A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

faculty moved their studies and work to Oberlin College where a more liberal philosophy was held.Other students continued to teach local African Americans by moving their school to the Hall of FreeDiscussion in Cumminsville, outside of the Cincinnati city limits.The Hall of Free Discussion was built in 1832 by Israel Ludlow’s son, James. It was a placewhere many of the ministers, students and those interested in politics met to listen and discuss issuesof their time. Among the speakers were Joshua L. Wilson, Lyman Beecher and various Carys.Dr. Lyman Beecher, President of Lane Seminary in 1832, and his family lived in Walnut Hills.Dr. Beecher was educated at Yale and was the father of a family that would a have remarkable impacton the abolition movement. Dr. Beecher, having a reputation as a reformer and revivalist, fullysupported the abolition movement. The trustees of Lane Seminary had waited until Dr. Beecher andanother one of his supporting professors, Dr. Calvin Ellis Stowe, were out of town before censoringthe students and voting to suppress the discussion of slavery because the controversy was splittingapart the seminary.The house built for Lyman Beecher still stands on Gilbert Avenue. Harriet lived there until hermarriage to Dr. Calvin E. Stowe, a professor of biblical literature, when she was 25. She remained afrequent visitor to her father’s house until she and her husband moved to Maine in 1850. Nearby herfather’s house was the home of Levi Coffin.Dr. Beecher was married three times, having thirteen children, two of whom died young. Sevenof his sons became Congregational ministers and his four daughters were among some of the mostfamous writers of their time. It was his daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) who wrote thefamous Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, spearheaded the women’s suffragemovement as well as freeing slaves. Her sister, Catherine, wrote books about home-life and headedCincinnati’s Western Female Seminary.Wendall Dabney’s Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens includes an anecdote about the Beecherfamily: “In Cleveland there lives a charming old colored lady, Mrs. Anna Bodie, nearly ninety yearsof age, who as a girl played and studied with Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her mother was the Beecher’scook...Many a slave did the Beechers hide in her mother’s apartment. On one occasion Mr. Beecher,while cutting wood in the yard on a cold, frosty morning, took off his coat and gave it to a poor,almost naked slave, who had just run away from the South.”The Stowe’s had seven children. Her income as a writer helped to support her large family inconjunction with her husband’s modest salary. The Stowes concealed and moved along fugitives for18 years from their Walnut Hills home. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written when she was age 40 afterthey had moved to Maine. She had only a brief opportunity to see slavery in Kentucky but had heardmany stories. She heard of Eliza’s river crossing at the home of her friends, the Rankins in Ripley,Ohio. Her book was serialized in 1851-1852 in a abolitionist newspaper and appeared in book form in1852, selling a million copies before the Civil War. When President Lincoln met her in 1863, hereportedly said: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!” While shecontinued to write a book a year until her death in 1896, only Uncle Tom’s Cabin was heralded asthe most influential novel ever published.Levi Coffin (1798-1877), a Quaker, a farmer and an educator began aiding escaping slaves as ateenager. The seeds of the anti-slavery movement were sown in the Quaker assemblies. Levi settled inIndiana, opened a grocery store, manufactured linseed oil and cured pork. Coffin and his familymoved to Cincinnati in 1847 as our city became a major center in the abolitionist movement. Stillvery active in the Underground Railroad, also named the Freedom Train or Gospel Train, he aided inthe escape of Eliza Harris who served as the model for Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, just as he andCatherine, his wife, were portrayed as the characters Simeon and Rachael Haliday. Originally Coffinpurchased a store at 6th and Elm Streets. The attic connected to adjacent buildings, as did tunnels inthe cellar. His next house was a 30 room house at the corner of Broadway and Franklin. Coffincontributed $50,000 of his own money to the cause and raised $100,000 from donors. Called the“President of the underground,” he aided escaping slaves for more than 30 years, dying in 1877. Thelegend of his exploits stands tall and most were true.100