Amador ledger., 1909-02-19
How Uncle Toms Cabin"
Came to Be Written.

/ y
citement over Mr. Webster's seventh
Of March speech and the Fugitive
Slave Law, that Mrs stowe joined
her husband in brunswick, Maine,
where lie had accepted professor
ship in Bowdoin College. Her brother
Edward was at this time the pastor
of a church in Boston, and Mrs Stowe
received frequent letters from him
and from his wife teeming with heart
rending Incidents of unfortunates
fleeing tor Canada, and the woe and
misery that had come to many a
negro home. In one of these letters
Mrs Beecher exclaimed. 80 Hattie
If | could ouly write as you can
would write something to make the
world feel what an awful soourge
slavery isl" Mrs Stoves children
we'll remember how she rose from her
chair. crushing this letter in her
hand, and with the color mounting
to her cheek exclaimed, "l will! Coo
help me, | will if 1 live |"
Mrs Stoves family bad removed to
| Cincinnati when she was about
twenty years of age, land there she
had had usual opportunities for OBJ
serving the practical workings of
slavery as an Institution.
At this time her brother, Charles
Beecher, was in business in the city
of New Orleans in large commission
house which had frequent dealings
with the slave plantations. He also
kept journal of his observations and
experiences. sHis letters were fulli of
incidents bearing more or less re-
motely on the practical influence of
slavery.
There was an actual Legree, whom
Mrs Stoves brother Charles met on
the boat returning to his Red River
plantation with a miserable gang of
slaves that be had purchased in New
Orleans.
IN 1889, while still at Cincinnati,
Mrs Stowe received into her. .family:as
a servant colored girl, who, accord
ing to the laws of the state of Ohio,
was free, as she had been brought
into the state and left by her mis-
tress. Hearing that the girls master
was in the city looking for her, and
that she was in danger of being seized |
and carried back to slavery, Professor
Stowe and his brother-in-law, Henry |
Beecher, both armed, drove with the
fugitive, une night to lonely farm
house. from which she was speeded |
on her way toCenada. 1t is from this |
incident in real life that Mrs Stowe
wove the story of Eliza's escape from
Marks and Tom Loker.
Uncle Tom was largely an ideal
character, but the leading traits of
the composite portrait we're drawn
from many conversations that Mrs
Stowe had with trembling fugitlves,
who, on their way to Canada and
freedom, found in her house food,
shelter, kind words, and pecuniary
aid.
The first fourteen years of Mis-
Stoves married life we're dismal |
struggle with i'll fortune, ill health,
and poverty. AS the seminary in |
which her husband then taught was
in financial straits Professor Stoves
meager salaIy was very Irregularly |
paid. His health, frai; at the best,
broke down mpletelyundeG eXaspeI-
ating and perpleXing complications
connected with his duties III the
seminary, and the effects of the un-
wonted climate. Certain overzealous
students tried to promote the cause of
humanity and abolition by ostentati-
ously consorting with negroea and
parading the streets with young
colored women, thus at once showing
their contempt for all race prejudice
and awakening the wrath OF the
Cincinnati mobs. that threatened to
go out to Walnut Hills. and burn
down the seminary buildings ,and
wreck the professors houses. This
was the last straw for poor Mr. Stowe,
aud, collapsed and despairing, be
had to seek a water cure in the East
Then came an awful visitation of
cholera, aud the death of their
youngest child. In spite of all, the
brave little mother wrote articles tor
the papers and magazines and
managed to feed and olothe her
children and write letters full OF hope
and cheer to her poor, despairing sick
husband.
At last she herself was stricken