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Sarah Knox Goodrich.

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conventions, were written in such conditions of weakness and suffering, as only a hero could have overcome. She was a good writer, an effective speaker, and a preeminently brave woman, gifted with that rarest of all virtues, common sense.

The advocacy of woman's rights began in Santa Cruz county, with the advent of that grand champion of her sex, the immortal Eliza Farnham, who braved public scorn and contumely because of her advanced views, for many years before the suffrage movement assumed organized form. Mrs. Farnham's work rendered it possible for those advocating woman suffrage years later, to do so with comparative immunity from public ridicule. A society was organized there in 1869, and Rev. D. G. Ingraham, E. B. Heacock, H. M. Blackburn, Mrs. Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Mrs. VanValkenburgh, W. W. Broughton and wife, and Mrs. Jewell were active members.

Prominent in Santa Clara county is Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield. From the first agitation of the subject in 1868, when she entered heartily into the work of getting subscribers to The Revolution, she has been untiring in her efforts to advance the interests of women. A lady of fine presence, great energy and perseverance, Mrs. Wallis has been able to accomplish great good for her sex. With a large separate estate, when the statutes prevented her as a married woman from managing it, she determined that the laws should be changed, and never ceased her efforts until she succeeded in getting an amendment to the civil code which enables married women to make contracts. The most successful suffrage meetings ever held in Santa Clara county have been at Mayfield. There Mrs. Wallis and her husband, Judge Joseph S. Wallace, make their spacious and luxurious home the rendezvous of lecturers and writers in the great work of woman's emancipation.

Mrs. Sarah Knox Goodrich of San José, was among the first to see the significance of the movement for woman's rights in 1868. Her husband, William J, Knox, who shortly before his death had been State senator, secured the passage of a bill, drafted by himself, giving to married women the right to dispose of their own separate property by will. Having been from her youth the cherished companion of a man who believed in the equality of the sexes, and being herself a thoughtful, clear-headed person, she naturally took her place with those whose aim was the social and political emancipation of woman, and has stood from the first a tower of strength in this cause, giving largely of her wealth for the propagation of its doctines. Mrs. Knox Goodrich has for many years paid her taxes, sometimes exorbitant, under protest, and at important elections has also offered her vote, to have it refused. The county suffrage society has had an untiring leader in Mrs. Goodrich, and on all occasions she has nerved the weak and encouraged the timid by her example of unflinching devotion. The following extracts from a letter written by the lady will show how effective her work has been:

In 1872, our society was invited to take part in the Fourth of July celebration, which we did, and had the handsomest carriages and more of them than any other society in the procession. We paid our own expenses, although the city had

made an appropriation for the celebration. In 1876 we were not invited to take part in the festivities, but some of us felt that on such a day, our centennial anniversary, we should not be ignored. Accordingly I started out to see what could be done, but finding some of our most active friends ill and others absent from home, I decided to do what I could alone. I had mottoes from the grand declarations of the Fathers painted and put on my house, which the procession would pass on two sides.

Some of our most prominent ladies seeing that I was determined to make a manifestation, drove with me in the procession, our carriage and horses decorated with flags, the ladies wearing sashes of red, white and blue, and bearing banners with mottoes and evergreens. A little daughter of Mrs. Clara Foltz, the lawyer, dressed in red, white and blue, was seated in the center of the carriage, carrying a white banner with silver fringe, a small flag at the top with a silver star above that, with streamers of red, white and blue floating from it, and in the center, in letters large enough to be seen some distance, the one word "Hope." On my flag the motto was: "We are Taxed without being Represented"; Mrs. Maria H. Weldon's, "We are the disfranchised Class"; Mrs. Marion Hooker's, "The Class entitled to respectful Consideration"; and Miss Hannah Millard's, "We are governed without our Consent." On the front of my house in large letters was the motto: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny as much in 1876, as it was in 1776"; on the other side was, "We are Denied the Ballot, but Compelled to Pay Taxes "; fronting the other side was, "Governments Derive their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." Mrs. McKee also had the last motto on her house. On the evening of July 3, after we had all our preparations completed, we sent to one of the marshals and asked him to give us a place in the procession next to the negroes, as we wished to let our legal protectors have a practical illustration of the position occupied by their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in this boasted republic. We did want to go in, however, ahead of the Chinamen, as we considered our position at present to be between the two. The marshal willingly assigned us a place, but not the one we desired. "We cannot allow you," said he, to occupy such a position. You must go in front, next to the Pioneer Association"; and being in part members of that society we accepted the decision. Our carriage was the center of attraction. Many, after reading our mottoes, said: "Well, ladies, we will help you to get your rights"; "It is a shame for you to be taxed and not have the right to vote.' ." Hundreds of people stood and read the mottoes on the house, making their comments, both grave and gay: "Good for Mrs. Knox"; 'She is right"; "If I were in her place I would never pay a tax ”; “I guess one of the strong-minded lives here."

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Mrs. Knox was married to Mr. Goodrich, the well-known architect, in 1878, in whom she has found a grand, noble-souled companion, fully in sympathy with all her progressive views, and with whom she is passing the advancing years of her well-spent life in luxury and unalloyed happiness. Mrs. Van Valkenburg tried to vote under the claim that the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States entitled her to registration, and being refused, brought suit against the registrars. The case was decided against her after being carried to the Supreme Court of California. These cases argued in the Supreme Court have been of inestimable value in the progress of the movement, lifting the question of woman's rights as a citizen above the mists of ridicule and prejudice, into the region of reason and constitutional law. We cannot too highly appreciate the bravery and persistence of the few women who have furnished these test cases and compelled the highest courts to record their decisions.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

The Long Marches Westward-Abigail Scott Duniway-Mary Olney Brown-The First Steps in Oregon-Col. C. A. Reed-Judge G. W. Lawson-1870-The New Northwest, 1871-Campaign, Mrs. Duniway and Miss Anthony-They Address the Legislature in Washington Territory-Hon. Elwood Evans-Suffrage Society Organized at Olympia and at Portland-Before the Oregon Legislature-Donation Land Act-Hon. Samuel Corwin's Suffrage Bill-Married Woman's Sole Traders' Bill-Temperance Alliance-Women Rejected-Major Williams Fights their Battles and Triumphs-Mrs. H. A. Loughary—Progressive Legislation, 1874 -Mob-Law in Jacksonville, 1879-Dr. Mary A. Thompson-Constitutional Convention, 1878-Woman Suffrage Bill, 1880-Hon. W. C. Fulton-Women Enfranchised in Washington Territory, Nov. 15, 1883-Great Rejoicing, Bonfires, Ratification Meetings-Constitutional Amendment Submitted in Oregon and Lost, June, 1884-Suffrage by Legislative Enactment Lost-Fourth of July Celebrated at Vancouvers-Benjamin and Mary Olney Brown-Washington Territory—Legislation in 1867-68 Favorable to Women-Mrs. Brown Attempts to Vote and is Refused -Charlotte Olney French-Women Vote at Grand Mound and Black River Precincts, 1870-Retrogressive Legislation, 1871-Abby H. Stuart in Land-OfficeHon. William H. White-Idaho and Montana.

IN the spring of 1852, when the great furor for going West was at its height, in the long trails of miners, merchants and farmers wending their way in ox-carts and canvas-covered wagons over the vast plains, mountains and rivers, two remarkable women, then in the flush of youth, might have been seen; one, Abigail Scott Duniway, destined to leave an indelible mark on the civilization of Oregon, and the other, Mary Olney Brown, on that of Washington territory. What ideas were revolving in these young minds in that long journey of 3,000 miles, six months in duration, it would be difficult to imagine, but the love of liberty had been infused in their dreams somewhere, either in their eastern homes from the tragic scenes of the anti-slavery conflict, or on that perilous march amidst those eternal solitudes by day and the solemn stillness of the far-off stars in the gathering darkness. That this long communion with great nature left its impress on their young hearts and sanctified their lives to the best interests of humanity at large, is clearly seen in the deeply interesting accounts they give of their endeavors to mould the

governments of their respective territories on republican principles. Writing of herself and her labors, Mrs. Duniway says:

I was born in Pleasant Grove, Tazewell county, Illinois, October 22, 1834, of the traditional "poor but respectable parentage" which has honored the advent of many a more illustrious worker than myself. Brought up on a farm and familiar from my earliest years with the avocations of rural life, spending the early spring-times in the maple-sugar camp, the later weeks in gardening and gathering stove-wood, the summers in picking and spinning wool, and the autumns in drying apples, I found little opportunity, and that only in winter, for books or play. My father was a generous-hearted, impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, intelligent, but uneducated woman. Both were devotedly religious, and both believed implicitly that self-abnegation was the crowing glory of womanhood. Before I was seventeen I was employed as a district school teacher, received a firstclass certificate and taught with success, though how I became possessed of the necessary qualifications I to this day know not. I never did, could, or would study when at school.

In the spring of 1852 my father decided to emigrate to Oregon. My invalid mother expostulated in vain; she and nine of us children were stowed away in ox-wagons, where for six months we made our home, cooking food and washing dishes around camp-fires, sleeping at night in the wagons, and crossing many streams upon wagon-beds, rigged as ferryboats. When our weary line of march had reached the Black Hills of Wyoming my mother became a victim to the dreadful epidemic, cholera, that devastated the emigrant trains in that never-to-be-forgotten year, and after a few hours' illness her weary spirit was called to the skies. We made her a grave in the solitudes of the eternal hills, and again took up our line of march, "too sad to talk, too dumb to pray." But ten weeks after, our Willie, the baby, was buried in the sands of the Burnt River mountains. Reaching Oregon in the fall with our broken household, consisting of my father and eight motherless children, I engaged in school-teaching till the following August, when I allowed the name of "Scott" to become "Duniway." Then for twenty years I devoted myself, soul and body, to the cares, toils, loves and hopes of a conscientious wife and mother. Five sons and one daughter have been born to us, all of whom are living and at home, engaged with their parents in harmonious efforts for the enfranchisement of women.

The first woman suffrage society ever formed in Oregon, was organized in Salem, the capital of the State, in the autumn of 1870, and consisted of about a dozen members. Col. C. A. Reed was chosen president and G. W. Lawson, secretary. This little society which maintained a quiescent existence for a year or more and then disbanded without ceremony, was, in part, the basis of all subsequent work of its character in Oregon. In the winter of 1871 this society honored me with credentials to a seat in the woman suffrage convention which was to meet in San Francisco the following May. My business called me to the Golden City before the time for the convention, and a telegraphic summons com

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