Stowe Center Expands Its Collection

HARTFORD, Conn. —  The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center has acquired a letter written by the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” when she was 10.

She describes her safe trip to her grandmother’s house from the family home in Litchfield, Conn.; her new baby sister, Isabella; and a dress ruffle on which she had not done much work.

The letter, dated March 14, 1822, and written to her brother Edward, was found in the basement of a church and bought by the Stowe Center for $10,000 plus fees from a small auction firm in New York.

“Dear Edward, Having now a few leisure moments to spare I improve then in writing to you,” she wrote. At the bottom of the paper, she almost ran out of room, so she squeezed in tiny letters “your affectionate sister, H. Beecher.”

“It’s meant to be here,” said Katherine Kane, executive director of the center.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” published in 1852, created a sensation with its depiction of the pitiful life of slaves. When President Lincoln met Stowe, he remarked, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that caused the big war.”