BEECHER, LYMAN (1 7 75-1863 ), American clergyman, born at New Haven (Conn.) on Oct. 12, 1775, was a descendant of one of the founders of the New Haven colony. He graduated from Yale (1797) having studied theology under Timothy Dwight. He preached in several churches in the east and in the Second Presbyterian church of Cincinnati (O.) and became presi dent and professor of didactic and polemic theology (183 2-5o) of the newly established Lane theological seminary at Cincinnati. The last ten years of his life were spent with his son, Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn (N.Y.), where he died on Jan. 10, 1863. Magnetic in personality, incisive and powerful in manner of ex pression, he was in his combative prime an unusually eloquent pulpit orator.
His daughter, CATHERINE ESTHER (1800-1878), was born at East Hampton (L.I.) on Sept. 6, 1800. She was educated at Litch field seminary, and conducted schools for girls in Hartford (Conn.) and in Cincinnati. She wrote and lectured on education of women and in favour of better primary schools ; she radically opposed suf frage and college education for women, holding woman's sphere to be domestic. The National Board of Popular Education, a chari table society which she founded, sent hundreds of women as teachers into the south and west. She died on May 12, 1878, in Elmira (N.Y.). Among her publications are An Essay on Slavery and Abolition with Reference to the Duty of American Females (183 7) ; A Treatise on Domestic Economy (184 2) ; The True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women (1851) ; and Woman's Pro fession as Mother and Educator (i871).