When Calvin Stowe retired from teaching in 1863, the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Stowe continued her writing, selling stories and articles, poems and advice columns, and essays on issues of the day.
The Stowes began spending their winters in Florida after the end of the Civil War. Harriet established a cotton plantation in Florida, with her son Frederick as the manager, to employ newly-freed slaves. This effort, and her book Palmetto Leaves, endeared Harriet Beecher Stowe to Floridians.
Though none of her later works were nearly as popular (or influential) as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe was the center of public attention again when, in 1869, an article in The Atlantic created a scandal. Upset at a publication that she thought insulted her friend, Lady Byron, she repeated in that article, and then more fully in a book, a charge that Lord Byron had had an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, and that a child had been born of their relationship.
Frederick Stowe was lost at sea in 1871, and Harriet Beecher Stowe mourned another son lost to death. Though daughters Eliza and Harriet, the twins, were still unmarried and helping at home, the Stowes moved to smaller quarters.
Another scandal touched the family in the 1870s, when Henry Ward Beecher, the brother with whom Harriet had been closest, was charged with adultery with Elizabeth Tilton, the wife of one of his parishioner, Theodore Tilton, a publisher. Victoria Woodhull and Susan B. Anthony were drawn into the scandal, with Woodhull publishing the charges in her weekly newspaper. In the adultery trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Harriet's half-sister Isabella, a supporter of Woodhull, believed the charges of adultery and was ostracized by the family; Harriet defended her brother's innocence.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's 70th birthday in 1881 was a matter of national celebration, but she did not appear in public much in her later years. Harriet helped her son, Charles, write her biography, published in 1889. Calvin Stowe died in 1886, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, bedridden for some years, died in 1896.
More About Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Harriet Beecher Stowe - basic facts about Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Harriet Beecher Stowe Quotes
- Harriet Beecher Stowe Picture - adapted from an 1852 photograph of Harriet Beecher Stowe, first published in a biography written by her son and grandson
- Harriet Beecher Stowe Picture - adapted from a formal full-length pose with Stowe standing by a chair, 1862
- Harriet Beecher Stowe Links
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- Harriet Beecher Stowe Analysis and Criticism
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