(UPDATED) BONDS OF KINSHIP, LOVE, AND CONSCIENCE: THE BEECHERS AND THE LYMAN FAMILY OF MIDDLEFIELD’S LYMAN ORCHARDS WITH AUTHOR DIANA ROSS MCCAIN

Author Talk & Book Signing

(UPDATED) BONDS OF KINSHIP, LOVE, AND CONSCIENCE: THE BEECHERS AND THE LYMAN FAMILY OF MIDDLEFIELD’S LYMAN ORCHARDS WITH AUTHOR DIANA ROSS MCCAIN

September 21, 2019

Book talk and signing with author Diana Ross McCain, author of Thy Children’s Children: A Historical Novel Based on the True Story of Five Generations of a New England Grassroots Dynasty.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was the great-granddaughter of John and Hope Lyman, who in 1741 settled on land in Middlefield, Connecticut, that today is part of Lyman Orchards, an agricultural/recreational complex operated by the eighth and ninth generations of Lyman descendants. The Beecher and Lyman families maintained close ties for many decades, supporting each other in times of tragedy, and becoming activists in reform movements including temperance and the abolition of slavery.

Author Diana Ross McCain will discuss the role the Beecher family, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, plays in her novel about the Lyman family, Thy Children’s Children. Copies of Thy Children’s Children will be available for purchase and autographing.

McCain is an independent historian who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history. She was on the staff of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford for twenty-five years, and is the author of five works of non-fiction. Admission is free.

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center 77 Forest Street Hartford CT 06015

Doors Open

Program 1 PM - 3 PM

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.