Many anti-slavery abolitionists expressed their opposition to slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. Abolitionist authors Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass They were similar in some aspects yet unlike in others ("abolition"). Both women wrote about their experiences with slavery and racism. Both of their books became best-sellers after being published by different companies. And although they never met, Stowe and Douglass became friends after the publication of their works. Stowe was born on March 24, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her father was a pastor who also wrote several books on theology. When she was nine years old, her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where her father took over the pastorate at the new Second Church of Christ, Scientist. She attended Western College in Cincinnati for two years before dropping out to care for her ill mother. When her mother died, Stowe returned to school and earned a teaching degree from Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1835, she married an attorney named Lyman Beecher who had been ministering to the heathens in India. He came back home and started work at the new Litchfield Law School where he taught for six years before becoming pastor of a church in Hartford, Connecticut. He died at the age of 44 after falling off his horse while riding through town on his way to preach.