Notable members of the family include clergy, educators, authors and artists. Many of the family were Yale-educated and advocated for abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights. Some of the family provided material or ideological support to the Union in the American Civil War. The family is of English descent.
Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell was a writer and Congregational minister from Hartford, Connecticut. He was a close friend of writer Mark Twain for over forty years and is believed to be the model for the character "Harris" in A Tramp Abroad.
Mark Twain: The Musical is a stage musical biography of Mark Twain that had a ten-year summertime run in Elmira, NY and Hartford, CT (1987–1995) and was telecast on a number of public television stations. An original cast CD was released by Premier Recordings in 1988, and LML Music in 2009 issued a newly mastered and complete version of the score. Video and DVD versions of the show are currently in release.
Park Church runs the length of an entire city block in Elmira, New York. The church was constructed from 1874 through 1876, replacing its much smaller, wooden predecessor. It was designed by Horatio Nelson White. The design of the limestone and brick church is highly eclectic. Besides its architecture, the church is significant for its congregation of abolitionists and humanitarians. From 1854 until his death in 1900, Thomas Kennicott Beecher was the pastor of Park Church. Beecher, together with his twelve siblings including author Harriet Beecher Stowe, was brought up by liberal reformist clergyman Lyman Beecher.
William Henry Beecher was a dyspeptic minister who was called "The Unlucky" because misfortune attended all his ventures.
The First Congregational Church of Litchfield is a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Litchfield, Connecticut, USA, occupying a historic building on the Litchfield green.
The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, was the home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his family from 1874 to 1891. The Clemens family had it designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and built in the American High Gothic style. Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan has called it "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock."
John Hooker (1816-1901) was an American lawyer, judge, and abolitionist as well as a reformer for women's rights. He married Isabella Beecher Hooker in 1841 and lived in Farmington and Hartford, Connecticut.
The American Home Missionary Society was a Protestant missionary society in the United States founded in 1826. It was founded as a merger of the United Domestic Missionary Society with state missionary societies from New England. The society was formed by members of the Presbyterian, Congregational, Associate Reformed, and Dutch Reformed churches with the objective "to assist congregations that are unable to support the gospel ministry, and to send the gospel to the destitute within the United States." In 1893, the Society became exclusively associated with the National Council of Congregational Churches and was renamed the Congregational Home Missionary Society.
James Chaplin Beecher, was an American Congregationalist minister and Colonel for the Union Army during the American Civil War. He came from the Beecher family, a prominent 19th century American religious family.
Annis Bertha Ford Eastman (1852–1910) was an American Congregational minister, and one of the first non-Quaker women in the United States to be ordained. She ministered at several churches in New York State, including Park Church in Elmira. She was a popular speaker, as well. In 1893, she spoke at the Congress of Women, held at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She presented at the National Council of Women of the United States in 1895.
