Eunice Beecher, the Wilsonia Corset, and the Poor Woman of Tillary Street

Eunice Beecher was 69 years old in the summer of 1881, the Massachusetts-born wife of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher - abolitionist, reformer, women's suffrage advocate and the mesmerizing minister of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights. He came from a family of celebrities; the household-economy expert Catharine Esther Beecher, suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and Uncle Tom's Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe were Henry's sisters.

Eunice Beecher wrote articles and was the author of a semi-autobiographical novel, too, but her light shone rather dimmer than those of her husband and sisters-in-law. When she and Henry were at his first church in Lawrenceburg, Indiana in the 1840s, she was known as his "wailing and ailing wife." The Beechers told everyone in Lawrenceburg, in 1847, that they were moving to Brooklyn for the sake of poor Eunice's health - but no one believed it. They thought that it was more that she didn't like life in the West.

They were right, too, for in her novel she drew such a dire picture of her unhappiness that the book caused something of a scandal when it was published in 1859. It was called From Dawn To Daylight; or, the Simple Story of a Western Home. People in Indianapolis were so distressed by this book that it was, if not banned exactly, then very hard to get a copy of.

The true scandal expert in the family was Henry, though. His affair with Elizabeth Tilton, wife of his friend Theodore Tilton, would become common knowledge when he was tried for adultery in Brooklyn from January to July of1875. Henry was eventually exonerated, though Elizabeth was excommunicated from Plymouth Church when she confessed to the affair - after a few private confessions and retractions - in 1877. Theodore had been excommunicated in 1873, and it was his bringing suit against Henry Beecher for this punishment that resulted in the adultery trial.

The Beecher-Tilton trial is worthy of its own post, but serves as the background to a little item concerning Eunice Beecher - staunch supporter of Henry, the black-clad invalid who sat in court every day, looking loyal (if grim), whose image above is taken from a series of engravings depicting scenes at the trial. Eunice is the lady grimacing in the middle of the image, on the left, leaning on her hand.

A few years later, Eunice found a medical man in Brooklyn with the answer to her troubles - her physical troubles, that is to say. William Wilson, Medical Electrician, purveyor of the Wilsonia system of magnetic appliances, made Mrs. Beecher a corset in 1881 which proved so efficacious that she - cured, apparently - passed it on to a poor woman named Mary Plumsey:

Marvellous Cure Of Inflammatory Rheumatism. The Same Goods First Worn By Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher Subsequently Cure A Poor Woman, Who had Been Given Over By Her Doctors As A Hopeless Case. Let The Doctors Explain This Or Accept My Offer Of Five Thousand Dollars Worth Of "Wilsonia" Garments, Free Of Charge For The Poor Of Brooklyn In The Hospitals.

Mary Plumsey was 30 years old in 1881, and lived at 161 Tillary Street in Brooklyn. She was born in Portugal as was her 46 year old husband Henry, who worked as a laborer and as a seaman at this time. The 1880 census lists three children living with Henry and Mary: Mary age 10, Carrie age 8, and Joseph, whose age is not listed in the census transcription.

Mary Plumsey wrote to William Wilson that:

I had been suffering a long time from rheumatism, and at the time your garments reached me I was unable to move a limb or help myself in the least, but after wearing your goods only ten days I was able to get out of my bed and care for my children and attend to my household duties.

Wilson added, with much capitalization and many rhetorical flourishes, that:

The same suit of which [Mary Plumsey] speaks so highly was worn by MRS. HENRY WARD BEECHER, of Brooklyn, and then in a charitable spirit presented to the poor woman whose testament is given above. ...Friends of Progress! Lovers of Liberty!...you have it in your power to rid yourself of every malady, by wearing the "WILSONIA" MAGNETIC CLOTHING...Therefore listen to the doctors of Brooklyn and die, or wear the "WILSONIA" MAGNETIC CLOTHING, and live healthful lives.

One can only hope that the Wilsonia was a comfort to Eunice after the maladies she was clearly suffering from during her husband's trial.

SOURCES

Henry Plumsey household, 1880 U.S. Census, Brooklyn, Kings, NY; FHL #1254842, T9-0842, p. 158D.

H. Ward Beecher household, 1880 U.S. Census, Peekskill, Westchester, NY [summer home]; FHL #1254945, T9-0945, p. 84B.

Lain's Brooklyn City Directory, 1878

Article on Henry Ward Beecher, at DePauw University site [quotes Claudene Atkinson writing in Indianapolis magazine in 1980, without citing title]

Article at Our Land, Our Literature on Eunice Bullard Beecher

Wilsonia advertisement, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 2, 1881, p. 1.

Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.