Ministry on Long Island in New York (1798–1810) In September 1798, he was licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association, and entered upon his clerical duties by supplying the pulpit in the Presbyterian church at
East Hampton,
Long Island, and was ordained in 1799. Here he married his first wife, Roxana Foote. His salary was $300 a year plus firewood, He purchased the home built by
Elijah Wadsworth and reared a large family.
Temperance Alcohol intoxication or drunkenness, known as
intemperance at the time, was a source of concern in
New England as well as in other areas of the United States. Heavy drinking occurred even at some formal meetings of clergy, and Beecher resolved to take a stand against it. In 1826 he delivered and published “Six Sermons on Intemperance”. They were sent throughout the United States, ran rapidly through many editions in
England, and were translated into several languages in
Europe, enjoying large sales even 50 years later. and the Board of Lane Seminary, hoping this might dispose him to a move, later that year offered him the presidency, with a salary of $20,000 (), but he turned it down. He accepted a second offer, in 1832. His mission there was to train ministers to win the West for
Protestantism. Along with his presidency, he was also professor of sacred theology, and
pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati (later merged with First Presbyterian into modern-day
Covenant First Presbyterian Church). He served as a pastor for the first ten years of his Lane presidency.
Lane debates Beecher's term at Lane came at a time when
slavery became an even larger issue, threatening to divide the Presbyterian Church, the state of
Ohio, and the nation. Like most important men of the 1820s, Beecher was a colonizationist, one who supported the
American Colonization Society's program of helping free Blacks emigrate to
West Africa and set up there a black colony. He is reported to have reacted positively to an announcement of the planned
debates on that topic at Lane. However, a June 4, 1834, meeting of the Cincinnati Colonization Society "was addressed at length, by the Rev. Dr. Beecher, president of the Lane Seminary, who defended the society in an able manner, against some of the many charges brought against it, and endeavored to show the friends of abolition, that they might and ought to act in concert with the Colonization Society."{{cite journal But against a background of the
Haitian Revolution, the
French Revolution of 1830, the
agitation in England for reform and against colonial slavery, and the punishment by American courts of citizens like
Reuben Crandall who had dared to attack the slave trade carried on under the American flag, news about the brutal
treatment of American slaves began to be heard.
John Rankin's
Letters on Slavery had begun to direct the attention of Americans to the evils of slavery, and a new organization, the
American Anti-Slavery Society, held its initial meeting in Philadelphia in 1833. Its president,
Arthur Tappan, through whose generous donations Beecher had been induced to head the new Lane Seminary, forwarded to the students a copy of the address issued by the convention, and the whole subject was soon under discussion. In February 1834, students at Lane, with national publicity, for 18 consecutive nights
debated the colonization issue: whether the
American Colonization Society, which sought to settle freed slaves in Africa, was worthy of support. The students did not have permission for the debate, but they were not stopped ahead of time. Most of them abandoned colonization as a
hoax, replacing it with
abolitionism. It was seen as a hoax because firstly it was logistically impossible to relocate more than a handful of freed slaves, and secondly according to
Gerrit Smith, the colonization movement aimed to make slavery more defensible, not end it. Many of the students were from the South, and an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings. Slaveholders from Kentucky came in and incited mob violence, and for several weeks Beecher lived in a turmoil, not knowing whether rioters might destroy the seminary and the houses of the professors. The Board of Trustees interfered during the absence of Beecher, and allayed the excitement of the mob by forbidding all further discussion of slavery in the seminary, even at meals, whereupon the students withdrew
en masse. The group of about 50 students (who became known as the
Lane Rebels) who left the seminary went to the new
Oberlin Collegiate Institute, leaving Lane almost without students. Beecher believed himself blameless.{{cite book The well-reported events contributed significantly to the growth and spread of abolitionism in the northern United States. Beecher was neither aware of nor interested in Lane's key role in publicizing abolitionism.
Heresy trial over New School sympathies Although earlier in his career he had opposed them, Beecher stoked controversy by advocating "new measures" of
evangelism (including
revivals and
camp meetings) that ran counter to traditional
Calvinist understanding. These new measures at the time of the
Second Great Awakening brought turmoil to churches all across America. Joshua Lacy Wilson, pastor of First Presbyterian (later merged with Second Presbyterian into modern-day Covenant First Presbyterian) charged Beecher with
heresy in 1835. The trial took place in his own church, and Beecher defended himself, while burdened with the cares of his seminary, his church, and his wife at home on her deathbed. The trial resulted in acquittal,{{cite book
Move from Cincinnati to New York City (1852–death in 1863) and
Henry Ward Beecher, taken sometime after 1858. After the slavery controversy, Beecher and his co-professor
Calvin Ellis Stowe remained and tried to revive the prosperity of the seminary, but at last abandoned it. The great project of their lives was defeated, and they returned to the East, where Beecher went to live with his son Henry in
Brooklyn, New York, in 1852. He wished to devote himself mainly to the revision and publication of his works. But his intellectual powers began to decline, while his physical strength was unabated. About his 80th year he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and thenceforth his mental powers only gleamed out occasionally. After spending the last years of his life with his children, he died in Brooklyn in 1863 and was buried at
Grove Street Cemetery, in
New Haven, Connecticut. == Legacy==