The written work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, affectionally called “Hattie” by those who knew her well, is known as being quite controversial at the time it was written at a time of rampant slavery.   Stowe often stood alone in her thoughts. As one writer has said, even her thoughts were “complex’. At a time that even women were expected to stay quite and stay in their own lane. Stowe widened the road and wrote a blockbuster book impacting the world of readers.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, also called “Life Among the Lowly” , was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.    It became a “runaway best-seller” selling 300,000 copies in the first year in America and millions abroad.  According to Google Search, “Stowe became a leading voice in the anti-slavery movement”. 

When Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in Washington, D.C. in 1852,  it is reported he said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this Great War”. 

In  1874, Stowe met with Governor Marcellus L. Stearns at the capital in Tallahassee with a huge crowd and great fanfare.  Stowe had already published Palmetto Leaves in 1872 and this had added to the excitement around Mandarin,Fl where she lived in her “cottage”( see photo), along the St. Johns River.  People would pay shipmasters to ride in boats to see her sit on her porch along the Mandarin shoreline.  Stowe spent some 17 years wintering in Mandarin, Florida.

The last of her home was demolished in the 1960’s and there are no remnants from it save possibly the ones in the back roads of Mandarin.  It is said that the Black members of Mandarin loved her so that when her house was demolished, they saved the ginger bread trim from her house and used it on their own.

I continue to search among the small homes on the backroads of Mandarin dating to the 1850-1960’s to see if I can find any of those important artifacts. I’ll let you know if I do.

See you tomorrow

Nan

Sources: Florida Historical Society, Florida Memory, Person visit to the Mandarin area.

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