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Show THE BEECHER FAMILY A very pleasant gathering took place on Monday at the house of the Rev. Edward Beecher, the eldest I believe, of the Beecher family, to celebrate a double event. It was the seventy-fifth birthday of the host, and it was also the fiftieth anniversary of his wedding. Golden wedding celebrations dont occur in many families, and when they do occur they are likely to be long remembered. This one was almost exclusively a family affair. With the exception of a few Plymouth Church people, all the persons present were members of the Beecher family. Three generations were there, and all as happy as a picnic party on a glorious day in June (some picnic parties are not happy, especially if there are many insects around, but I mean the other sort). The Beechers present were Edward and his family, including grandchildren, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, her sister Mrs. Perkins, and her sister in-law, Mrs. Sarah B. Beecher. No formality interfered with the pleasure of the occasion. After lunch the party assembled in a parlor, where one brother (Charles) offered prayer, another (Henry) put everybody in good humor with a witty speech, and a third (Thomas K.) read an address on the family history. The only Beecher not present was the Rev. James Beecher, who retired to a hut in the backwoods of the Catskills several years ago with his wife and cannot be coaxed out of his retreat. He gave up a pastorate in Poughkeepsie that paid him $3,000 a year and deliberately went into the forest primeval to spend the remainder of his days out of sight of man. But this Beecher is not a full Beecher. He is only a half-brother of the four other preachers who bear the Beecher name, and he is unlike them in every way. I saw him off in the Ulster County woods a few summers ago, when trout-fishing up there, and heard him preach in a roadside schoolhouse. He is the youngest of the family and a man of a good deal of talent, but the fact of his burying himself in such a place, where many days may pass without his seeing a human face except his wife's and that of an adopted daughter who lives with them, shows that he is very eccentric. -- Cor. Detroit Free Press. |