Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 38

Table of Contents

The panic; father's letters; teaching at Union Village; the home sacrificed; life at Center Falls; more Quaker discipline; teaching at New Rochelle; Miss Anthony's letters on slavery, temperance, medical practice, Van Buren, etc.; teaching at Center Falls, Cambridge and Fort Edward; proposals of marriage; removal to Rochester, N. Y.

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.

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.1 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.2 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.

1. In after years Miss Anthony greatly enjoyed attending a good play.

2. 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.