{{short description|United States clergyman and writer (1815–1900)}} {{for|the paleontologist|Charles Emerson Beecher}} {{Use American English|date=February 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Charles Beecher | image = CharlesBeecher.jpg | caption = Charles Beecher | birth_date = {{birth date|1815|10|01}} | birth_place = Litchfield, Connecticut | death_date = {{death date and age|1900|04|21|1815|10|01}} | death_place = Georgetown, Massachusetts | occupation = Minister, composer of religious hymns and author | years_active = | education = Boston Latin School<br>Lawrence Academy | parents = Lyman Beecher<br>Roxana Foote Beecher | spouse = {{marriage|Sarah Leland Coffin<br>|1840|1897|reason=her death}} | children = 6 | relatives = Harriet Beecher Stowe (sister)<br>Henry Ward Beecher (brother)<br>Catharine Beecher (sister)<br>James Chaplin Beecher (brother) }}
thumb|right|200px|An older Charles Beecher '''Charles Beecher''' (October 1, 1815 – April 21, 1900) was an American minister, composer of religious hymns and a prolific author.
==Early life== Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut,<ref>{{cite web |title=Litchfield Ledger – Charles Beecher |url=https://ledger.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/ledger/students/3212 |website=ledger.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org |access-date=19 January 2022}}</ref> the fifth child of Lyman Beecher, an abolitionist Congregationalist preacher from Boston and Roxana Foote Beecher.<ref name="CBObit1900"/> He was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the famous author of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', and the brother of renowned Congregationalist minister, Henry Ward Beecher.<ref>{{cite news |title=CHURCH BREACH HEALED; Plymouth's Pastor to Speak in the Pilgrim's Sanctuary. STORRS AND BEECHER PARTED For Thirty Years the Congregations Held Aloof, Then a Period of Reconciliation Came. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1900/03/01/archives/church-breach-healed-plymouths-pastor-to-speak-in-the-pilgrims.html |access-date=19 January 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=1 March 1900}}</ref> He also had another prominent and activist sister, Catharine Beecher.<ref name="1900Deaths">{{cite news |title=DEATHS IN BEECHER FAMILY; Half Brother and Sister Pass Away on the Same Day. Mrs. M.F. Beecher Perkins Lived at Hartford and the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher at Elmira. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1900/03/15/archives/deaths-in-beecher-family-half-brother-and-sister-pass-away-on-the.html |access-date=19 January 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=15 March 1900}}</ref>
He attended Boston Latin School and Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts, graduated from Bowdoin College in 1834, and then attended Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio.<ref name="CBObit1900"/> He taught music classes in Cincinnati, Ohio, and received his preaching license from the Presbytery of Indianapolis, Indiana. He served as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from 1844 until 1851.<ref name="CBObit1900"/> He was also a prominent member of the Peucinian Society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowdoin College Peucinian Society |title=Catalogue |date=1838 |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HbOAAAAMAAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
==Career== In 1851, he moved east and ministered to the First Free Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey. The church, known as a stronghold of abolitionism, was expelled from the Presbyterian Synod in 1853, and re-organized as a Congregationalist church. Beecher left in 1857 for a pastorate in Georgetown, Massachusetts.<ref name="CBObit1900"/>
In 1863 he was relieved of his preaching duties in the Congregational Church for preaching against orthodox doctrine. Specifically, he was convicted of teaching contrary to Scriptural articles of faith in promoting the errors of the preexistence and apostasy of human souls, the offer of salvation to the unrepentant after their deaths, that Jesus was an angel combined with the divinity of the Second Person of the Trinity and a human body, that Jesus' sufferings were not vicariously atoning but only morally persuasive, and that God was not impassible but had changeable passions.<ref name="1863Trial">{{cite news |last1=Journal |first1=the Boston |title=The Trial of Rev. Charles Beecher.; HE IS CONVICTED OF HERESY. RESULT. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1863/07/26/archives/the-trial-of-rev-charles-beecher-he-is-convicted-of-heresy-result.html |access-date=19 January 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=26 July 1863}}</ref>
Following the Civil War, he moved to Florida to help his sister Harriet and her husband minister to newly freed slaves. He eventually was state Superintendent of Public Instruction in Florida from 1871 to 1873. He finished his ministry as acting pastor in Wysox, Pennsylvania, from 1885 to 1893.<ref name="Barr2020">{{cite book |last1=Barr |first1=Amelia Edith Huddleston |title=All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography The Red Leaves of a Human Heart |date=28 September 2020 |publisher=Library of Alexandria |isbn=978-1-4656-1561-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A3ckDwAAQBAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="PSU1900">{{cite book |last1=College |first1=Pennsylvania State |title=Annual Report of the Pennsylvania State College for the Year ... |date=1900 |page=67 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k_UaAAAAYAAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
===Musical interests=== He also published two music texts and was one of the music editors for his brother Henry's 1855 ''Plymouth Collection''. He published several antislavery tracts, including ''A Sermon on the Nebraska Bill'' (1854) and ''The God of the Bible Against Slavery'' (1855).
==Personal life== {{further|Beecher family}} In 1840, Beecher married Sarah Leland Coffin (1815–1897), a daughter of Nathaniel Coffin and Mary King ({{nee}} Porter) Coffin.<ref name="Putnam1896">{{cite book |last1=Putnam |first1=Eben |title=Porter Leaflets: Devoted to the History Everywhere and of Whatever Family ... V. 1, No. 1-12, Mar. 1896 – June 1897 |date=1896 |page=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVQ-AAAAYAAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Sammarco2002">{{cite book |last1=Sammarco |first1=Anthony Mitchell |title=Georgetown |date=2002 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |isbn=978-0-7385-0976-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vEBL3bEr89IC |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Her maternal grandfather was William King, the first governor of Maine and a half-brother of U.S. Senator and Minister to the United Kingdom Rufus King.<ref name="Perley1893">{{cite book |last1=Perley |first1=Sidney |title=The Dwellings of Boxford, Essex County, Mass |date=1893 |publisher=Essex Institute |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K_nNYOztHy4C |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Together, they had six children, including:<ref name="Bowdoin1911">{{cite book |last1=College |first1=Bowdoin |title=Obituary Record of the Graduates of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine |date=1911 |pages=12–14, 404 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NevOAAAAMAAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
* Frederick Henry Beecher (1841–1868), died at the Battle of Beecher Island during the Comanche War. The island was posthumously named after him.<ref name="Bowdoin1911"/> * Charles McCulloch Beecher (1843–1906), who married Anna Melinda Clary Johnson (1849–1911), the aunt of Robert Livingston Johnson.<ref name="Bowdoin1911"/> * Helen Louisa Beecher (1847–1901)<ref name="Bowdoin1911"/> * Mary Isabella Beecher (1849–1928), who married George Warren Noyes (1842–1927).<ref name="Harvard1912">{{cite book |last1=of 1897 |first1=Harvard College (1780-) Class |title=Fourth Report |date=1912 |publisher=Rockwell and Churchill Press |pages=301–302 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2sknAAAAYAAJ |access-date=19 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref> * Esther "Essie" Lyman Beecher (1852–1867), who died young.<ref name="Bowdoin1911"/> * Edith Harriet Beecher (1854–1867), who died young.<ref name="Bowdoin1911"/>
Beecher died in Georgetown, Massachusetts on April 21, 1900.<ref name="CBObit1900">{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=DEATH LIST OF A DAY. {{!}} The Rev. Charles Beecher |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1900/04/22/archives/miss-benedict-injured.html |access-date=19 January 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=22 April 1900}}</ref>
==Published works== Beecher's major publications include: * ''The Incarnation, or, Pictures of the Virgin and her Son'' (1849) * ''The Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws'' (1851) * ''David and his Throne'' (1855) * ''Pen Pictures of the Bible'' (1855) * ''The Life of David King of Israel'' (1861) * ''Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. of Lyman Beecher'' (1863) * ''Redeemer and Redeemed'' (1864) * ''Spiritual Manifestations'' (1879) * ''The Eden Tableau, or, Object Bible-Teaching'' (1880) * ''Patmos; or, the Unveiling'' (1896)
==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}
== References == *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070611162314/http://antislavery.eserver.org/religious/beecherdutyofdisobedience/ The Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws. A Sermon on the Fugitive Slave Law] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120318154454/http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/e/e/beecher_c.htm Biography] at the Cyber Hymnal *{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Beecher, Lyman|year=1900}}
{{Harriet Beecher Stowe}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beecher, Charles}} Category:1815 births Category:1900 deaths Category:19th-century American male writers Category:19th-century American politicians Category:19th-century American Congregationalist ministers Category:American abolitionists Category:Composers from Massachusetts Category:American Protestant hymnwriters Category:American religious writers Charles Category:Bowdoin College alumni Category:Calvinist and Reformed hymnwriters Category:Congregationalist abolitionists Category:Florida commissioners of education Category:Lane Theological Seminary alumni Category:People from Litchfield, Connecticut Category:People from Georgetown, Massachusetts Category:Presbyterian abolitionists Category:Songwriters from Connecticut Category:19th-century American male composers Category:19th-century American Presbyterian ministers Category:Composers from Connecticut