Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-07-01
OF MRS. STOWE
The Famous Novelist Passes Ava,
Today.
The Author OF Uncle Toms Cabin
Her Long Career and Liter
ary LabOrs.

HARTFORD, Conn, July Mrs Har-
riet Beecher Stowe passed away at her res
idence in this city. At her bedside were
three members of the family. Mrs. Isabella
Beecher Hooker; her husband. DR.. Hooker,
and Harriet Stowe, a daughter of the au-
thoress. Throughout the forenoon the
friends Of Mrs Stowe were gathered
in the room waiting for the end.
Death came without a struggle and the end
merely appeared to be a final continuance
of the unconscious state into which Mrs.
Stowe lapSed on Monday.
The arrangements for the funeral have
been but partially completed. The services
in Hartford will be private, and interment
will take place In Andover. Mass
Harriet Beecher Stowe was stricken with
congestion of the brain and paralysis FRI
day. She was not confined to her bed I'M
til Monday. She grew rapidly worse Mon
day and in the afternoon passed into
state of Inconsistencies.
Mrs. Stowe was eighty-four years old two
weeks ago last Sunday. At that time her
health was feeble. hut she was seen sitting
on the porch of her house In Forest street
every pleasant day.
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe is doubtless
the best known Of American women in
the field of literature. Her great work
was ''Uncle Toms Cabin" but in addition
to that masterpiece she produced a great
quantity of literature, her works num-
herring nearly half a hundred She was
born in Litchfield. Conn. June u, 1912, and
thus lived to be over eighty-four years of
age. She was the sixth child of Rev.
Or. Lyman Beecher: and a sister of Henry
Ward Beecher, the famous BROOKLYN
preacher. Her mother died when she
was four years old. and the child Was
placed under the care of her grandmother
at Guildford. Conn. Her father married
the second time. and her education was
then continued at the Litchtieid Academy.
Her father was a man of wide learning
and great lover of classical literature.
He encouraged his children to read the
same grade of hooks, and at about nine
years of age Mrs. Stowe read Byron's
'Corsair. During her young girlhood
the slavery question was being agitated
throughout the north. and her father. an
ardent abolitfonist, made his sensitive
child an enemy of the system, even IN
her youth. When she was thirteen years
of age she wen. to Hartford to attend a
school established by her eldest sister.
where she studied Latin and other sub
jects. and at fourteen she taught class
In 1892 she and her sister removed with
their father to Cincinnati, where DR.
Beecher assumed the presidency of Lane
Theological Seminary and the passionate Of
the Second Presbyterian Church.
1t was IN Cincinnati that Mrs Stowe did
her first literary work, which consisted of
the compilation OF an elementary geog-
raphy, extensively used in the lower grades
of the schools. She was engaged at the
Tune Win HeT teaching, and in
January, 1886, she married Rev Calvin
Ellis Stowe, who had been a professor of
Greek a. Dartmouth. but who was at that
time professor of sacred literature in the
Lane THEOLOGICAL Seminary His frs. wife
had died in 1884.
The residence Of Mr.. and Mrs Stowe in
Cincinnati brought her into closer contact
with the slavery system than she had been
in New England, and she made frequent
trips into the slave states and acquired a
minute knowledge of the sout hern life that
left its mark on her subsequent work Fugi-
tives from the south were frequently she,-
tered in her house and were assisted by
her husband and brother to escape to Can
ada.
During the riots Of 1885, when free ne
groes were hunted like animals in the
streets of Cincinnati, the Lane Seminary
and the residences of the abolitionists were
only saved from destruction by their dis
lance from the city and the impassable
condition Of the roads. In 1850 Mr. Stowe
was appointed to a professorship at Bow
doin College. and the family removed to
Brunswick. Maine. Mrs. Stowe was con-
WINGED that the time had come for her to
utilize her knowledge on the slavery ques-
ton and to voice her strong sentiments.
and to this end she wrote '.I-ncle Tom :
Cabin. or Life Among the Lowry"
Mrs. Stowe had no anticipation Of the
enormous success that awaited her book
which, indeed. was not widely read at the
beginning. 1t was first published in the
National Era at Washington. running as a
serial from June, 1851. until April 1s5o
1t was published in book form in Boston
in 49, and in the first FIVE years follow
ing its appearance nearly half a million
copies were sold in this country alone
During this period Prof. Stowe was an
pointed to a chair at the theological semi
nary at Andover. Mass, and removed
thither with his family.
Mrs Stoves book brought upon her the
| criticism and condemnation of the south
and the friends of slavery in the north
and in 1893 she wrote "A Key to Uncle
Toms Cabin. cOrrohorative of her state
mentS in that great work, and the Same
| year she published chidren's story has ID
upon the same plot. Since that time ND
TO comparatively few Years ago Mrs
stowe has been an active contributor to
| American literature
The success of Uncle Toms CABIN in
| duced her to devote herself entirely 10
writing. with the result that there was an
almost constant succession of works from
her pen for a period of over a Quarter of
century She visited England in 1873
ana again few years later. In ISIS she
became co-editor with Donald b. Mitchell
ok MarvcID of the periodical known as
Hearth and Home published in New York
1t was her direction that her biography
should be written by her son. the Rev
charles Edward Stowe. pastor of he Wind
sor Avenue Presbyterian Church. in Hart
ford, Conn.