Morgan County IL Archives Biographies.....Beecher, Thomas Kennicutt 1824 - 1900
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 August 9, 2008, 9:23 am

Author: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary

BEECHER, Thomas Kennicutt, clergyman, was born in Litchfield, Conn., Feb. 10, 
1824; the eldest son of Lyman and Harriet (Porter) Beecher. He was graduated 
from Illinois college, Jacksonville, in 1843, his half-brother, Edward, being 
at the time president of the institution. He was master of a grammar school in 
Philadelphia for two years, and then principal of the High school at Hartford, 
Conn. In 1852 he formed and assumed the charge of the New England 
Congregational church at Williamsburg, Brooklyn, L. I. In 1854 he accepted a 
call from the Independent Congregational church of Elmira, N. Y., afterwards 
known as the Park church. Here his success throughout a long pastorate was 
very marked. At first he had a small congregation, with many financial and 
other burdens, and no suitable church building; and afterwards a church of 
nearly one thousand members, a Sunday school with as many children in 
attendance, and a church building well fitted for worship, instruction, and 
social home-church life, where he introduced novel and successful methods of 
church work. During the civil war he was for a time chaplain of the 141st New 
York volunteers. Mr. Beecher was always broad-minded, generous-hearted, genial 
and unpretentious, an all-round man in religion, politics and social 
intercourse; not the slave of any past opinions, but suiting his methods and 
views to the present. His writings consisted principally of editorials and 
articles furnished the Elmira Advertiser & Gazette under the head of 
Miscellany. In 1870 he published a volume of locates entitled Our Seven 
Churches one of them on the Episcopal church having an especially large and 
separate circulation. In 1853 he visited France and England; in 1864-65, South 
America; in 1873, England; and in 1884, California. His death occurred at 
Elmira, N.Y., on the same date as that of his sister, Mary Foote (Beecher) 
Perkins, March 14, 1900.

Additional Comments:
Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.
Vol. I-X. Rossiter Johnson, editor. Boston MA: The Biographical Society. 1904.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/morgan/bios/beecher1440gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/

File size: 2.7 Kb