Death
In March 1887, Beecher suffered a stroke and died in his sleep two days later on the 8th. Brooklyn, still an independent city, declared a day of mourning. The state legislature recessed, and telegrams of condolence were sent by national figures, including President Cleveland. Such was the anticipated attendance at his funeral, held at Plymouth Church at 10:30 a.m. on March 11, that tickets for members of the congregation, allowing them their normal pew seating, had to be printed. Crowd control was obviously a concern, as bearers were instructed the ticket "must be shown at the outer cordon of police and presented at the Orange street entrance by 10 A.M. As far as practicable, pew holders will be seated in their pews, save in such portion of the Church as may be necessarily reserved." The procession to the church, led by a black commander of the William Lloyd Garrison Post in Massachusetts and a white Virginia Confederate general and former slaveholder, marching arm in arm - paid tribute to what Beecher helped accomplish. Henry Ward Beecher was interred in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, survived by his wife Eunice, and four of their nine children: Harriet, Henry, William and Herbert.
Read more about this topic: Henry Ward Beecher
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“For man, maximum excitement is the confrontation of death and the skillful defiance of it by watching others fed to it as he survives transfixed with rapture.”
—Ernest Becker (1924–1974)
““Promise me solemnly,” I said to her as she lay on what I believed to be her death bed, “if you find in the world beyond the grave that you can communicate with me—that there is some way in which you can make me aware of your continued existence—promise me solemnly that you will never, never avail yourself of it.” She recovered and never, never forgave me.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)