Henry Ward Beecher - Early Life

Early Life

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Henry was the eighth of thirteen children born to Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian preacher from Boston. His mother, Roxana Foote, died when Henry was three. His well-known siblings included writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, educators Catharine Beecher and Reverend Thomas K. Beecher, and activists Charles Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker. In addition, Henry was the uncle of Edgar Beecher Bronson. Henry was especially close to his sister Harriet, two years his senior, according to the web site of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, New York City. "This friendship with Harriet continued throughout their lives, and she was still listed on the membership rolls of Plymouth Church when she died in 1896."

The Beecher household was exemplary of the orthodox ministry that Lyman Beecher preached. His family not only prayed at the beginning and end of each day but also sang hymns and prepared for other rigorous church obligations. They were expected to participate in prayer meetings, attend lectures and other church functions. "Undue frivolity was discouraged, so they did not celebrate Christmas or birthdays. Dancing, theater, and all but the most high-toned fiction were forbidden." Henry would recall later that he had not a single toy throughout his childhood.

Henry had a childhood stammer and was considered slow-witted; his less than stellar performance at Boston Latin School earned him punishments such as being forced to sit for hours in the girls' corner wearing a dunce cap. At age fourteen, he began his oratorical training at Mt. Pleasant Classical Institution, a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he met a fellow student, Constantine Fondolaik, a Smyrna Greek whose parents had been massacred by Turks.

The sensational poet Lord Byron was the ultimate in romantic ideals of the day, having died of fever fighting for Greek independence against Turkey, and Beecher saw that exoticism, as well all the romantic passion that his family frowned on, embodied in Fondolaik. Beecher referred to him as "...the most beautiful thing I had ever seen...a young Greek God". Both students attended Amherst College together, and it is probable that in his relationship with Fondolaik, Beecher, for the first time, received the sort of unstinting affection that had been lacking in his family life. He described the "contract" of friendship and "brotherly love" they entered into, and wrote that they were "connected by a love that cannot be broken." Beecher signed this contract "H.C. Beecher", with the "C" standing for "Constantine". Fondolaik died of cholera in 1842, just hours after his return to Greece, but Beecher's worship of him would endure for the next thirty years. He named his third son after him, and never attended any Mount Pleasant reunions, since the one schoolmate he would hope to see "will never greet me."

Beecher graduated in 1834 and in 1837 received a degree from Lane Theological Seminary outside Cincinnati, Ohio, which his father then headed. First becoming a minister in Lawrenceburg, Indiana (1837–39), he was then pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis (1839–47).