While living in this house in Hartford, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a neighbor of Mark Twain.
There are three buildings named “Harriet Beecher Stowe House,” including ones in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Brunswick, Maine. But it is here in Hartford, Connecticut, where the writer was a neighbor of Mark Twain, that a memorial association still maintains the house and preserves her legacy.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, her husband Calvin Ellis Stowe, and their twin daughters moved to 77 Forest Street in 1873, where they became neighbors with their famous fellow writer Mark Twain. Perhaps thanks to this illustrious literary neighborhood, the house has survived to this day and serves as both a museum and the headquarters of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.
Opened in 1968, the museum houses collections of items from Beecher Stowe’s life, as well as exhibits related to her most famous work, the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Some of the items in the collection tell the story of the Southern United States’ peculiar response to the book, known in literature as “Anti-Tom,” which would hardly have followed if copyright laws had existed at the time.
Tickets for the tour can be purchased at the visitor center. They come with a $3 discount on a tour of the neighboring Mark Twain House and Museum.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is located at 77 Forest Street in western Hartford. The building was constructed in 1871, the museum opened in 1968, and the first major renovation and conservation work was carried out in 2016-2017. During the work, the exhibits were displayed in the visitor center and the nearby Catherine Seymour Day House, built in 1884.