Lyman Beecher

Ordained in 1799, clergyman Lyman Beecher possessed a personal magnetism and natural eloquence that made him one of the most influential ministers of his day. His religious views were generally in line with traditional American Protestantism, and in efforts to stem the rise of Unitarianism in Boston in the 1820s, Beecher was asked to fill the ministry at the city's Hanover Street Church. From that base, he launched the greatest religious renewal that Boston had witnessed since the Great Awakening eighty years before.

Beecher spent the final years of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, as president of Lane Theological Seminary. His preaching continued to be as dynamic as ever, but in the late 1830s he was brought before the Presbyterian synod on charges of heresy. In the end he was acquitted, but the doctrinal disagreements that spawned this proceeding persisted, eventually causing a schism in the Presbyterian church.

Painted for Beecher's daughter Mary Foote Beecher, this portrait was much admired by the subject's family. "I have been to day to see Beard's portrait of your father," son-in-law Calvin Stowe reported to his wife Harriet. "Considered as a mere work of art . . . I doubt whether there is anything . . . superior to it, and the resemblance is your father's very best face."