CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE REPORTS--COMMENT. (1879-1880.), 499-513
Vigorous resolutions at National Convention; Senator Morton's position
on Woman Suffrage; Senator Wadleigh scored by Mary Clemmer; first
favorable Senate Committee report; advance in public sentiment;
extracts from Indiana papers; bitter attacks of Richmond (Ky.) Herald
and Grand Rapids (Mich.) Times; interview in Chicago Tribune on Woman's
need of ballot for Temperance legislation; convention in St. Louis and
Miss Anthony's response to floral offering; death of Wm. Lloyd
Garrison; desire for a woman's paper; new workers; Washington
Convention; hospitality of Riggs House; death of mother.
LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS.
ANTHONY, SUSAN B.
ANTHONY, HUMPHREY
ANTHONY, DANIEL
ANTHONY, LUCY READ
ANTHONY, COLONEL D.R.
ANTHONY, MARY S.
ANTHONY, SENATOR HENRY B.
A. BRONSON ALCOTT
AVERY, RACHEL FOSTER
BARTON, CLARA
BEECHER, HENRY WARD
BIGGS, CAROLINE ASHURST
BLACKWELL, ALICE STONE
BLACKWELL, REV. ANTOINETTE BROWN
BLACKWELL, DR. ELIZABETH
BLAIR, SENATOR HENRY W.
BLAKE, LILLIE DEVEREUX
BLOOMER, AMELIA
BOOTH, MARY L.
BRIGHT, URSULA M.
BROWN, SENATOR B. GRATZ
BROWNE, THOMAS M., M.C.
BUTLER, GENERAL BENJAMIN F.
BUTLER, JOSEPHINE E.
CAREY, SENATOR JOSEPH M.
CARY, ALICE
CARY, PHOEBE
CATT, CARRIE CHAPMAN
CHANNING, REV. WILLIAM HENRY
CHAPIN, REV. E.H.
CHAPMAN, MARIA WESTON
CHEEVER, REV. GEORGE B.
CHILD, LYDIA MARIA
CLAY, LAURA
CLEMMER, MARY
COBBE, FRANCES POWER
COBDEN, JANE
COLBY, CLARA BEWICK
COOPER, SARAH B.
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM
DAVIS, PAULINA WRIGHT
DICKINSON, ANNA E.
DIGGS, ANNIE L.
DOLPH, SENATOR J.N.
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK
DOW, NEAL
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO
FAWCETT, MILLICENT GARRETT
FIELD, KATE
FORNEY, COLONEL JOHN W.
FOSTER, ABBY KELLY
FOSTER, STEPHEN S.
FOULKE, HON. WM. DUDLEY
FROTHINGHAM, REV. O.B.
GAGE, MATILDA JOSLYN
GARFIELD, PRESIDENT JAMES A.
GARRISON, WM. LLOYD
GIBBONS, ABBY HOPPER
GOODRICH, SARAH KNOX
GRANT, MRS. U.S.
GREELEY, HORACE
GREENWOOD, GRACE
HAMILTON, GAIL
HARPER, IDA HUSTED
HEARST, PHOEBE A.
HOAR, SENATOR GEORGE F.
HOOKER, ISABELLA BEECHER
HOSMER, HARRIET
HOWELL, MARY SEYMOUR
JACOBI, DR. MARY PUTNAM
JACKSON, FRANCIS
JULIAN, GEORGE W., M.C.
KELLEY, WILLIAM D., M.C.
KING, REV. THOMAS STARR
LAPHAM, SENATOR ELBRIDGE G.
LOGAN, MRS. JOHN A.
LOZIER, DR. CLEMENCE S.
LUCAS, MARGARET BRIGHT
MARTINEAU, HARRIET
McCULLOCH, SECRETARY HUGH
McLAREN, PRISCILLA BRIGHT
MERRICK, CAROLINE E.
MINOR, VIRGINIA L.
MITCHELL, MARIA
MORTON, SENATOR OLIVER P.
MOTT, LUCRETIA
NICHOL, ELIZABETH PEASE,
OWEN, ROBERT DALE,
PALMER, BERTHA HONORÉ,
PALMER, SENATOR THOMAS W.,
PARKER, REV. THEODORE,
PHILLIPS, WENDELL,
PILLSBURY, PARKER,
POMEROY, SENATOR S.C.,
POST, AMY,
PURVIS, HARRIET,
PURVIS, ROBERT,
REED, SPEAKER THOMAS B.,
RIDDLE, JUDGE A.G.,
ROSE, ERNESTINE L.,
SARGENT, SENATOR A.A.,
SARGENT, ELLEN CLARK,
SEWALL, MAY WRIGHT,
SHAW, REV. ANNA HOWARD,
SIMPSON, BISHOP MATTHEW,
SMITH, GERRIT,
SOMERSET, LADY HENRY,
SPOFFORD, JANE H,
STANFORD, JANE L.,
STANFORD, SENATOR LELAND,
STANTON, ELIZABETH CADY,
STEVENS, THADDEUS,
STONE, LUCINDA HINSDALE,
STONE, LUCY,
SUMNER, CHARLES,
SWIFT, MARY WOOD,
TAYLOR, EZRA B., M.C.,
TAYLOR, HELEN,
TAYLOR, MENTIA (MRS. PETER),
THOMPSON, GEORGE, M.P.,
TILTON, THEODORE,
TODD, ISABELLA M.S.,
TRAIN, GEORGE FRANCIS,
TYNG, REV. STEPHEN H.,
UPTON, HARRIET TAYLOR,
WADE, SENATOR BENJAMIN F.,
WALLACE, ZERELDA G.,
WARREN, SENATOR FRANCIS E.,
WHITE, SENATOR JOHN D.,
WHITING, LILIAN,
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF,
WILLARD, FRANCES E.,
WILSON, VICE-PRESIDENT HENRY,
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, at the age of 76
"THE OLD HIVE," birthplace of father
of SUSAN B. ANTHONY
HOME OF LUCY READ, mother of SUSAN B. ANTHONY
WEST END OF KITCHEN IN OLD HOMESTEAD
BIRTHPLACE OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY
TEMPORARY HOME AT BATTENVILLE, N.Y.
THE BATTENVILLE HOME
HOME AT CENTER FALLS, N. Y.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 28
AUNT HANNAH, the Quaker preacher
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 32
HUMPHREY ANTHONY at the age of 95
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 36
THE FARM-HOME NEAR ROCHESTER
ERNESTINE L. ROSE
FATHER AND MOTHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY
LUCRETIA MOTT
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 48
SUSAN B. ANTHONY at the age of 50,
from photograph by Sarony
ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER
DR. CLEMENCE S. LOZIER
VIRGINIA L. MINOR
JANE H. SPOFFORD
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY, HOME AND CHILDHOOD.
1550-1826.
Among the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts is a very beautiful place in
which to be born. It is famed in song and story for the loveliness of
its scenery and the purity of its air. It has no lofty peaks, no great
canyons, no mighty rivers, but it is diversified in the most
picturesque manner by the long line of Green Mountains, whose lower
ranges bear the musical name of "Berkshire Hills;" by rushing streams
tumbling through rocky gorges and making up in impetuosity what they
lack in size; by noble forests, gently undulating meadows, quaint
farmhouses, old bridges and bits of roadway which are a never-ending
delight to the artist. Writers, too, have found inspiration here and
many exquisite descriptions in prose and verse commemorate the beauties
of this region.
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, the first woman in America to make a literary
reputation on two continents, was born at Stockbridge, and her stories
and sketches were located here. That old seat of learning, Williams
College, is situated among these foothills. In his summer home at
Pittsfield, Longfellow wrote "The Old Clock on the Stairs"; at
Stockbridge, Hawthorne builded his "House of the Seven Gables"; and
Lydia Sigourney poetically told of "Stockbridge Bowl" with "Its foot of
stone and rim of green." It was at Lenox that Henry Ward Beecher
created "Norwood" and "Star Papers." Here Charlotte Cushman and Fanny
Kemble came for many summers to rest and find new life. Harriet Hosmer
had her first dreams of fame at the Sedgwick school. The Goodale
sisters, Elaine and Dora, were born upon one of these mountainsides and
both embalmed its memory in their poems. Dora lovingly sings:
Dear Berkshire, dear birthplace, the hills are thy towers,
Those lofty fringed summits of granite and pine;
No valley's green lap is so spangled with flowers,
No stream of the wildwood so crystal as thine.
Say where do the March winds such treasures uncover,
Such maple and arrowwood burn in the fall,
As up the blue peaks where the thunder-gods hover
In cloud-curtained Berkshire who cradled us all?
Henry Ward Beecher said:
This county of valleys, lakes and mountains is yet to be as
celebrated as the lake district of England and the hill country of
Palestine.... Here is such a valley as the ocean would be if, when
its waves were running tumultuous and high, it were suddenly
transformed and solidified.... The endless variety never ceases to
astonish and please.... It is indeed like some choice companion, of
rich heart and genial imagination, never twice alike in mood, in
conversation, in radiant sobriety or half-bright sadness; bold,
tender, deep, various.
One has but to come into the midst of these hills to fall a victim to
their fascination, while to those who were born among them there is no
spot on earth so beautiful or so beloved. They have sent forth
generations of men and women, whose fame is as imperishable as the
marble and granite which form their everlasting foundations. Among the
noted men who have gone out from the Berkshire region are William
Cullen Bryant, Cyrus W. Field and brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Mark and
Albert Hopkins, Senator Henry L. Dawes, Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of
New York, George F. Root, the musical composer, Governor George N.
Briggs, of Massachusetts, Governor and Senator Francis E. Warren, of
Wyoming, the Deweys, the Barnards, a list too long for quoting. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, whose grandfather was a Berkshire man, wrote:
Berkshire has produced a race which, for independent thought,
daring schemes and achievements that have had world-wide
consequences, has not been surpassed. We claim, also, that more of
those first things that draw the chariot of progress forward so
that people can see that it has moved, have been planned and
executed by the inhabitants of the 950 square miles that constitute
the territory of Berkshire than can be credited to any other tract
of equal extent in the United States.
Of late years the world of wealth and fashion has invaded the Berkshire
country and there are no more magnificent summer homes than those of
Lenox, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and the neighboring towns.
The first of the Anthony family of whom there is any record was
William, born in Cologne, Germany, who came to England during the reign
of Edward the Sixth and was made Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and
Master of the Scales, holding this office through the reigns of Edward
and Mary and part of that of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are
entered in the royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the father of Dr.
Francis Anthony, born in London, 1550. According to the Biographia
Britannica, he was graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master of
Arts and became a learned physician and chemist. Although a man of high
character and generous impulses, he was intolerant of restraint and in
continual conflict with the College of Physicians. He died in his
seventy-fourth year, and was buried in the church of St. Bartholomew
the Great, where his handsome monument still remains. He left a
daughter and two sons, both of the latter distinguished physicians.
From John, the elder, sprung the American branch of the family. His
son, John, Jr., born in Hempstead, England, sailed to America in the
ship Hercules, from that port, April 16, 1634, when he was twenty-seven
years old. He settled in Portsmouth, R.I., and became a land-owner, an
innkeeper and an office-holder. His five children who survived infancy
left forty-three children. One of these forty-three, Abraham, had
thirteen children, and his son William fourteen, his son, William, Jr.,
four, his son David nine.
It was just before the beginning of the Revolution that this David
Anthony, with his wife, Judith Hicks, moved from Dartmouth, Mass., to
Berkshire and settled near Adams at the foot of Greylock, the highest
peak in the mountain range. This was considered the extreme West, as
little was known of all that lay beyond. They brought two children with
them and seven more were born here in the shadow of the mountains.
Humphrey, the second son, born at Dartmouth, February 2, 1770, married
Hannah Lapham, who was born near Adams (then called East Hoosac),
November 11, 1773; and here, also, January 27, 1794, was born the first
of their nine children, Daniel, father of Susan B. Anthony.
On the maternal side the grandfather, Daniel Read, was born at
Rehobeth, Mass., and said to be a lineal descendant and entitled to the
coat of arms of Sir Brianus de Rede, A.D. 1075; but he had too much of
the sturdy New England spirit to feel any special interest in the pomp
and pride of heraldry, and the family tree he prized most was found in
the grand old grove which shaded his own dooryard. Susannah Richardson,
his wife, was born at Scituate, Mass., and her family were among the
most wealthy and respected of that locality during the eighteenth
century. Both Reads and Richardsons removed to Cheshire, Mass., before
1770, and Daniel and Susannah were married there. It was but a few
months after this marriage when the first gun was fired at Lexington
and the whole country was ablaze with excitement. At the close of the
sermon, on a bright spring morning, the old minister, his voice
trembling with patriotic fervor, asked every man who was ready to
enlist in the Continental army to stand forth, and Daniel Read was the
first to step out into the aisle of the little meeting-house. Leaving
the girl-bride he entered the service and soon became conspicuous for
his bravery. He was one of the memorable expedition against Quebec
under Arnold, in 1775, and of the party commanded by Ethan Allen at the
capture of Ticonderoga. He was among that brave band from Cheshire
(Stafford's Hill) who fought under Colonel Stafford at Bennington. On
the 19th of October, 1780, he took part in the fatal fight of Stone
Arabia, under Col. John Brown, and served with honor throughout the
war. It was several years after peace had been declared and he had
returned home and settled down to the quiet life of a New England
farmer that, December 2, 1793, was born Lucy, the mother of Susan B.
Anthony.
[Illustration: THE "OLD HIVE," ADAMS, MASS.
BIRTHPLACE OF DANIEL, FATHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY.]
Daniel Read was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1814 and
was elected to various public offices. He was a Whig in politics and
adhered always to staunch republican principles, but rose above
partisanship and was universally respected. Daniel and Susannah were
thrifty New England Puritans, leading members of the Baptist
denomination and parishioners of the widely known Elder Leland. The
cooking for Sunday always was done on Saturday, and the greater part of
every Sunday, regardless of weather, was spent at church. They and
their children sat through a service of two hours in the morning, ate a
generous lunch at the noon intermission, and were ready for another two
hours' sermon in the afternoon, through all the heat of summer and the
terrible cold of New England winter.
Susannah Read remained always a devout and consistent Baptist, but
Daniel became, in later years, a thorough Universalist. Murray, the
founder of this church in England, had come to the Colonies before the
Revolutionary War, and by the close of the century the Universalists
were organized as a sect, holding general conventions and sending
itinerants among the people in the villages and country. Some of these
doubtless had penetrated to Adams and converted Daniel Read, who was
always liberal in his belief. He was an inveterate reader and pored
over a vast amount of theological discussion which attracted so much
attention in his day. The family moved from Cheshire to a suburb of
Adams called Bowen's Corners. Near their house was the tavern, its
proprietor known to all the people roundabout as "Uncle Sam" Bowen. He
and Daniel Read never wearied in setting forth the merits of "free
salvation." They were the only two persons in all that section of the
country who did not believe in a literal hell. It was the common
sentiment then that only those disbelieved in endless punishment who
had reason to be afraid of it, and, since both these men were exemplary
in every other respect, it was impossible for their friends to
understand their aberration. Susannah Read, in the language of that
time, "wore the skin off her knees," praying night and day that God
would bring her husband back into the fold, but her prayers never were
answered. Every Sunday regularly he accompanied her to church, and
faithfully contributed to the support of the preacher, but he died, at
the ripe old age of eighty-four, firm in his Universalist faith.
Susannah was the care-taker of the family and looked after the farm,
inheriting the Richardson energy and thrift. Daniel was genial,
good-natured and very intelligent, but his health being impaired from
army service, he was willing she should take the lead in business
matters. The farm was one of only a hundred acres, but was carefully
and economically managed and, at their death, the Reads left about
$10,000, which was then considered a snug little fortune. Lucy, one of
seven children, was born into a home of peace and comfort and had a
happy and uneventful childhood. She attended the district school, was a
fair writer and speller and, like her father very fond of reading. She
learned to cook and sew, make butter and cheese, spin and weave, and
was very domestic in all her tastes. The Reads and Anthonys were near
neighbors, and although differing widely in religious belief, a subject
of much prominence in those days, they were on terms of intimate
friendship even before the ties were made still closer by marriage
between the two families.
Both Anthonys and Laphams were Quakers as far back as the sect was in
existence. Both were families of wealth and influence, and when
Humphrey and Hannah were married she received from her parents a house
and thirty acres of land, which were entailed on her children. Silver
spoons are still in the family, which were part of her dowry more than
a century ago. Hannah Lapham Anthony was a most saintly woman and,
because of her beautiful religious character was made an elder and
given an exalted position on the "high seat."[1]
[Illustration: HOME OF LUCY READ, ADAMS, MASS.]
She was a very handsome brunette and was noted for the beauty and
elegance of her Quaker attire, her bonnets always being made in New
York. Humphrey never attained the "high seat;" he was too worldly. His
ambition was constantly to add more to his broad acres, to take a
bigger drove of cattle to Boston than any of his neighbors, and to get
a higher price for his own than any other Berkshire cheese would bring.
He had a number of farms and a hundred cows, while his wife made the
best cheese and was the finest housekeeper in all that part of the
country. The fame of her coffee and biscuits, apple dumplings and
chicken dinners, spread far and wide. Their kitchen was forty feet
long. One end was used for the dining-room, with the table seating
twenty persons, and in the other were the sink and the "penstock,"
which brought water from a clear, cold spring high up in the mountains.
Here also were the huge fire-place, the big brick oven and the large
pantry. Then there were the spacious "keeping" or sitting-room, with
the mother's bedroom opening out of it, the great weaving-room with its
wheels and loom, and two bed-rooms for the "help" down stairs, while
above were the children's sleeping-rooms. Opening out of the kitchen
was a room containing the cheese press and the big "arch" kettle, and
near by was a two-story building where the cheese was stored. Up in the
grove was the saw-mill, and at the foot of the hill was the blacksmith
shop, where nails were made, horses shod, wagons and farm implements
mended and, later, scythes manufactured. On all the farms were fine
orchards of apples, plums, pears, cherries and quinces, among which
stood long rows of beehives with their wealth of honey.
Here Daniel, father of Susan B. Anthony, grew to manhood in the midst
of comfort and abundance and in an atmosphere of harmony and love. The
Anthonys were broad and liberal in religious ideas, and in 1826, when
bitter dissensions regarding the divinity of Christ arose among the
Quakers, they followed Elias Hicks and were henceforth known as
"Hicksite Friends." This controversy divided many families, and on
account of it the orthodox brother, Elihu Anthony, insisted on removing
their aged father to his home in Saratoga, N.Y., to the great grief of
Humphrey, who claimed that the old gentleman was too childish to know
whether he was orthodox or Hicksite and ought not to be taken to "a new
country" in his declining years Hannah Anthony was ambitious for her
children and insisted that they should be placed where they might have
better educational facilities than in the little school at home.
Humphrey thought the boys could manage a farm and the girls weave good
cloth and make fine cheese without a boarding-school education. He
finally yielded, however, and Daniel and two daughters were sent to the
"Nine Partners," that famous Quaker boarding-school in Dutchess county,
N.Y. At the end of a year, Daniel, who was about nineteen, had made
such rapid progress that he was appointed teacher. The quaint
certificate given him by his associate teachers is still in existence
and reads:
This may apprize the friends & relatives of D. Anthony, that,
during his residence with us, he has been an affectionate consort,
excellent, consistant in the School, of steady deportment and
conversation, being an example for us to follow when we are
separated. We sincerely wish his preservation in all things
laudable and believe we can with propriety hereunto set our names.
Elihu Marshall, Charles Clement, John Taber, Stephen Willitz, Henry
Cox, Frederick A. Underhill, William Seamen.
There is a still more highly valued testimonial from the principal, the
noble and dignified Richard F. Mott, who was held in loving reverence
by all the distinguished Quaker families that confided their sons and
daughters to his wise and tender care:
Daniel Anthony has been an assistant here & we can aprise his
friends that he has faithfully discharged his duty in that
particular, has been a very agreeable companion & his conduct
remarkably correct & exemplary, which, joined to his pleasant &
obliging disposition, has gained him our esteem & affection.
We sincerely wish his prosperity, spiritually & temporally, & shall
gratefully remember him and his services.
On behalf of the sitting-room circle, R.F. MOTT.
Boarding School, 4 M., 1 D., 1814.
The profession of teacher did not appeal to hard-headed Humphrey
Anthony, and when Daniel came back with his brain full of ambitious
projects and with a thorough distaste for farming, and his sisters,
with many airs and graces and a feeling of superiority over the girls
in the neighborhood, Father Anthony declared that no more children of
his should go away to boarding-school. The fact that young Daniel was
skilled in mechanics and mathematics, able to superintend intelligently
all the work on the farm and to make a finer scythe than any man in the
shop, did not modify the father's opinion. When John, the next boy, was
old enough and the mother began to urge that he be sent to school, the
father offered him his choice to go or to stay at home and work that
year for $100. This was a large sum for those days, it out-weighed the
mother's arguments, John remained at home and regretted it all the rest
of his life.
[Illustration: WEST END OF KITCHEN IN OLD HOMESTEAD.]
The Anthony and Read farms were adjoining a mile east of Adams, and lay
upon the first level or "bench" of the Green mountains. From their
door-yards the ascent of the mountains began, and only the Hoosac in a
deep ravine separated them from the base of "Old Greylock." The crops
were raised on the "intervale" and the cattle pastured on the mountain
side. Adams was then a sleepy New England village, and the Hoosac was a
lovely stream, whose waters were used for the flocks and for the grist
and saw-mills; but in later years the village became a manufacturing
center and the banks of the pretty river were lined for miles with
great factories.
In early times wealthy Quakers had a school in their home or door-yard
for their own children. Those of the neighborhood were allowed to
attend at a certain price, and in this way undesirable pupils could be
kept out. At the Anthony residence this little school-house stood
beneath a great weeping willow beside the front gate, and among the
pupils was Lucy Read. She was the playmate of the sisters, and young
Dan was the torment of their lives, jumping out at them from unexpected
corners, eavesdropping to learn their little secrets and harassing them
in ways common to boys of all generations, and she never hesitated to
inform him that he was "the hatefullest fellow she ever knew." When
Daniel returned from boarding-school with all the prestige of several
years' absence, and was made master of the little home-school, one of
his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl with
glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of
the neighborhood. The inevitable happened, childish feuds were
forgotten, and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife.
Then arose a formidable difficulty. The Anthonys were Quakers, the
Reads were Baptists, and a Quaker was not permitted to "marry out of
meeting." Love laughed at rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just
as it does to-day, and Daniel refused to let the Society come between
him and the woman of his choice, but Lucy had many misgivings. Thanks
to her father's ideas she had been brought up in a most liberal manner,
allowed to attend parties, dance and wear pretty clothes to her heart's
content, and it was a serious question with her whether she could give
up all these and adopt the plain and severe habits of the Quakers. She
had a marvelous voice, and, as she sang over her spinning-wheel, often
wished that she might "go into a ten-acre lot with the bars down" so
that she could let her voice out to its full capacity. The Quakers did
not approve of singing, and that pleasure also would have to be
relinquished. That the husband could give up his religious forms and
accept those of the wife never had been imagined.
Love finally triumphed, and the young couple were married July 13,
1817. A few nights before the wedding Lucy went to a party and danced
till four o'clock in the morning, while Friend Daniel sat bolt upright
against the wall and counted the days which should usher in a new
dispensation. A committee was sent at once to deal with Daniel, and
Lucy always declared he told them he "was sorry he married her," but he
would say, "No, my dear, I said I was sorry that in order to marry the
woman I loved best, I had to violate a rule of the religious society I
revered most." The matter was carefully talked over by the elders, and
as he had said he was sorry he had to violate the rule, and as the
family was one of much influence, and as he was their most highly
educated and cultivated member, it was unanimously decided not to turn
him out of meeting.[2] Lucy learned to love the Friends' religion and
often said she was a much more consistent Quaker than her husband, but
she never became a member of the Society, declaring she was "not good
enough." She did not use the "plain language," though she always
insisted that her husband should do so in addressing her; nor did she
adopt the Quaker costume, but she dressed simply and wore little
"cottage" straw bonnets with strings tied demurely under her chin and
later had them made of handsome shirred silk, the full white cap-ruche
showing inside. She sang no more except lullabies to the babies when
they came, and then the Quaker relatives would laugh and ask her why
she did it. Her long married life was very happy, notwithstanding its
many hardships, and she never regretted accepting her Quaker lover.
The previous summer Daniel had helped his father prepare the lumber and
build a large two-story addition to his house, and in return he gave to
his son the lumber for a new home, on a beautiful tract of ground
presented to the young couple by Father Read adjoining his own. While
this was being built they lived at the Read homestead, and the loom was
kept busy preparing the housekeeping outfit. In those days this was
made of linen, bleached and spun and woven by the women of the
household. Cotton was just coming into use, and Lucy Anthony was
considered very fortunate because she could have a few sheets and
pillow-cases which were half cotton.
The manufacture of cotton becoming a prominent industry in New England
at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of
building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid
little stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and
proved a success from the beginning. A document is still in existence
by which "D. Read agrees to let D. Anthony have as much water from the
brook on his farm as will run through a hole six inches in diameter."
This was conveyed by an aqueduct, made from hollow logs, to the factory
where it turned the over-shot wheel and furnished power to the
twenty-six looms. The factory hands for the most part came down from
the Green mountain regions, glad of an opportunity never before enjoyed
of earning wages and supporting themselves. They were girls of
respectability, and, as was the custom then, boarded with the families
of the mill-owners. Those of the Anthony factory were divided between
the wife and Hannah Anthony Hoxie, a married sister. Lucy Anthony soon
became acquainted with the stern realities of life. Her third baby was
born when the first was three years and two months old. That summer she
boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house, and she did all
the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that of a
thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and
morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth
in front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel
Anthony was a generous man, loved his wife and was well able to hire
help, but such a thing was not thought of at that time. No matter how
heavy the work, the woman of the household was expected to do it, and
probably would have been the first to resent the idea that assistance
was needed.
During the first seventeen years of this marriage eight children were
born. One died at birth and one at the age of two years. The eldest,
born July 1, 1818, was named for the wife of William Penn, who married
a member of the Anthony family, Gulielma Penn, which was contracted to
Guelma. Susan was the second child, born February 15, 1820, and named
for an aunt, Susan Anthony Brownell. She herself adopted the initial
"B" when older, but never claimed or liked the full name.[3]
[Illustration:
BIRTHPLACE OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY, ADAMS, MASS.
(BORN IN ROOM SHADED BY TREE.)]
Lucy Read Anthony was of a very timid and reticent disposition and
painfully modest and shrinking. Before the birth of every child she was
overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation, secluded herself from
the outside world and would not speak of the expected little one even
to her mother. That mother would assist her overburdened daughter by
making the necessary garments, take them to her home and lay them
carefully away in a drawer, but no word of acknowledgment ever passed
between them. This was characteristic of those olden times, when there
were seldom any confidences between mothers and daughters in regard to
the deepest and most sacred concerns of life, which were looked upon as
subjects to be rigidly tabooed. Susan came into the world in a cold,
dreary season. The event was looked forward to with dread by the
mother, but when the little one arrived she received a warm and loving
welcome. She was born into a staid and quiet but very comfortable home,
where great respect and affection existed between father and mother.
William Cullen Bryant, whose birth-place was but twenty miles distant,
wrote of this immediate locality:
I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
Each night in early childhood she watched the sun set behind the great
dome of "Old Greylock," that noble mountain-peak so famed in the
literature of Berkshire, from whose lofty summit one looks across four
States. "It lifts its head like a glorified martyr," said Beecher, and
Julia Taft Bayne wrote:
Come here where Greylock rolls
Itself toward heaven; in these deep silences,
World-worn and fretted souls,
Bathe and be clean.
To the child's idea its top was very close against the sky, and its
memory and inspiration remained with her through life.
Susan was very intelligent and precocious. At the age of three she was
sent to the grandmother's to remain during the advent of the fourth
baby at home, and while there was taught to spell and read. Her memory
was phenomenal, and she had an insatiable ambition, especially for
learning the things considered beyond a girl's capacity.
The mother was most charitable, always finding time amidst her own
family cares to go among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. One of
Susan's childish grievances, which she always remembered, was that the
"Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were
lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their
mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She
thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except
of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded
just as much happiness as children nowadays get from a roomful of
imported playthings.
To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they
were always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh
cheese curd and a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and
Indian bread, pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple
sugar. Then in the evening they would stop again for some of the
left-over, cold boiled dinner, which was served on a great pewter
platter, a big piece of pork or beef in the center and, piled all
round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc. The story runs
that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for bothering the
grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied, "Why,
grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The
Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions,
but very few families could afford such luxuries.
One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the
little closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple
sugar, and, while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs,
the children would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast.
Always when they left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts,
caraway cakes and other toothsome things which little ones love. Along
the edges of the pantry shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers,
and the pride of the children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of
them. This was made by toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the
fire, peeling off the outside, toasting it again, and finally pouring
over these crusts hot sweetened water and cider. The dish, however,
which was relished above all others was "hasty pudding," cooked slowly
for hours, then heaped upon a platter in a great cone, the center
scooped out and filled with sweet, fresh butter and honey or maple
syrup.
In those days every sideboard was liberally supplied with rum, brandy
and gin, and every man drank more or less, even the elders and
preachers. When the farmers came down the mountain road with their
loads of wood or lumber, they always stopped at Grandfather Read's for
a slice of bread and cheese and a drink of hard cider, but the elders
and preachers were regaled with something stronger. This was the
custom, and criticism would have been considered fanatical.
The little factory nourished and produced many yards of excellent
cotton cloth. A store was opened in one corner of the house to supply
the wants of the employes and neighbors, and the Anthonys enjoyed a
plenty and prosperity somewhat unusual where small incomes and close
economy were the rule.
[Footnote 1: Her oldest daughter, Hannah, became a famous Quaker
preacher.]
[Footnote 2: A wedding trip was taken to Palatine Bridge, Deerfield,
Union Springs, Farmington, Rochester and other points in New York
State, to visit relatives of both families, all the long journey being
made in a light one-horse wagon, many miles of it over corduroy roads.]
[Footnote 3: Hannah was born September 15, 1821; Daniel Read, named for
father and grandfather, was born August 22, 1824; Mary S., April 2,
1827; Eliza Tefft, April 22, 1832, and Jacob Merritt, April. 19, 1834.
At the present writing, 1897, Susan, Daniel, Mary and Merritt still
survive, aged seventy-seven, seventy-three, seventy and sixty-three,
all remarkably vigorous in mind and body; a family of few words, quiet,
undemonstrative and yet knit together with bonds of steel, loyal to
each other in every thought and each ready to make any sacrifice for
the others.]
CHAPTER II.
GIRLHOOD AND SCHOOL-LIFE.
1826--1838.
By 1826, Daniel Anthony had become so well-known for business
management that he received an offer from Judge John McLean, of
Battenville, Washington county, N.Y., who already had built a factory
there, to go into cotton manufacturing on an extensive scale, the judge
to furnish capital, Mr. Anthony executive ability. There was much
opposition from the two older families to having their children go so
far away (forty-four miles) and Lucy Anthony's heart was almost broken
at the thought of leaving her aged father and mother, but Daniel was
too good a financier to lose such an opportunity. So on a warm, bright
July morning the goods were started and the judge and his grandson,
Aaron McLean, came with a big green wagon and two fine horses to take
the family to Battenville. Young Aaron little thought as he lifted the
eight-year-old Guelma into the wagon that he was taking with him his
future wife. The new home was in a pretty village nestled among the
hills on the Battenkill. The first year the Anthonys lived in part of
Judge McLean's house, where were two slaves not yet manumitted, and the
children saw negroes for the first time and were dreadfully frightened.
Afterwards the family moved into an old but comfortable
story-and-a-half house where they remained several years.
Meanwhile a great deal of expensive machinery had been put into the
factory and a large brick store erected. For a long time Daniel Anthony
had been very much interested in the temperance cause. At Adams he had
sold liquor, like every other merchant, but when a man was found by the
roadside frozen to death with an empty jug which told the story,
although Mr. Anthony had not sold him the rum, he resolved, as this was
only one of many distressing cases, to sell no more. He was the first
in that locality to put intoxicating liquors out of his store.
He had not thought to discuss this question with Judge McLean when
their contract was made, and had gone to Troy and selected goods for
the store. The judge looked on while they were being unloaded and
finally asked, "Why, Anthony, where are the rum barrels?" "There aren't
any," he answered. "You don't expect to keep store without rum, do you?
If you don't 'treat,' nobody will trade with you," said the judge.
"Well, then I'll close the store," was the reply. It was opened; the
farmers would come in, look around, peer behind the counter, finally go
down cellar and make a search, and then declare they would not trade at
a temperance store; but, as they found here the best goods and lowest
prices, with square dealing, they could not afford to go elsewhere and
the store soon enjoyed a large business.
When it was decided to build a number of tenement houses, the judge
said, "The men will not come to the 'raising' unless they can have
their gin." "Then the houses will not be raised," replied Mr. Anthony,
and sent out the invitations. His wife made great quantities of
lemonade, "training-day" gingerbread, doughnuts and the best of tea and
coffee. Everybody came, things went off finely, not an accident during
the day and all went home sober, having learned, for the first time,
that there could be a house-raising without liquor.
[Illustration:
TEMPORARY HOME OF THE ANTHONYS, BATTENVILLE, N.Y., 1826
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1897. SUSAN AND MERRITT IN FOREGROUND.]
But the battle had to be fought continually. A saw-mill and a
grist-mill were built and no man was employed who drank to excess. The
tavern keeper, who had expected to reap a rich harvest from the
factory, was very indignant at the temperance regulations. He put every
temptation in the way of the mill-hands, but Daniel Anthony remained
firm. Among his papers are found several letters of repentance and
pledges from his men who had fallen from grace and wanted another
trial. He organized a temperance society, composed almost entirely of
his men and women employes. The pledge, as was the custom, required
"total abstinence from distilled liquor," but allowed wine and cider.
He also established an evening school for them, many never having had
any chance for an education, and it became unpopular not to attend.
This was in session also a few hours on Sunday. It was taught by Mr.
Anthony himself or his own family teacher without expense to the
pupils. Everything about the factory was conducted with perfect system
and order. Each man had a little garden around his house. Mr. Anthony
looked upon his employes as his family and their mental and moral
culture as a duty. Even thus early he was so strong an opponent of
slavery that he made every effort to get cotton for his mills which was
not produced by slave labor.
The only persons ever allowed to smoke or drink intoxicants in the
Anthony home were Quaker preachers. The house was half-way between
Danby, Vt., and Easton, N.Y., where the Quarterly Meetings were held
and the preachers and elders stopped there on their way. In a closet
under the stairs were a case of clay pipes, a paper of tobacco and
demijohns of excellent gin and brandy, from which the "high seat"
brothers were permitted to help themselves. It is not surprising to
find in the annals that a dozen or more would drop in to get one of
Mrs. Anthony's good dinners and the refreshments above mentioned.
In the spring of 1832 a brick-kiln was burned in preparation for the
new house. Mrs. Anthony boarded ten or twelve brick-makers and some of
the factory hands, with no help but that of her daughters Guelma, Susan
and Hannah, aged fourteen, twelve and ten. When the new baby came,
these three little girls did all the work, cooking the food and
carrying it four or five steps up from the kitchen to the mother's room
to let her see if it were nicely prepared and if the dinner-pails for
the men were properly packed.
Soon after this, Mr. Anthony remarked that one of the "spoolers" was
ill and there was no one to do her work. Susan and Hannah had spent
many hours watching the factory girls, and at once raised a clamor to
take the place of the sick "spooler." The mother objected, but the
father, who always encouraged his children in their independent ideas,
interceded and finally they were allowed to draw straws to decide which
should go, the winner to divide her wages with the loser. The lot fell
to Susan, who worked faithfully every day for two weeks and received
full wages, $3. Hannah, with her $1.50, bought a green bead bag, then
considered the crowning glory of a girl's wardrobe. Susan purchased
half a dozen pale-blue coffee cups and saucers, which she had heard her
mother wish for, and presented them to her with a happy heart.
The next summer the house was built, the finest in that part of the
country, a two-and-a-half-story brick with fifteen rooms and all the
conveniences then known. Quakers never celebrate Christmas, but the
Anthonys, having lived now for seven years in a Presbyterian
neighborhood, decided to give the children a Christmas party in the new
home. The walls had a beautiful hard finish, the woodwork was tinted
light green and the new flag-bottomed chairs were painted black.
Between the rough boots of the country youths and the chairs pushed or
tipped against the wall, both woodwork and plastering were almost
ruined, and the new house carried a lasting reminder of the
festivities.
About this time Daniel Anthony was again brought under Quaker
criticism. On one of his journeys to New York he had bought a camlet
cloak with a big cape, as affording the best protection for the long,
cold rides he had to take. The Friends declared this to be "out of
plainness" and insisted that he leave off the cape and cease wearing a
brightly colored handkerchief about his neck and ears. Daniel, who was
beginning to be rather restive under these restraints, refused to
comply, but, as he was a valuable member, it was finally decided here
also to condone his offense.
Through all those years Lucy Anthony went to Quaker meeting with her
husband. After public services were over, however, and the shutters
pulled up between the men's and the women's sides of the house for
business meeting, she was rigidly barred out. She would take her
children and walk about in the grave-yard outside while she waited for
Daniel, but, as the graves were all in a row without even a headstone
to distinguish them, this was not a very interesting pastime and the
wait was long and tedious. When the little girls went with the father
they also were shut out of the executive session where such momentous
questions were discussed as, "Are Friends careful to keep themselves
and their children from attending places of diversion?" "Are Friends
careful to refrain from tale-bearing and detraction?" "Are Friends
careful to send their children to school, and all children in their
employ?"
One cold day, the mother being detained at home, ten-year-old Susan
received permission to go with her father. When the business meeting
began, she curled up quietly in a corner by the stove, thinking to
escape detection, but was spied out by one of the elders, a woman with
green spectacles, who tip-toed down from the "high seat" and said, "Is
thee a member?" "No, but my father is," replied Susan. "That will not
do, thee will have to go out." "My mother told me to stay in." "Thy
mother doesn't manage things here." "But my father told me to stay in."
"Neither thy father nor thy mother can say what thee shall do here;
thee will have to go out;" and taking the child by the arm she led her
into the cold vestibule. After remaining there until almost frozen,
Susan decided to go to the nearest neighbor's. When she opened the gate
a big dog sprung fiercely upon her. Her screams brought out the family
and she was taken into the house, where it was found the only injury
was a large piece bitten out of the new Scotch plaid cloak which she
had gone to meeting on purpose to exhibit. The affair created
considerable excitement, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony were very indignant, and
it ended in the father's making a "request" that his children be made
members of the Society, which was done.
Daniel Anthony was by nature a broad, progressive man, and his family
were not brought up according to the strictest and narrowest
requirements of Quaker doctrine; while his wife, remembering the
liberal teachings of her Universalist father and her own girlish love
of youthful pastimes, went still further in making life pleasant for
the children. Through her influence the daughters secured many a pretty
article of wearing apparel, and, when there was a party whose hours
were later than the father approved, the mother managed to have them
spend the night with girls in the neighborhood.
When the family first moved to Battenville the children went to the
little old-fashioned district school taught by a man in winter and a
woman in summer. None of the men could teach Susan "long division" or
understand why a girl should insist upon learning it. One of the women
maintained discipline by means of her corset-board used as a ferule. As
soon as Mr. Anthony finished the brick store he set apart one room
upstairs for a private school, employed the best teachers to be had and
admitted only such children as he wished to associate with his own.
When the new house was built a large room was devoted to school
purposes. This was the first in that neighborhood to have a separate
seat for each pupil, and, although only a stool without a back, it was
a vast improvement on the long bench running around the wall, the same
height for big and little. The girls were taught sewing as carefully as
reading and spelling, and Susan was noted for her skill with the
needle. A sampler is still in existence which she made at the age of
eleven, a fine specimen of needle-work with the family record
surrounded by a wreath of strawberries all carefully wrought in
crewels. There is also a bedquilt, the pieces sewed together with the
fine "over-and-over" stitch, and there are ruffles hemmed with stitches
so tiny they scarcely can be distinguished. An early teacher was a
cousin, Nancy Howe,[4] who was followed by another cousin, Sarah
Anthony, a graduate of Rensselaer Quaker boarding-school. Among the
teachers was Mary Perkins, just graduated from Miss Grant's seminary at
Ipswich, Mass., and a pupil of Mary Lyon, founder of Mt. Holyoke. She
was their first fashionably educated teacher and taught them to recite
poems in concert, introduced school books with pictures, little black
illustrations of Old Dog Tray, Mary and Her Lamb, etc., and gave them
their first idea of calisthenics. She loved music, and wished to attend
the village singing-school. Lucy Anthony sympathized with this desire
and interceded for her, but Daniel decided it would be setting a bad
example to the children and they would be wanting to sing.[5]
Into this commodious home Lucy Anthony brought her aged father and
mother, and carefully tended them until the death of both within the
same year, aged eighty-four. In May, 1834, came the first great sorrow,
the death of little Eliza, aged two years, and the mother was
heart-broken. Her life was centered in her children, and she could not
be reconciled to giving up even one. After her own death, nearly fifty
years later, in her box of most sacredly guarded keepsakes, was found a
little faded pink dress of the dear child's which many times had been
moistened with the mother's tears.
The children continued to attend this private school, and as Guelma and
Susan reached the age of fifteen, each in turn was installed as teacher
in summer when there were only young pupils. The factory now was at the
height of prosperity; there was only one larger in all that part of the
country, and Daniel Anthony was looked upon as a wealthy man. He was
much criticised for allowing his daughters to teach, as in those days
no woman worked for wages except from pressing necessity; but he was
far enough in advance of his time to believe that every girl should be
trained to self-support. In 1837, writing to Guelma at boarding-school,
he urges her to accept the offer of the principal to remain through the
winter as an assistant:
I am fully of the belief that shouldst thou never teach school a
single day afterwards, thou wouldst ever feel to justify thy
course.... Thou wouldst seem to me to be laying the foundation for
thy far greater usefulness. Thy remaining through the winter, must,
however, be left solely to thyself, as it would be of little avail
for thee to stay and not be contented. Thy home, Guelma, is just
the same as when thou left it, and shouldst thou decide to spend
the winter months away, we will try to keep it the same until thy
return in the spring. Let me know if thou canst be content to
remain away a few months longer from thy mother's kitchen.
[Autograph:
Thy Father
Daniel Anthony]
In the winter of 1837, at the age of seventeen, Susan taught in the
family of Doris and Huldah Deliverge, at Easton, a few miles from
Battenville, for $1 a week and board. The next summer she taught a
district school at the neighboring village, Reid's Corners, for $1.50 a
week and "boarded round," and proud was she to earn what was then
considered excellent wages for a woman. In the fall she joined Guelma
at boarding-school. The little circular, yellow with age, reads:
DEBORAH MOULSON, having obtained an agreeable location in the
pleasant village of Hamilton, in the vicinity of Philadelphia,
intends, with the assistance of competent Teachers, to open
immediately a Seminary for Females....
Terms, $125 per annum, for boarding and tuition....
The inculcation of the principles of Humility, Morality and a love
of Virtue, will receive particular attention.
[Illustration:
THE BATTENVILLE HOME, BUILT IN 1833.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1897]
This was Susan's first long absence from home, and her letters and
journals give a good idea of the thoughts and feelings of a girl at
boarding-school in those days. She developed then the "letter-writing
habit," which has clung to her through life. The letters of that time
were laborious affairs, often consuming days in the writing, commencing
even to children, "Respected Daughter," or "Son," and rarely exceeding
one or two pages. They were written with a quill pen on foolscap paper,
and almost wholly devoted to the weather and the sickness in the
family. The amount of the latter would be appalling to modern
households. The women's letters were written in infinitesimal
characters, it being considered unladylike to write a large hand. The
Anthonys were exceptional letter-writers. It cost eighteen cents to
send a letter, but Daniel Anthony was postmaster at Battenville, and
his family had free use of the mails. If he had had postage to pay on
all of homesick Susan's epistles it would have cost him a good round
sum. The rules of the school required these to be written on the slate,
submitted to the teacher and then carefully copied by the pupil, so it
is not unusual to find that a letter was five or six days in
preparation. For the same reason it is impossible to tell how much
sincerity there is in the frequent references to the "dear teacher" and
the "most excellent school." The "stilted" style of Susan's letters is
most amusing.[6] A few extracts will illustrate:
I regret that Brothers and Sisters have not the privilege of
attending a school better adapted to their improvement, both in
Science and Morality; surely a District School (unless they have
recently reformed) is not an appropriate place for the cultivation
of the latter, although in the former they may make some partial
progress. Deborah has not determined to relinquish this school,
although she has not yet ascertained whether the income from it
will be equal to the expenditures; but if it should continue I
shall have a wish for Hannah and Mary to attend; as I think another
one can not be named so agreeable on all accounts as is Deborah
Moulson's at Hamilton.
[Autograph:
Much love to all the dear ones
I am your
Lucy Anthony]
One may imagine that Susan got several credit marks when her teacher
corrected this on the slate. The lecturer on philosophy and science
came up from Philadelphia, and Susan tells her parents that "he is
quite an interesting man," and that "his lecture on Philosophy was far
more entertaining than I had dared to anticipate." Of the science
lecture she says:
He had a microscope through which we had the pleasure of viewing
the dust from the wings of a butterfly, each minute particle of
which appeared as large as a common fly. He mentioned several very
interesting circumstances; but I must defer particularizing them
until I can have the privilege of verbally communicating them to my
dear friends at Battenville. Guelma joins with me in wishing love
distributed to all.
Again she writes:
Beloved Parents: The second Seventh day of my short stay in
Hamilton arrives and finds me scarcely capable of informing you how
the intervening moments have been employed; but I hope they have
not passed without some improvement. Indeed, we should all improve,
perceptibly too, were we to attend to the instructions which are
here given, for the advancement both of moral and literary
pursuits. May I improve in both; but it is far easier for us to
perceive where others should reform, than to observe and correct
our own imperfections, while perhaps our failings are completely
disgusting in the sight of others. I find it very difficult leaving
off old habits so as to have a vacuum for the formation of those
which are new and more advantageous.
My letter will be short this week and I can assign no other cause
than that my ideas do not freely flow. The difference in weather is
quite material between this and our northern clime. Snow commenced
falling about 12 o'clock to-day and continued till evening; but,
Father, it was not such a storm as the one in which we travelled
during the second day of our journey to the beautiful and
sequestered shades of Hamilton. The cause of my neglecting to write
last week was not the absence of this mind from home, but that it
is obliged to occupy every moment in studies.
A fire in Philadelphia gives her an opportunity for this bit of
description:
I was requested, 5th day evening last, about 7 o'clock, by one of
the scholars, to step out and view the Aurora Borealis, which she
said was extremely brilliant and beautiful. When there I looked
towards the north, but discovered no light, and then to the zenith,
which was indeed very magnificent; "but," said I, "that does not
look like the Aurora, it is more like the light from a fire," and
upon investigation we found it so to be. The light appeared in the
east, we walked in that direction, when we beheld the flames
bursting forth in stupendous grandeur. Not a bell was heard, all
was calm, with the exception of the minds of some of the scholars
whose parents resided in the city. The scene indeed would have been
to the eye extremely pleasing, were it not for the reflection that
some of our fellow-beings were about being deprived of a home, and
perhaps lives also. We learned a few minutes after witnessing this
phenomena that the fire was occasioned by the conflagration of a
large board yard near Market Street Bridge.
After many affectionate messages, she says:
I have not had but one real homesick fit and that was one week from
the night Father left us. I felt then as if I were taking leave of
him again; in fact the tears have come into my eyes as I write that
last sentence; but do not suppose I carry a gloomy countenance all
the time, far be it from that, yet oft I think seriously of home
and the endearing ties which bind us together. Father, we will look
at the sentiments, and not the Orthography and Grammar of thy
letters, in which I did discover some errors.
She frequently admits that her sister admonishes her, "Susan, thee
writes too much; thee should learn to be concise," but she delights in
letter-writing and says:
Most of the girls are taking a walk this First day afternoon, but I
did not feel like enjoying myself by accompanying them as well as
in holding sweet communion in writing with those inestimable
friends I so dearly love, and arranging those thoughts in a manner
congenial to our feelings.... The query naturally arises, at least
to the thoughtful mind, How has our time since the last Annual
revolution of the Earth been employed? Have our minds become
improved from passing occurences, or do they remain in that
dormant-like state which so often degrades the human soul?
She comes down from her lofty heights far enough to add, "It would have
afforded us the greatest pleasure imaginable to have dined on that
Goose in company with you on New Year's day." It is Susan's diary,
however, which affords the most satisfactory glimpses of her true
character, serious, devotional, deeply conscientious and strong in
affection:
Five weeks have been spent in Hamilton and to what purpose? Has my
mind advanced either in Virtue or Literature? I fear that every
moment has not been profitably spent. O, may this careless mind be
more watchful in the future! O, may the many warnings which we
every day receive, tend to make me more attentive to what is right!
We were cautioned by our dear Teacher to-day to beware of
self-esteem and of all signs that would indicate an untruth. We
were referred to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira, who
intended to deceive the Apostle. Would that I were wholly free from
that same Evil Spirit which tempted those persons in ancient times.
The Spirit of Truth must have dominion in the mind in order to
attain a state of happiness.
* * * * *
Resolves and resolves fill up my time. I resolve at night to do
better on the morrow, and when the morrow comes and I mingle with
my companions all the resolutions are obliterated.... In the
afternoon of Seventh day Deborah accompanied the scholars to Town
and visited the Academy of Arts and Sciences; beautiful indeed was
the sight. Nature, how bounteous and varied are thy works! On
beholding the splendid scene I was ready to exclaim, "O, Miracle of
Miracles," with the celebrated Naturalist when speaking of the
metamorphoses of insects.
Her eyes troubled her then, as all through life, and in grieving over
it she says: "Often does their non-conformance mortify this frail heart
when attempting to read in class.... I arose at half-past five this
morning. [January 15.] I find it so much more advantageous." But the
next day she sleeps till half-past six and laments the fact.
Received a severe reproof from Deborah this evening on account of
the listlessness which prevailed in the school, also the immorality
of some of the pupils' minds. O, that I could feel perfectly clear
of all the deviations which have been enumerated. O, Morality, that
I could say I possessed thy charms! O, the happiness of an innocent
mind, would that I could say mine was so, but it is too far from
it. I think so much of my resolutions to do better that even my
dreams are filled with these desires.
The sin thus bitterly bewailed consisted in neglecting to use "thee"
and "thou" in addressing her schoolmates. She would wake up in the
night and mourn over it. One would judge from Deborah's continual
lectures that the school was made up of a lot of desperately wicked
girls sent her to be reformed, instead of a band of demure and saintly
little Quaker maidens. On the 31st Susan writes:
Our class has not recited in Philosophy, Chemistry or Physiology,
nor have we read, since the 20th of this month, for the reason of
there being such a departure among the scholars from the paths of
rectitude.
Later she records that a new teacher has arrived "to relieve Deborah of
some of her bodily labors," that "he is a stern-looking man," and that
she was "somewhat mortified that she could not give him the desired
definition of compendiums."
The woman who sells molasses candy has been here, but when she
leaves she does not carry the confusion with her which she
causes.... Deborah requested eight of us larger girls to remain
last evening, for the purpose of reproving us. The cause was the
levity and mirthfulness which were displayed on Third day of the
week previous. She compared us to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his
master with a kiss. She said there were those amongst us who would
surely have to suffer deep affliction for not attending to the
manifestations of truth within.--I have been guilty of much levity
and nonsensical conversation and have also permitted thoughts to
occupy my mind which should have been far distant, but I do not
consider myself as having committed any wilful offence. Perhaps the
reason I can not see my own defects is because my heart is
hardened. O, may it become more and more refined until nothing
shall remain but perfect purity.
* * * * *
2nd mo. 11th day.--First day evening Deborah came down and sat with
us. In a few moments she called for her Bible, and in a short time
she read, "Jesus wept;" and then, after a long pause, she said,
"There are those present who, if they do not attend to what has
been said to them, will have their strings shortened, even as short
as this verse." This she said after having inquired on what subject
Abraham Loire preached in the morning and none of us was able to
tell.
* * * * *
2nd mo. 12th day.--Deborah came down in the afternoon to examine
our writing. She looked at M.'s and gave her a severe reproof; she
then looked at C.'s and said nothing. I, thinking I had improved
very much, offered mine for her to examine. She took it and pointed
out some of the best words as those which were not well written,
and then she asked me the rule for dotting an i, and I acknowledged
that I did not know. She then said it was no wonder she had
undergone so much distress in mind and body, and that her time had
been devoted to us in vain. This was like an Electrical shock to
me. I rushed upstairs to my room where, without restraint, I could
give vent to my tears. She said the same as that I had been the
cause of the great obstruction in the school. If I am such a vile
sinner, I would that I might feel it myself. Indeed I do consider
myself such a bad creature that I can not see any who seems
worse.--And we had a new scholar to witness this scene!
Think of causing all this anguish and humiliation to a young girl
because she did not know the rule for dotting an i!
2nd mo. 15th day.--This day I call myself eighteen. It seems
impossible that I can be so old, and even at this age I find myself
possessed of no more knowledge than I ought to have had at twelve.
Dr. Allen, a Phrenologist, gave us a short lecture this morning and
examined a few heads, mine among them. He described only the good
organs and said nothing of the bad. I should like to know the whole
truth.
Susan relates with a good deal of satisfaction that she has written a
letter to a schoolmate at home, without putting it on the slate for the
teacher to see. A few days later Deborah sends for her. She "went down
with cheerfulness," but what was her astonishment to see Deborah with
the intercepted letter open in her hand! Susan closes her account of
the interview by saying, "Little did I think, when I was writing that
letter, that I was committing such an enormous crime."
Learning that a young friend had married a widower with six children,
she comments in her diary, "I should think any female would rather live
and die an old maid." She has a cold and cough for which Deborah gives
her a "Carthartick," followed by some "Laudanum in a silver spoon."
"The beautiful spring weather," she says, "inhales me with fresh
vigor." She sees some spiderwebs in the schoolroom and, her domestic
habits asserting themselves, gets a broom and mounts the desks to sweep
them down, "little thinking of the mortification and tears it was to
occasion." Finally she steps upon Deborah's desk and breaks the hinges
on the lid. That personage is informed by an assistant teacher and
arrives on the scene:
"Deborah, I have broken your desk." She appeared not to notice me,
walked over, examined the desk and asked the teacher who broke it.
"What! Susan Anthony step on my desk! I would not have set a child
upon it," she said, and much more which I can not write. "How came
you to step on it?" she asked, but I was too full to speak and
rushed from the room in tears. That evening, after we read in the
Testament, she said that where there was no desire for moral
improvement there would be no improvement in reading. There was one
by the side of her who had not desired moral improvement and had
made no advancement in Literature.
This deliberate cruelty to one whose heart was bursting with sorrow and
regret! "Never will this day be forgotten," says the diary. In speaking
of this incident Miss Anthony said: "Not once, in all the sixty years
that have passed, has the thought of that day come to my mind without
making me turn cold and sick at heart."
On one occasion when a composition had been severely criticised, Susan
blazed forth the inquiry why she always was censured and her sister
praised. "Because," was the reply, "thy sister Guelma does the best she
is capable of, but thou dost not. Thou hast greater abilities and I
demand of thee the best of thy capacity." Throughout this little record
are continual expressions of the pain of separation from the dear home,
of keen disappointment if the expected letter fails to come, and most
affectionate references to the beloved parents, brothers and sisters.
Even the austere Deborah is mentioned always with respect and kindness
for, notwithstanding her frequent censure, she inspired the girls with
love and reverence.
Subsequent events show that this lady was failing rapidly with
consumption. Among the old letters, one from an assistant teacher to
Daniel Anthony, dated 1839, a year after Susan left school, says: "The
tender chord that so long confined our beloved Deborah to this world
was broken on the 25th day of the 4th month, and we trust her happy
spirit took its flight to realms of eternal felicity." Deborah Moulson
was a cultured and estimable woman, but she represented the spirit of
that age toward childhood, one of chilling severity and constant
repression, when reproof was as liberally administered as praise was
conscientiously withheld.
[Footnote 4: Sixty-five years later, this cousin, Nancy Howe Clark,
aged eighty-seven, wrote Miss Anthony:
"The year I spent at your father's was the happiest of my whole long
life. How well I remember the sweet voices saying 'Cousin Nancy,' and
the affectionate way in which I was received by your dear father and
mother. It had never been my fortune before to live in a household with
an educated man at its head, and I felt a little shy of your father but
soon found there was no occasion. Although it was a period of great
financial depression, he always found time to be social and kindly in
his family. He seemed to have an eye for everything, his business, the
school and every good work. I considered your father and mother a model
husband and wife and found it hard to leave such a loving home."]
[Footnote 5: In later years the younger children were instructed on
piano and violin, and he enjoyed nothing better than listening to
them.]
[Footnote 6: In reading them over, sixty years afterwards, she said
mournfully, "That has been the way all my life. Whenever I take a pen
in hand I always seem to be mounted on stilts." To those who are
acquainted with her simple, straightforward style of speaking, this
will seem hardly possible, yet it is probably one of the reasons which
led her, very early in her public career, to abandon all attempts at
written speeches.]
CHAPTER III.
FINANCIAL CRASH--THE TEACHER.
1838--1845.
The prosperous days of the Anthonys were drawing to a close. All
manufacturing industries of the country were in a ruinous state. The
unsound condition of the banks with their depreciated and fluctuating
currency had created financial chaos. Overproduction of cotton goods on
a credit basis, inordinate speculation, reduction of duties on
importations, produced the inevitable result, and the commercial world
began to totter on its foundations. The final ruin is foreshadowed in
the letters of Daniel Anthony. In one to his brother September 2, 1837,
he says:
I am going next week on a tour of the eastern cities and when I
return shall be prepared to face the situation. My goods at present
will not sell for the actual cost of manufacturing. Van Buren's
message has just made its appearance. It is opposed to banks and
may operate unfavorably to business, but how it can be worse I
don't know.
He writes from Washington to his wife, September 11:
I arrived last evening--came in R. Road cars from Baltimore, 39
miles, in two hours, over a barren and almost uncultivated tract of
country. The public buildings and one street called Pennsylvania
Avenue are all that are worth mention in this place.... As a
specimen of some of the big finery in the town, I will name one
room in Martin's [Van Buren's] house, 90 ft. by 42, the furniture
of which cost $22,000.... Our Congressmen are some like other
folks, they look out first for themselves. They have spent most of
this day in debating whether _they_ shall be paid in _specie_....
There are Black Folks in abundance here, but they don't act as if
they were even under the pressure of hard times, much less the
cruelties that we hear of slaves having to bear.
From New York he writes his brother:
Such times in everything that pertains to business never were known
in this land before. To-day I have passed through Pine street and
have not seen one single box or bale of goods of any kind whatever.
Last year at this time a person could scarcely go through the
street without clambering over goods of all descriptions. A truck
cart loaded with merchandise is now a rare object. A bale of goods
can not be sold at any price. The countenances of all our best
business men are stretched out in a perpendicular direction and
when the times will let them come back into human shape not even
the wisest pretend to guess. Those that are out of all speculative
and ever-changing business may consider themselves in a Paradismal
state.
In the spring of 1838 he writes to Guelma and Susan, at that time
twenty and eighteen years of age, to know if they feel that they
possibly can go alone from Philadelphia to New York, where he will join
them and bring them home; but evidently they decide they can not, for
Susan's journal speaks of "the happy moment when they run to the gate
to meet him." On the journey he tells them that his business is ruined,
they can not return to school and will have to give up their beautiful
and beloved new home. In recalling those times Miss Anthony says that
never in all her long life did she see such agony as her father passed
through during the dreadful days which followed. All that he had
accumulated in a lifetime of hard work and careful planning was swept
away, and there was scarcely a spot of solid ground upon which he could
plant his feet to begin the struggle once more.
In her diary, speaking of an aunt who sympathizes with them and says it
will be hard to give up going with the people they have been accustomed
to, Susan observes, "I do not think that losing our property will cause
us ever to mingle with low company." She is now somewhat uncertain
about taking up teaching permanently, fearing she will "lose the habit
of using the plain language;" but May 22, 1838, she writes at Union
Village, now Greenwich:
On last evening, which was First day, I again left my home to
mingle with strangers, which seems to be my sad lot. Separation was
rendered more trying on account of the embarrassing condition of
our business affairs. I found my school small and quite disorderly.
O, may my patience hold out to persevere without intermission.
In the summer of 1838 the factory, store, home and much of the
furniture had to be given up to the creditors. Not an article was
spared from the inventory. All the mother's wedding presents, the
furniture and the silver spoons given her by her parents, the wearing
apparel of the family, even the flour, tea, coffee and sugar, the
children's school books, the Bible and the dictionary, were carefully
noted. On this list, still in existence, are "underclothes of wife and
daughters," "spectacles of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony," "pocket-knives of
boys," "scraps of old iron"--and the law took all except the bare
necessities. In this hour of extremity the guardian angel appeared in
the person of Joshua Read, a brother of Mrs. Anthony, from Palatine
Bridge, N.Y., who bid in all which the family desired to keep and
restored to them their possessions, making himself their lenient
creditor.
The winter of 1839 Susan attended the home school, taught by Daniel
Wright, a fine scholar and remarkably successful teacher. This ended
her school days, and in her journal she says: "I probably shall never
go to school again, and all the advancement which I hereafter make must
be by my own exertions."
In March, 1839, the family moved to Hardscrabble, a small village two
miles further down the Battenkill. They went on a cold, blustering day,
and one may imagine the feelings of Daniel and Lucy Anthony and their
older children as they turned away from their big factory, their
handsome home and the friends they had learned to love. Mrs. Anthony's
heart was overflowing with sorrow, for in less than five years she had
lost by death her little daughter, her father and mother, and now was
swept away her home hallowed by their beloved memories.
In his prosperous days Daniel Anthony had built a satinet factory and a
grist-mill at Hardscrabble and, although these were mortgaged heavily,
he hoped to weather the financial storm and through them to build up
again his fallen fortunes. The family were soon comfortably established
in a large house which had been a hotel or tavern in the days when
lumber was cut in the Green mountains and floated down the river, an
immense building, sixty feet square, with wide hall and broad piazza.
They did not keep a hotel, but people were in the habit of stopping
here, as it was a half-way house to Troy, and they found themselves
obliged to entertain a number of travelers.
Those were busy days for the family. Susan's journal contains many
entries such as, "Did a large washing to-day.... Spent to-day at the
spinning-wheel.... Baked 21 loaves of bread.... Wove three yards of
carpet yesterday.... Got my quilt out of the frame last 5th day.... The
new saw-mill has just been raised; we had 20 men to supper on 6th day,
and 12 on 7th day." But there were quilting-bees and apple-parings and
sleighing parties and many good times, for the elastic temperament of
youth rallies quickly from grief and misfortune. Susan went to
Presbyterian church one Sunday, and the gray-robed Quaker thus writes:
To see them partake of the Lord's supper, as they call it, was
indeed a solemn sight, but the dress of the communicants bespeaks
nothing but vanity of heart--curls, bows and artificials displayed
in profusion about most of them. They say they can dress in the
fashion without fixing their hearts on their costume, but surely if
their hearts were not vain and worldly, their dress would not be.
The attic in this old house was finished off for a ball-room; it was
said that great numbers of junk bottles had been laid under the floor
to give especially nice tone to the fiddles. The young people of the
village came to Daniel Anthony for permission to hold their
dancing-school here but, with true Quaker spirit, he refused. Finally
the committee came again and said: "You have taught us that we must not
drink or go about places where liquor is sold. The only other
dancing-hall in town is in a disreputable tavern, and if we can not
come here we shall be obliged to go there." So Mr. Anthony called a
council of his wife and elder daughters. The mother, remembering her
own youth and also having a tender solicitude for the moral welfare of
the young people, advised that they should have the hall. Mr. Anthony
at last agreed on condition that his own daughters should not dance. So
they came, and Susan, Guelma and Hannah sat against the wall and
watched, longing to join them but never doing it. They danced every two
weeks all winter; Mrs. Anthony gave them some simple refreshments, they
went home early, there was no drinking and all was orderly and
pleasant.
[Illustration:
THE HOME AT CENTER FALLS, N. Y., BUILT IN 1810.
THE PORCH LONG SINCE FALLEN AWAY.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1897. SUSAN, DANIEL, MARY, AND MERRITT IN
FOREGROUND.]
The Quakers at once had Daniel Anthony up before the committee, there
was a long discussion, and finally they read him out of meeting
"because he kept a place of amusement in his house." Reuben Baker, one
of the old Quakers, said: "It is with great sorrow we have to disown
friend Anthony, for he has been one of the most exemplary members in
the Society, but we can not condone such an offense as allowing a
dancing-school in his house."
Mr. Anthony felt this very keenly. He said: "For one of the best acts
of my life I have been turned out of the best religious society in the
world;" but he had kept his wife, his cloak and his ideas of right, and
was justified by his conscience. He continued to attend Quaker meeting
but grew more liberal with every passing year and, long before his
death, had lost every vestige of bigotry and believed in complete
personal, mental and spiritual freedom. In early life he had
steadfastly refused to pay the United States taxes because he would not
give tribute to a government which believed in war. When the collector
came he would lay down his purse, saying, "I shall not voluntarily pay
these taxes; if thee wants to rifle my pocket-book, thee can do so."
But he lived to do all in his power to support the Union in its
struggle for the abolition of slavery and, although too old to go to
the front himself, his two sons enlisted at the very beginning of the
war.
Mr. Anthony had the name Hardscrabble changed to Center Falls, and was
made postmaster. Susan and Hannah secured schools, and Daniel R., then
not sixteen, went into the mill with his father. Susan had several
schools offered her and finally accepted one at New Rochelle. She went
down the Hudson by the steamboat American Eagle, her father going with
her as far as Troy. She speaks in her journal of several Louisiana
slaveholders being on board, the discussion which took place in the
evening and her horror at hearing them uphold the institution of
slavery. The pages of this little book show that this question and
those of religion and temperance were the principal subjects of
conversation in these days. One entry reads: "Spent the evening at Mr.
Burdick's and had a good visit with them, our chief topic being the
future state." Then she comments: "Be the future what it may, our
happiness in the present is far more complete if we live an upright
life." From the time she was seventeen is constantly expressed a
detestation of slavery and intemperance. Her life from the beginning
seems to have had a serious purpose. When asked, during the writing of
this biography, why her journals were not full of "beaux," as most
girls' were, she replied: "There were plenty of them, but I never could
bring myself to put anything about them on paper." There are many
references to their calling, escorting her to parties, etc., but
scarcely any expression of her sentiments toward them. One, of whom she
says: "He is a most noble-hearted fellow; I have respected him highly
since our first acquaintance," goes to see a rival, and she writes: "He
is at ----'s this evening. O, may he know that in me he has found a
spirit congenial with his own, and not suffer the glare of beauty to
attract both eye and heart."
Again she says: "Last night I dreamed of being married, queerly enough,
too, for it seemed as if I had married a Presbyterian priest, whom I
never before had seen. I thought I repented thoroughly before the day
had passed and my mind was much troubled." This modest Quaker maiden
writes of receiving a newspaper from a young man: "Its contents were
none of the most polite; a piece of poetry on Love and one called
'Ridin' on a Rail,' and numerous little stories and things equally as
bad. What he means I can not tell, but silence will be the best
rebuke." Another who comes a-wooing she describes as "a real
soft-headed old bachelor," and remarks: "These old bachelors are
perfect nuisances to society." A friend marries a man of rather feeble
intellect, and she comments: "Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, that a
girl possessed of common sense should be willing to marry a
lunatic--but so it is."
Miss Anthony went to New Rochelle as assistant in Eunice Kenyon's
boarding-school, but the principal being ill most of the time, she has
to take entire charge, and the responsibility seems to weigh heavily on
the nineteen-year-old girl. She speaks also of watching night after
night, with only such rest as she gets lying on the floor. She gives
some idea of the medical treatment of those days: "The Doctor came and
gave her a dose of calomel and bled her freely, telling me not to faint
as I held the bowl. Her arm commenced bleeding in the night and she
lost so much blood she fainted. Next day the Doctor came, applied a
blister and gave her another dose of calomel."
She meets some colored girls from the school at Oneida and writes home:
"A strict Presbyterian school it is, but they eat, walk and associate
with the white people. O, what a happy state of things is this, to see
these poor, degraded sons of Afric privileged to walk by our side." On
Sunday she hears Stephen Archer, the great Quaker preacher, who was at
the head of a large Friends' boarding-school at Tarrytown, and says:
He is a much younger man than I expected to see, and wears a sweet
smile on his face.... The people about here are anti-Abolitionist
and anti-everything else that's good. The Friends raised quite a
fuss about a colored man sitting in the meeting-house, and some
left on account of it. The man was rich, well-dressed and very
polite, but still the pretended meek followers of Christ could not
worship their God and have this sable companion with them. What a
lack of Christianity is this! There are three colored girls here
who have been in the habit of attending Friends' meeting where they
have lived, but here they are not allowed to sit even on the back
seat. One long-faced elder dusted off a seat in the gallery and
told them to sit there. Their father was freed by his master and
left $60,000, and these girls are educated and refined.
Aaron McLean, who is soon to marry her sister Guelma, writes in answer
to this: "I am glad to hear that the people where your lot is cast for
the present are sensible and reasonable on that exciting subject. I
entreat you to be prudent in your remarks and not attempt to
'niggerize' the good old Friends about you. Above all, let them know
that you are about the only Abolitionist in _this_ vicinity." This
severe letter does not seem to have affected her very deeply for, on
the next day after receiving it, she writes her parents: "Since school
to-day I have had the unspeakable satisfaction of visiting four colored
people and drinking tea with them. Their name is Turpin, and Theodore
Wright of New York is their stepfather. To show this kind of people
respect in this heathen land affords me a double pleasure." Mr. McLean
evidently did not believe in woman preachers, for the radical Susan
writes him:
I attended Rose street meeting in New York and heard the strongest
sermon on "The Vices of the City," that has been preached in that
house very lately. It was from Rachel Barker, of Dutchess county. I
guess if you could hear her you would believe in a woman's
preaching. What an absurd notion that women have not intellectual
and moral faculties sufficient for anything but domestic concerns!
She does not hesitate to write to an uncle, Albert Dickinson, and
reprove him for drinking ale and wine at Yearly Meeting time. It seems
that then, as now, girls had a habit of writing on the first page of a
sheet, next on the third, then vertically on a page, etc. Uncle Albert
retorts:
Thy aunt Ann Eliza says to tell thee we are temperate drinkers and
hope to remain so. We should think from the shape of thy letter
that thou thyself hadst had a good horn from the contents of the
cider barrel, a part being written one side up and a part the other
way, and it would need some one in nearly the same predicament to
keep track of it. We hope thy cranium will get straightened when
the answer to this is penned, so that we may follow thy varied
thoughts with less trouble. A little advice perhaps would be good
on both sides, and they that give should be willing to receive. See
to it that thou payest me down for this.
This letter also gives an insight into the medical practice of the good
old times. A niece, Cynthia, is being treated for the dropsy by
"drinking copiously of a decoction made by charring wormwood in a close
vessel and putting the ashes into brandy, and every night being
subjected to a heavy sweat." It recommends plenty of blue pills and
boneset for the ague. Later, Susan writes of a friend who is "under the
care of both Botanical and Apothecary doctors." For hardening of wax in
the ear she sends an infallible prescription: "Moisten salt with
vinegar and drop it in the ear every night for six weeks; said to be a
certain cure."
The staid and puritanical young woman is much disturbed at the
enthusiastic reception given President Van Buren at New Rochelle, and
writes home:
We had quite a noise last Fifth day on the occasion of Martin's
passing through this village. A band of splendid music was sent for
from the city, and large crowds of people called to look at him as
if he were a puppet show. Really one would have thought an angelic
being had descended from heaven, to have heard and seen the
commotion. The whole village was in an uproar. Here was a mother
after her children to go and gaze upon the great man, and there was
a teacher rushing with one child by the hand and half a dozen
running after. Where was I? Why I, by mustering a little
self-government, concluded to remain at home and suffer the
President to pass along in peace. He was to dine at Washington
Irving's, at Tarrytown, and then proceed to the Capitol.
Her extreme animosity is explained in a subsequent letter to Aaron
McLean:
I regret to hear that the people of Battenville are possessed of so
little sound sense as to go 20 miles to shake hands with the
President at Saratoga Springs; merely to look at a human being who
is possessed of nothing more than ordinary men and therefore should
not be worshipped more than any mortal being, nor even so much as
many in the humble walks of life who are devoted to their God. Let
us look at his behavior and scan its effects on society. One day
while in New York was spent in riding through the streets preceded
by an extravagant number of military men and musicians, who were
kept in exercise on that and succeeding days of the week until all
were completely exhausted. On the next day, while he and his party
were revelling in their tents on luxuries and the all-debasing
Wine, many poor, dear children were crying for food and for water
to allay their thirst. On Friday evening he attended Park Theater
and on Monday Bowery Theater. Yes, he who is called by the majority
as most capable of ruling this republic, may be seen in the Theater
encouraging one of the most heinous crimes or practices with which
our country is disgraced.[7] Yes, and afterwards we find him
rioting at the Wine Table, the whole livelong night. Is it to be
wondered that there are such vast numbers of our population who are
the votaries of Vice and Dissipation? No, certainly not, and I do
not believe there ever will be less of this wickedness while a man
practising these abominable vices (in what is called a gentlemanly
manner) is suffered to sit at the head of our Government.
The future orator and reformer is plainly foreshadowed in this burst of
indignation, to which Mr. McLean replies in part:
I was agreeably disappointed in Van Buren's personal appearance.
From what I had heard of him as a little, smooth, intriguing
arch-magician, I expected his looks would bear that out but it was
far to the contrary. He is quite old and gray, very grave and
careworn. His dress was perfectly plain, not the least sign of
jewelry save his watch seal which was solid gold. I saw him drink
no wine, although there was plenty about him, nor did your father
and mother who saw him dine at the United States Hotel. If you do
not like him because he tastes wine, how can you like Henry Clay
who drinks it freely? Mr. Webster drinks wine also. At a Whig
festival got up in Boston in his honor, at which he and 1,200 other
Whigs were present, there were drunk 2,300 bottles of champagne,
two bottles to each man. Mr. Clay attended balls at the Springs. He
had a slave with him to wait on him and hand him water to clear out
his throat while he was speaking; and this while he was preaching
liberty and declaring what a fine thing this freedom is!
While at New Rochelle Susan becomes greatly interested in the culture
of silk-worms, upon which the principal was experimenting. She writes
home full descriptions and urges them to ascertain if black mulberry
trees grow about there; she herself knew of one. She insists that the
sisters can teach school and take care of the silk-worms at the same
time, but evidently receives no encouragement as no more is heard of
the project. She retains the keenest interest in every detail of the
life at home. She sends some cherry stones to be planted because the
cherries were the largest and best she ever ate. A box of shells is
carefully gathered for brother Merritt, and sent with a grass linen
handkerchief for sister Mary. She sends back her mother's shawl for
fear she may need it more than herself. In the currant season she
writes that nothing in the world would taste so good as one of mother's
currant pies. She urges them to send her part of the family sewing to
do outside of school hours. She frequently walks down to Long Island
sound, a mile and a half away, and says at one time:
The sun was passing toward the western horizon, and all seemed calm
and tranquil save the restless wash of the waves against the beach.
A gentle breeze from the water refreshed our tired bodies. To one
unaccustomed to such scenes it was like a glimpse into another
world. In the distance one could see the villages of Long Island,
but I could think only of that village called home, and I longed
every moment to be there.
Her school commenced May 23 and closed September 6, a term of fifteen
weeks, for which she received $30, and she expresses her grief that,
after having paid for necessary clothes and incidentals, she has only
enough left to take her home. She reaches Center Falls in time to
assist in the final preparations for the wedding, on September 19,
1839, of her sister Guelma to Aaron McLean, a prosperous merchant at
Battenville.
Susan's next school was in her home district at Center Falls, where she
was very successful. One incident is on record in regard to the "bully"
of the school. After having tried every persuasive method at her
command to compel obedience, she proceeded to use the rod. He fought
viciously, but she finally flogged him into complete submission and
never had any further trouble with him or the other boys. She was,
however, very tender-hearted toward children and animals.
Among the outings enjoyed by the young people were excursions to
neighboring villages. There were no railroads, but every young man
owned his horse and buggy, and in pleasant weather a procession of
twenty vehicles often might be seen, each containing a happy couple on
their way to a supper and dance. On one occasion, according to the
little diary, the night was so dark they did not dare risk the ten-mile
drive home, as much of the road lay beside the river, so they continued
the festivities till daylight. Once a party went to Saratoga Springs,
and, to Miss Anthony's grief, her favorite young man invited another
girl, and she had a long, dreary drive trying to be agreeable to one
while her thought was with another. To add to the unpleasantness her
escort took this opportunity to ask her to give up teaching and preside
over a home for him.
One winter was spent with relatives at Danby, Vt., and here, with the
assistance of a cousin, Moses Vail, who was a teacher, she made a
thorough study of algebra. Later, when visiting her irrepressible
brother-in-law, Aaron McLean, she made some especially nice cream
biscuits for supper, and he said, "I'd rather see a woman make such
biscuits as these than solve the knottiest problem in algebra." "There
is no reason why she should not be able to do both," was the reply.
There are many references in the old letters to "Susan's tip-top
dinners."
She taught one summer in Cambridge, and then, for two years, in the
home of Lansing G. Taylor, at Fort Edward. Mrs. Taylor was the daughter
of Judge Halsey Wing. The journals of that date either were abandoned
or have been lost in the half century since then, and there is but one
letter in existence written during this very pleasant period. In it,
July 11, 1844, she says:
As the week draws toward its close my mind travels to the dear home
roof. It seems to fly far hence to that loved father and mingle
with his spirit while he is wandering in the wilds of Virginia, and
it raises to the throne of grace an ardent wish for his safe
return. Oh, that he may make no change of land except for the
better! Then do my thoughts rest with my dear mother, toiling
unremittingly through the long day and at eve, seated in her
arm-chair, wrapt in solemn stillness, and later reclining on her
lonely pillow. How often, when I am enjoying the sweet hour of
twilight, do I think of the sadness that has so long o'ershadowed
her brow, and ardently entreat the God of love and mercy to give
her that peace which is found only in a resignation to his just and
holy will. How numerous are our favors! We have a comfortable
subsistence and health to relish it; but, more than this, we, as a
family, are bound together by the strongest ties of affection that
seem daily to grow stronger....
I arose this morning at half-past four. Two ladies from Albany are
visiting here, the beautiful Abigail Mott, a Friend and a
thorough-going Abolitionist and reformer, and Mrs. Worthington, a
strict Methodist. Mr. Taylor took eight of us to the Whig
convention at Sandy Hill yesterday, and I attended my first
political meeting. I enjoyed every moment of it.
She also relates how Miss Mott would come to her room and expound to
her most beautifully the doctrine of Unitarianism, and then Mrs.
Worthington would come and pray with her long and earnestly to
counteract the pernicious effect of Miss Mott's heresies. While she was
accustomed to the liberal theology of the Hicksite Quakers, this was
the first time she ever had heard the more scholarly interpretation of
the Unitarian church.
From 1840 to 1845 Susan and Hannah taught almost continuously,
receiving only $2 or $2.50 a week and board, but living with most rigid
economy and giving the father all they could spare to help pay interest
on the mortgage which rested on factory, mills and home. He gave his
notes for every dollar and, years afterwards, when prosperity came,
paid all of them with scrupulous exactness. It was in these early days
of teaching that Miss Anthony saw with indignation the injustice
practiced towards women. Repeatedly she would take a school which a
male teacher had been obliged to give up because of inefficiency and,
although she made a thorough success, would receive only one-fourth of
his salary. It was the custom everywhere to pay men four times the
wages of women for exactly the same amount of work, often not so well
done.
Mr. Anthony went into his mills and performed the manual labor. In
partnership with Dr. Hiram Corliss he employed a number of men to cut
timber, going into the woods in the depths of winter personally to
superintend them. His wife would cook great quantities of provisions,
bake bread and cake, pork and beans, boil hams and roast chickens, and
go to the logging camp with him for a week at a time, and she used to
say that notwithstanding all the labor and anxiety of those days they
were among the happiest recollections of her life.
At home the loom and spinning-wheel were never idle. The mill-hands
were boarded, transient travelers cared for, and every possible effort
made to enable the father to secure another foothold, but all in vain.
The manufacturing business was dead, there was no building to call for
lumber, people had no money, and, after a desperate struggle of five
years, the end came and all was lost. Mr. Anthony then spent months in
looking for a suitable location to begin life anew. He went to Virginia
and to Michigan, but found nothing that suited him. He and his wife
made a trip through New York, visiting a number of relatives on the
way, and were persuaded to examine a farm for sale near Rochester. It
proved to be more satisfactory than anything they had seen, and they
decided to take it. Joshua Read who, during all these years, had
carefully protected the portion which his sister, Mrs. Anthony, had
inherited from their father, took this to make the first payment on the
farm.[8] They then returned to Center Falls and began preparations for
what in those times was a long journey.
One warm day in the summer of 1845, several Quaker elders had stopped
to dine at the Anthony home on their way to Quarterly Meeting. Hannah
and Susan were in the large, cool parlor working on the wonderful quilt
which was to be a part of Hannah's wedding outfit, when one of the
elders, a wealthy widower from Vermont, asked Susan to get him a drink.
He followed her out to the well and there made her an offer of
marriage, which she promptly refused. He pictured his many acres, his
fine home, his sixty cows, told her how much she looked like his first
wife, begged her to take time to consider and he would stop on his way
back to get her answer. She assured him that it would be entirely
unnecessary, as she was going with her father and mother to their new
home and did not want to marry. He could scarcely understand a woman
who did not desire matrimony, but was finally persuaded to gather up
his slighted affections and go on to Quarterly Meeting.
On September 4, Hannah was married to Eugene Mosher, a merchant at
Easton. Daniel R. was now clerking at Lenox, Mass., so there were only
Susan, Mary and Merritt to go with the father and mother. All the
relatives bade them good-by as if forever, and the leave-taking was
very sorrowful, for it was the first permanent separation of the
family.
[Footnote 7: In after years Miss Anthony greatly enjoyed attending a
good play.]
[Footnote 8: In 1848, when the law was enacted allowing a married woman
to hold property, it was put in her name and she retained it till her
death.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE FARM HOME--END OF TEACHING.
1845--1850.
On November 7, 1845, the parents and three children took the stage for
Troy, and from there went by railroad to Palatine Bridge for a short
visit to Joshua Read. The journey from here to Rochester was made by
canal on a "line boat" instead of a "packet," because it was cheaper
and because they wanted to be with their household goods. At Utica they
found two cousins, Nancy and Melintha Howe, waiting for the packet to
go west, but when they saw their relatives they gladly boarded the line
boat. Mrs. Anthony did the cooking for the entire party, in the
spotless little kitchen on the boat, and the young people, at least,
had a merry journey.
The family arrived in Rochester late in the afternoon of November 14.
They landed at Fitzhugh street and went to the National Hotel. The
father had just ten dollars, and it was out of the question to remain
there over night; so he took the old gray horse and the wagon off the
boat, with a few necessary articles, and with his family started for
the farm, three miles west of the city. The day was cold and cheerless,
the roads were very muddy, and by the time they reached their
destination it was quite dark. An old man and his daughter had been
left in charge and had nothing in the way of food but cornmeal and
milk. Mrs. Anthony made a kettle of mush which her husband pronounced
"good enough for the queen." The only bed was occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
Anthony, and the rest slept on the floor. Next day the household goods
were brought from the city and all were soon busy putting the new home
in order. That was a long and lonesome winter. The closest neighbors
were the DeGarmos, and there were a number of other Quaker families in
the city. These called at once and performed every friendly office in
their power, but the hearts of the exiles were very sad and home-sick.
The cause of human freedom was then uppermost in many minds, and the
Anthonys found here congenial spirits in their strong anti-slavery
convictions, and numerous little "abolition" meetings were held during
that winter at their home and in those of their new friends.
When spring opened, the surroundings began to assume a more cheerful
aspect. The farm was a very pretty one of thirty-two acres. The house
stood on an elevation, the long walk that led up to it was lined on
both sides with pinks, there were many roses and other flowers in the
yard, and great numbers of peach, cherry and quince trees and currant
and goose-berry bushes. The scenery was peaceful and pleasant, but they
missed the rugged hills and dashing, picturesque streams of their
eastern home. Back of the house were the barn, carriage-house and a
small blacksmith shop. Mrs. Anthony used to say that her happiest hours
were spent on Sunday mornings, when her husband would heat the little
forge and mend the kitchen and farm utensils, while she sat knitting
and talking with him, Quakers making no difference between Sunday and
other days of the week. He had learned this kind of work in boyhood on
his father's farm and always enjoyed the relaxation it afforded from
the cares and worries which crowded upon him in later years.
Mr. Anthony put into his farm the energy and determination
characteristic of the man. He rose early; he ploughed and sowed and
reaped; he planted peach and apple orchards, and improved the property
in many ways, but it was unprofitable work. It seemed very small to him
after the broad acres of his early home, and he was accustomed to refer
to it as his "sixpenny farm." His life had been too large and too much
among men of the great business world to make it possible for him to be
content with the existence of a farmer. While he retained his farm
home, he very soon went into business in Rochester, connecting himself
with the New York Life Insurance Company, then just coming into
prominence, and used to say he made money enough out of that to afford
the luxury of keeping the farm. He was very successful, and continued
with this company the remainder of his life.
On April 25, 1846, Miss Anthony received this invitation:
At a meeting of the Trustees of the Canajoharie Academy held this
day, it was unanimously Resolved to offer you the Female Department
upon the terms which have heretofore been offered to the teachers
of that department, viz:--the tuition money of the female
department less 12-1/2 per cent., the teachers collecting their
tuition bills. Should these terms meet your views, please favor us
with an answer by return mail. The next term commences on the first
Monday of May proximo.
We are Very Respectfully Yours,
JOSHUA READ, LIVINGSTON SPEAKER, GEORGE G. JOHNSON.
Miss Anthony accepted in a carefully worded and finely written letter,
and arrived at the home of her uncle Joshua Saturday morning, May 2. He
had lived many years at Palatine Bridge, just across the river, was
school trustee, bank director, one of the owners of the turnpike, the
toll bridge and the stage line, and also kept a hotel. His two
daughters were well married, and Miss Anthony boarded with them during
all of her three years' teaching in Canajoharie. She found her uncle
very ill and being treated by the doctor "with calomel, opium and
morphine." In a conversation he told her that "her success would depend
largely upon thinking that she knew it all." Although there was now no
postmaster in the family, letter postage had been reduced to five
cents, and a voluminous correspondence is in existence covering the
period from 1846 to 1849. The school commenced with forty boys and
twenty-five girls, and the tuition was $5 per annum. The principal was
Daniel B. Hagar, a man whom Miss Anthony always loved to remember,
highly educated, a gentleman in deportment, kind, thoughtful, and
always ready to help and encourage the young teacher.[9]