THERE are two monuments to famed 19th Century preacher Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) in the Boro Hall — Brooklyn Heights area, the one seen here and one at Beecher’s church, the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims on Orange Street. Henry Ward Beecher preached from the church’s opening until his 1887 death. Beecher, a lecturer and writer as well as a pastor, attained a pre-eminence almost equal to Abraham Lincoln’s at the height of the Civil War, and even endorsed products, which well-known ministers did in the era. The pastor staged mock slave auctions to call attention to the evils of slavery; his sister, Harriet, wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Beecher was later involved in a sex scandal and was accused of committing adultery with the wife of a trusted associate. It caused irreparable damage to his career, though a jury found him not guilty of the crime.
This statue, sculpted by the renowned John Quincy Adams Ward, was unveiled in 1891. The accompanying figures are said to represent his abolitionist stance as well as his love of children. Reportedly, family members took issue with the likeness, saying it didn’t resemble the preacher. The statue was placed in its present Cadman Plaza position in 1959.
I snapped the other Beecher, at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims (1849) on Orange Street, around Christmas time and it looks like Beecher is saying “want a wreath?” This Beecher, along with the bas relief of Lincoln next to it, was produced by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who later created the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. I’m surprised the statues haven’t come under fire as each depict Black people in positions of supplication; Teddy Roosevelt’s statue at the American Museum of Natural History was exiled for less.
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7/14/23
2 comments
Henry Ward Beecher, it has been said, was a gun-runner who supplied rifles to the firebrand John Brown during Brown’s time in Kansas in the “Bloody Kansas” era circa 1854, those rifles being called “Beecher Bibles.” Beecher is known to have raised money for that cause, and had expressed support for Brown.
The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher/Called a hen “a most elegant creature.”/The hen, pleased with that,/Laid an egg in his hat,/And thus did the hen reward Beecher (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, probably before the scandal.)