Olympia Brown

An Autobiography

Edited and Completed

By

Gwendolen B. Willis

Racine, Wisconsin

1960
 PREFACE

The biographical records contained in this book are partly my

mother’s work, partly my own. During the latter part of her long and active life,
Olympia Brown was urged by friends to write her autobiography. Such a record
would have been a highly valuable work had she made it while her memory
was clear and material more available. However, it was characteristic of her that
while she was able to “work in the field”, as she expressed it, she considered it
a waste of time to write her own life. It was, therefore, only after the suffrage
victory was won and when she was past the age of eighty-five that she turned
her attention to writing some notes about her life. As her strength gradually
grew less these notes became fragmentary, repetitious and inconsecutive. In the
summer of l926, only a few months before her death, she asked me to help her
arrange what she had written. It was necessary to omit repetitions, sometimes
to adopt a new order, here and there to add passages for the sake of clearness.
By careful questioning I sometimes secured new and valuable details. Although
the book is thus a joint product, it is largely that of the original writer, and it
is correct to keep it in the first person up to the point where her personal work
actually ceased or it was no longer feasible to take material literally from her
notes.

I have used records in my possession, files of the “Wisconsin

Citizen”, and other sources, extracts from “Acquaintances Old and New”, as
well as my own memory, to complete the story of the last years. The whole is the
record of a life, the activities of which extended from the early pioneer period of
the American feminist movement past the culmination of that movement, the
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States in 1920. No other nationally known woman who was active in Suffrage
work as early as the eighteen sixties lived to see its fulfillment. Only a few
showed, as strongly as did the subject of this memoir, from girlhood on, so clear
and unwavering a conviction of the importance of women’s social and political
enfranchisement, a conviction which found constant expression in efforts
toward the goal. Thus the story of Olympia Brown’s work spans a complete
period and is, from point to point, an integral part of the state and national work
for Woman Suffrage.

In the work for the admission of women to the Christian ministry,

Olympia Brown was also the pioneer, her official ordination by the Universalist
Church in 1863 antedating that of any other woman in any denomination. As
the record in this book shows, the ministry was the first objective in her life,
since in her youthful enthusiasm she believed that freedom of religious thought
and a liberal church would supply the groundwork for all other freedoms. Her
difficulties and disillusionments in this field were numerous. That she could rise
superior to such difficulties and disillusionments was the consequence of the
hopefulness and courage with which she was richly endowed.

Gwendolen B. Willis
 CHAPTER I

Plymouth, Vermont

I have always been glad to trace my antecedents to a place as

beautiful as Plymouth, Vermont, where nature presents the ruggedness of
mountain scenery, rounded lines of cultivated, rolling lands, deep gorges with
mountain torrents and meadows cut by sparkling brooks, all of which are so
typical of the country rightly named the “Green Mountains.”

“Old Vermont” as my father always lovingly termed it, had pro-

duced a class of pioneers and patriots as powerful and rugged as their hills.
Struggling to maintain existence in a state of rigorous climate and a scanty
soil, our ancestors had also been obliged to fight for their independence as a
commonwealth, New York and New Hampshire being determined to divide this
rocky morsel between them. Organized under the name of “The Republic of the
Green Mountains” the settlement held out stubbornly against the encroachment
of their seemingly stronger neighbors and since the people refused to join the
Union under any adjudication which diminished the territory claimed, Vermont
was not admitted into the Union until 1791. But meanwhile the little state had
played that brilliant part in the Revolution well known to every reader of United
States history. The names of Ethan Allen, Seth Warner and Remember Baker
stand out in my memory as heroes, both of the fight for the state’s existence
and in the revolution as well. These men organized the first military company,
called the “Green Mountain Boys” and distinguished themselves in the patriotic
support of that Union, which had as yet declined to recognize Vermont as a
state.

Vermont was the first state to insert in its constitution a clause

providing that there should never be “slavery or involuntary servitude in the
state”. In fact, in all her history we find her constructive on her own part, and
stubbornly resisting aggressions by others. I feel that I am not without a personal
share in Vermont’s brilliant record, since Revolutionary soldiers were numbered
among my ancestors on both sides of the family.
 Plymouth,Vermont

I have mentioned Plymouth as the birth place of my parents. Romantic beauty

characterized the locality known as “Plymouth Notch” where my mother, Lephia
Olympia Brown, was born in 1811 and spent her early life. The “Notch” in the
mountains is formed by the upper part of a deep gorge three miles long where
one hears forever in ascending the road locally known as “The Gulf ” the roar of
a stream so screened with foliage that nothing can be seen of the rushing waters
below. * I recollect that on the occasion of one of my visits to Plymouth my little
son then three years old, asked in an awe-stricken tone as we ascended this steep
and even terrifying road “are there wild beasts there?” It was not strange that
the child should imagine them, in such a place. At the foot of this “Gulf ” road
was situated the settlement known as Plymouth Union where lived my fathers
family also named Brown although not related to the Browns at “the Notch”.

Some writer in telling the story of President Calvin Coolidge’s

Vermont rearing has represented Plymouth as a very much neglected little
place, “backward”, without books or opportunities for improvement. In reality,
in Plymouth there lived in the old days several families who admired learning
beyond all things, and were diligent readers of the good, though few, books
that were obtainable. Those were the days when memory was made to furnish
intellectual pleasure, rather than considered an asset of definite financial value.
My mother could recite several of Scott’s long, narrative poems, nor was this an
exceptional accomplishment; she memorized the entire hymn book, and could,
up to the end of her long life, recite many of those fine old hymns which she
had learned while living at the old home farm at “Plymouth Notch”. Every book
owned by every person in that small community as eagerly read and discussed
by all those with the slightest taste for literature. The people were intellectually
alert, ready to take advantage of every opportunity. Some of them, without the
now common facilities of library and college, contrived to get a good classical
education, which, when they migrated to the west, enabled them to take their
places as directors of schools and regents of state universities. Wherever Plymouth
people went they carried a love of learning and distinguished themselves in
*Modern highway “improvements” have changed this scene.

7
 Chapter I

various capacities. My uncle, Ebenezer Lakin Brown, was one of our family who,
after removing to Michigan served his state as Regent of the State University,
as well as member of the Legislature, and diversified his occupation of farming
by the amusement of translating Horace into English verse, and writing original
poems on various subjects of the day.

The West owes much today to those former inhabitants of little

Plymouth, who by study and love of good books, by intelligent conversation and
by reflection became truly educated. For us to speak slightingly of Plymouth does
not enhance Calvin Coolidge’s credit, for though he was favored in receiving
a more extended education than Plymouth could afford, it was there that he
had the opportunity of learning the great lessons of love of country, loyalty to
principles, and perhaps of holding his tongue when he has nothing to say, which
is one of his chief assets; a lesson which other public men would have done well
to learn.

In speaking of Plymouth people it may not be out of place to

record here that my grandfather, Israel Putnam Brown, was the great grand-
father of President Coolidge, and that Carrie Brown, my cousin on my mother’s
side, became his step-mother, presiding over the now famous white farm house
which stands within sight of my grandparents’ old home.

Life in Plymouth in those old days was arduous if “simple”. I

have often heard my father tell how his mother, Priscilla Putnam Brown, used
to make journeys on horse back to visit her relatives in Connecticut, something
which in these days of fast trains and automobiles seems almost impossible, but
to the courageous Plymouth people did not seem to be more than a pleasant
outing. On the numerous occupations carried on within and without the house
in those days I need not dilate. Self reliance and skill in many trades were
requisite to successful living, and were attained in Plymouth homes where great
comfort reigned, though not elegance. These were the days of large families. My
father, Asa Brown, was one of a family

Note: These words were written while Mr. Coolidge was still President.

8
 Plymouth,Vermont

of twelve, my mother, of eleven. Of these twenty-three children seventeen lived to

maturity and most of the seventeen to old age, with children and grandchildren
not a few.

But the new lands in the West had already begun to offer a tempting
prospect to members of crowded homes like these, who could scarcely have
found a livelihood in the narrow limits of nearby lands capable of cultivation.
From Ludlow, then as now the nearest town of any size, went a group of men and
women, some of them my own relatives who took up lands in southern Michigan
and founded the town of Schoolcraft. From Cavendish to Schoolcraft went my
mother’s oldest sister, Betsey, with her husband James Smith. My mother when
a young girl lived for a time with the Smiths, and incidentally to the duties
required of a young relative working for her “keep”, managed to canvass pretty
thoroughly the, for that time, large library of English classics belonging to Uncle
James. In fact her attachment to these volumes was such that efforts were made
to conceal them or to make the “stent” of household duties such as to make
too great consumption of her time impossible. My mother, however, generally
outwitted them all and became very familiar with her favorite authors.

After the departure of the Smiths other members of my mother’s

and father’s families became attracted to the western lands, and a number of
migrations took place, some traveling further westward to points in Wisconsin
and elsewhere. My Uncle, Lakin Brown, already alluded to, had gone with the
Smiths and became a resident of Schoolcraft. After my father and mother were
married they also removed, purchasing a tract of farm land north of the town
itself. The journey from Plymouth to Schoolcraft was laboriously made by boat
and wagon, and occupied, I think, two or three weeks. My mother finding travel
tiresome and slow would often prefer walking, wondering as she did so at the
flowers and trees that were new to her. She was a lover of nature in every form,
and the detail of this journey which seemed to stand out most vividly in her
mind in later years was not the hardships and difficulties, but the plucking of
large bunches of yellow lady-slippers, a beautiful flower now rapidly becoming
rare.

9
 Photo of Lephia Brown as part of
a collection of family portraitures
taken in 1848.

Photo of Asa Briggs Brown.

Photos are from Marcia’s granddaughter,

Marcella Chalkley Holmes
 CHAPTER II
Our New Home in Michigan

Not long after my parents’ arrival in Schoolcraft, in the year 1834,

they purchased a farm about three miles north of the town with a small log
house upon it. The large tract of land upon which both the town and surrounding
towns were situated was called Prairie Ronde, being, as the name implies, a
round prairie. The prairie had a narrow neck extending northward, and upon
this neck of prairie land was our farm which was familiarly known from this
circumstance as “North Neck”.

This small log house, consisting of one large room with a small
ante-room and an attic, was the family home for four years. In this one room
was carried on all the household work, and in this room gathered all the family,
which during the summer sometimes included several hired men. The earliest
impression that I can recall is of a scene in this room when I was about two
years old. It must have been a rainy day for the men were indoors and had
entertained themselves with playing cards. My mother, weary of their noise and
not approving this waste of time, took the cards when the men were not looking
and threw them behind the bed, lying down herself to rest. But I had found the
card playing entertaining and made myself very busy helping my father search
for the cards. At length I found them behind the bed and handed them up to
him. My mother’s face, with her look of reproach, is the first picture in my life
that my memory recalls. Mere baby that I was, I knew that I had betrayed her.
Another vivid memory is of the small back room where our supplies were kept.
These were of great interest to me, and my mother told afterward how I would
go into this store room calling out “I mean to be good, I mean to be good” by
which she was aware that I was intending to pay a forbidden visit to the sugar
box.

Four years were spent in this cramped and primitive log house. I
was born there on January 5, 1835, and my sister Oella two years later. These
early years were marked for my parents by the privations of the pioneers.
 Chapter II

Hard work alternated with fever and ague, and disappointments were many;
yet, I cannot remember hearing any references to them which had the tone of
complaint or regret. At the end of four years increasing prosperity was evidenced
in the building of a new house, then entirely up to date, but compared with
present day farm houses with their luxurious equipment, probably a marvel of
inconvenience. The old log house served other purposes, and was eventually torn
down.

Life went on in the new home, a second sister Marcia and a brother
Arthur were born, respectively four and eight years younger than myself, and our
family life began to be shaped, so far as my mother could control it, around plans
for the education and development of these four children. She was a remarkable
woman, of unbounded energy, of great optimism, and of keen appreciation of
the best in literature. She now took the place of library and school teacher for
her children for whom she had great ambitions, and for whose education she
was ready to spend and be spent. Without accessible primary schools it was
necessary that she should teach us to read and lay a foundation in other common
branches, adding this task to the many other occupations of housework in
every form, cheese and butter making, spinning of flax and wool, etc. As the
oldest of the children many household duties fell upon me, but there are always
compensations for every adverse experience. Our chief interests outside our
home while we were children lay in our outdoor excursions, in the course of
which we investigated every part of our prairie and the adjacent woods, and an
extensive dark and dangerous tamarack swamp which lay within sight of our
house. I need hardly say that our visits to the swamp were secret, and strictly
forbidden. It was a delightful spot to us, far more delightful on account of this
prohibition. Though deep mud holes and treacherous quicksands were there in
which horses and wagons had been swallowed up; though snakes abounded,
many of them poisonous, this swamp fascinated us. We found there pitcher
plants, moccasin flowers, pink orchids, and other rare plants, some of which I
have never seen since. The snakes too had an interest, and we hunted and killed
many of them. I even had the distinction of killing a rattle-snake myself.

The pioneer in a new country has the satisfaction of seeing Nature

at her best. I would give much if I could see now some of the wild flowers which

12
 Olympia Brown, the oldest of the four siblings, at about age age 13

Younger sister Oella Brown at age 11 Little sister Marcia Brown at age 9

Younger brother Authur Brown at age 5

 Chapter II

bloomed in perfection in fields never before broken near our old home. All
members of our family loved flowers. My little brother, Arthur, once when the
storms of winter had left the ground bare, expressed to my mother his regret at
having destroyed some of the wild flowers, saying “sometimes I stepped on some.
I tell you, mother, I feel it now”. The common wild flowers, violets, wind flowers,
columbines, hepaticas, etc. grew in wonderful profusion around the house. I
loved to watch the poplars which grew in a group at the north of our house,
as the wind blew their delicate green leaves and kept up their characteristic
quivering motion. Birds built their nests in the form of long bags which hung
from the branches of these trees, and I watched them all summer as they swung
to and fro.

As we grew older a school became a pressing necessity, and as

there was no public provision for it my father built a small school house on his
own land, not far from our house, Visiting all the neighbors he informed them
that he had built a school, that a school teacher would be employed who would
be paid by contributions from all who went to the school, and he invited all to
share in its benefits and support. Thus, a primitive little school was established.
Our teacher “boarded round” in the fashion then prevailing in the country,
spending much of her time at our house. In spite of the informal nature of this
foundation, and the difficulties of collecting the money from the school’s patrons,
a responsibility which was entirely shouldered by my father, this school existed
for many years, and I even taught in it myself when I became a young woman.
Meantime at home, as well as at school, my mother was constantly pressing us
for ward in our studies. My sister Oella was my most intimate companion and
classmate, for though younger she was larger and seemed more mature than
I and while her tastes in studies differed from mine, we were together in our
school work as in all else.

Study was the first object of our house. Our mother made it a rule
that if any child was studying, she need not be called on for housework. Oella
was very fond of her books, possibly more so on account of this rule; but at all
events her attainments warranted her claims, for as I now think of her writing
poems, and translating Virgil fluently aloud at the age of twelve, it seems to me
that her unusual capabilities failed to receive the recognition to which they were

14
 Our New Home in Michigan

entitled. Both my mother and I had the greatest hopes of what she might attain.
Our life at “North Neck” became more enjoyable when my two
cousins, Nelson and Addison Carter, came from Vermont to live with us for a
time, while their widowed mother went to keep the house of our Uncle, Lakin
Brown, in Schoolcraft. They entered heartily into all our plans for studies at
home, for we were not yet thought old enough to go to Schoolcraft to school.
These two boys were more than ordinarily clever, and we children originated
and carried out the plan of issuing a monthly paper. It was called the “Family
Museum”, and as, faithful to the announcements, it appeared each month for
about a year and a half with its poem, story, news items, puzzles, advertisements
all carefully copied by hand, to the extent of at least four large pages of fine
writing each issue. I venture to think it quite an achievement for five children,
none of them over fourteen years of age. Oella, being recognized as the family
poet, furnished the verses. Addison was assigned the duty of writing a story,
usually a continued one, a careful incognito being preserved by the use of a
nom de plume. Nelson and I were to furnish the rest of the matter, whatever
it might be. Oella was a ready writer of verse, but her poetry was always of
a deeply serious, even dismal, cast; Addison’s story invariably about people in
remote countries and based on circumstances unfamiliar to him or any of us.
Finally the editors, each envying the other’s prestige, asked to exchange places.
I was to write the poem, Oella the story, Addison was to be space filler. But I
found the task of versifier not easy, and it was long before I finished my poem,
and that only by sheer determination, Oella was equally unfortunate, for after
describing a very interesting family in her first chapter, she said “we will now
pass over the events of a long and bloody war”, and then passed rapidly to her
final chapter, the problems broached in the first being mysteriously solved by
the war alluded to so casually. We did not change places again. I still possess
many copies of the “Family Museum”, marvelous in its neat handwriting and
the intense seriousness of its contents.

During these years of my childhood little had been seen of the

members of the family who remained behind in Vermont, and at last a visit was
resolved upon.When I was ten years old our entire family accompanied by my
Aunt Pamela Thomas, and her little daughter, paid a memorable visit to the old
home. The long journey was made by team to Detroit, then by lake steamer and

15
 Chapter II

canal boat to Albany, and thence by team to Plymouth.

The appearance of our family worn by hard pioneering work and
sickness in Michigan, and weary with the long tedious journey, almost shocked
my grandparents. My grandmother particularly, accustomed to her well-ordered
and established farm life in Vermont, had not realized the privations of the
new life in Michigan but had thought only of the cheaply acquired land and its
apparently boundless fertility, not of the price to be paid in health and strength
before a profit could be realized. We spent the summer visiting the various
branches of the family in the different towns near Plymouth.

And now, at last, we older girls had outgrown the little home
school house and it became necessary for us to be sent to Schoolcraft for
further education. There were at this time two schools there, a public school
and the Cedar Park Seminary. We went to the former, which was taught by Mr.
Edmund Fish. Mr. Fish was a true scholar and a very superior teacher, and as
I look back over the seventy-five or more years since I had the pleasure of his
teaching, I wonder that we had such a teacher, and that Schoolcraft should have
been so indifferent to his teaching. And yet there were those in Schoolcraft
who made considerable pretension to literary taste, and some who were really
unusually well read. The children of some of these families attended the Cedar
Park Seminary taught by Miss Barrett, and of course there was a hot rivalry
between the two schools, leading to pitched battles on more than one occasion.
What was our chagrin after an unusually fierce contest to learn that our two
principals instead of sharing in our rivalry, were making their preparations to be
married. As a result Mr. Fish became a part of the Seminary staff, and we of the
public school had to transfer our allegiance to Cedar Park Seminary.
We had a “Literary Society” in the school, of which teachers as well
as pupils were members. The teachers made our program, and I soon noticed that
only boys had been given recitations and debates, while the girls were restricted
to reading. We girls instigated Cousin Addison Carter to present a resolution
at a regular meeting providing that girls as well as boys should be appointed
for declamations and debates. Upon this the teachers all arose en masse, and
declared that they would leave the society if we persisted in our resolution. One
teacher spoke of it with especial contempt, saying “I guess Addison just wanted
a little fun”. We were thus suppressed, and my first effort for the equality of the

16
 Our New Home in Michigan

sexes was unsuccessful.

Other influences besides school were directing our thoughts during
these years, The New York Weekly Tribune was our only periodical literature,
and indeed our oracle. Every word was read and discussed. The excellent poems
printed in every issue were cut out by my mother, and pasted into what she
called “verse books” for the family’s reading. The radical views of the Tribune
were congenial, for all members of our family were strong anti-slavery people.
Anti-slavery talk and work formed part of the background of my childhood, for
we came directly into contact with it at the home of Dr. Nathan Thomas, the
husband of my Aunt Pamela. Their house at Schoolcraft was one of the stations
of the famous “Underground Railroad”, and whenever we went there to visit
we would see one or more negroes, sometimes a whole family, who were being
kept in hiding until it would be safe to carry them on to Battle Creek whence
they were sent to Canada. At the Thomas home a total of over fifteen hundred
negroes were cared for during those years. One of these men, Morgan Elam by
name, came to us as a hired man and served us faithfully for seven years. He
said that he had been a slave in Missouri and when his master died he feared
to be sold “down the river” and so he “got on a gray filly and rode away”. “Was
the horse yours, Morgan”? I remember asking him. “I reckon it must have been,
I raised it” was his reply; my first example of the doctrine that the laborer is
entitled to his product. It was a strange circumstance that in spite of Uncle
Nathan Thomas’ deep interest in the anti-slavery work, and the sacrifice, expense
and pains used in caring for the many slaves who stayed at his house, he made
not even the slightest allusion in his autobiography to this work which would
seem to others the most interesting part of his life! Of course the hardest part
of it all fell on my Aunt Pamela, who had to do the work and prepare the meals
for these unexpected guests which explains why she remembered it better than
he did.

School years were passing swiftly on, and at fifteen I was con-
sidered able to teach a school myself. A salary of a dollar and a half a week and
board in the families of the pupils was not thought inadequate pay at that time,
and for this compensation I taught a term, returning afterward to the seminary
at Schoolcraft. But my mother had been anxiously planning for a broader
education than this could afford. She aimed at the best of which she knew. She

17
 Chapter II

had heard of Mary Lyon, and her great work for women’s education, and was
already contriving the daring plan of sending her daughters to Mt. Holyoke
Female Seminary.

18
 CHAPTER III
Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary

“Who was Mary Lyon?” This question was asked of me recently

by an acquaintance, a woman of intelligence and some reputation for education.
The question was suggested by a casual allusion to Mary Lyon in the course
of a conversation about Mt. Holyoke College. In the present multiplicity of
schools, and the enormous number of graduates, my friend and many others like
her lose sight of the beginnings of women’s education. They think that “things
have always stood as they stand today” and they forget the founders. Yet when
Mary Lyon died in 1849 she had accomplished a work which entitles her to be
remembered among the heroines of history. She was inspired with the great idea
of building an institution where women could secure an education which would
at least approximate that then open to men and in time equal it. We cannot
conceive of the limitations of people’s ideas in that early day as regards women’s
education. Even Mary Lyon did not dare to imagine her school as a college
for women. Bound still by the narrow views of the day, she called it a “Female
Seminary”. Yet partly through her influence and her epoch-making ideas a new
world has indeed been opened to women, new ideals, new subjects of study, new
fields of action.

My mother, ever in advance of her time, had glimpsed the

possibilities of Mary Lyon’s great ideal, and had determined that her two
older daughters should now go to this school. My father, on the other hand,
considered the realities of today rather than the dream of tomorrow and to
him the idea that my sister and I should go so far away for any purpose, was an
absurdity. My mother controlled no money, and had to accomplish such ends as
required money by means of tact and diplomacy. She therefore told me that I
must convert my father. Accordingly I set about bringing my influence to bear
upon him. I watched my opportunity when he was at leisure in the evenings
and proceeded with all the skill and acumen of which I was possessed to put
the subject in its most attractive light, tactfully dwelling upon the fact that at
the Mary Lyon school we should be taught and expected to work since it was a
 Chapter III

“manual labor school”. At the end of a long conversation I was victorious, and
it was decided that we should go to Holyoke at the opening of the next year.
We planned to spend the intervening time in study, hoping to lessen the usual
course of three years to two.

After much preparation and long expectation the time arrived.

A young friend, Mary Allen, from Schoolcraft, concluded to go with us. Then
came the all important question of how we should go. I contended that we
three girls could and should go alone, but my father and Mr. Allen thought this
highly improper. We debated it long and loudly, and finally I had to yield to the
argument of the impropriety of three young girls going off to school alone. It
sounds simple now when young women are going everywhere alone, but then
the trip from Michigan to Massachusetts seemed a tremendous undertaking. A
merchant was found who was going to New York to buy goods, and we were
placed in his care. We went up to Kalamazoo, a distance of twelve miles, to start.
The family was filled with anxiety; my youngest sister Marcia cried and cried,
and my mother seemed very much overcome. It was the first break in our family
life, for although we had been to Schoolcraft to school and I had taught school
in the “West Woods”, yet we had come home every week. This seemed to be
really final, for we planned to be gone a whole year.

It was a fine September morning in 1854 when we reached Mt.

Holyoke, the last stage of the journey being from Chicopee, where we spent the
night with an aunt. The air was invigorating and the scenery filled my soul with
delight. Mt. Holyoke is most fortunate in its surroundings; Mt. Tom rises west
of the college, and Mt. Holyoke at a little distance to the north in the greatest
possible contrast to the flat surface of southern Michigan to which I had been
accustomed.

I never again experienced such satisfaction as at that moment of

arrival. I had accomplished what I had long worked for, and beholding such
beautiful scenery I was enraptured. It all seemed perfect. But my enthusiasm soon
received a crushing blow. I learned that “young ladies are not allowed to stand
on the portico”, “young ladies are not allowed to stand in the doorways”, “young
ladies are not allowed to linger in the halls”, and so on for forty rules daily, more

20
Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt Holyoke Female Seminary,
was innovative for her time, but too strict in many other
ways. Courtesy of The Library of Congress.
 Chapter III

or less! What a change from the liberty we had enjoyed in our Michigan home!
Although we had studied the catalogue, and had been preparing for nearly a
year to enter into the second year’s work, we were met with the astounding
statement “we never examine young ladies in algebra, we never examine young
ladies in Latin”. And so with other subjects. We were obliged to begin at the
beginning of the course, spending the specified number of hours per day on each
study, precisely as the course had been laid down by Mary Lyon and thereby
made sacred.

Although Mary Lyon had died several years before, it seemed

impossible for any book or any regulation to be changed. I have never seen more
conscientious teachers than those at Holyoke; they were determined to do their
duty, and according to their lights it was thoroughly done. They were, however,
not leaders but followers and could not be expected to know that their great
teacher, upon whom they would have liked to model themselves, was a woman
of progress who would not have wished the work of her school hampered and
retarded by out-of-date text books, or dull insistence upon some rule which had
proved its own inadequacy.

At length we were established in our rooms, on the third floor,

and were introduced to the complicated rules by which our lives were to be
regulated. Every hour in the day had its appropriate duty appointed. We three
were instructed to rise at five and go down to a laundry where we were to wring
out by hand three tubs full of table linen and towels which had been put to soak
the previous night; to wring out these clothes daily was the task of us three, as a
group, and when the other two were sick, which often happened, I did all three
tubs. At the end of three months we were given another task not so severe as
this. Each time tasks were changed they became a trifle easier, until at the end
of the year I came down to wiping tumblers. The plan was designedly to give the
new corners the most strenuous work, perhaps in order to harden them. Each
day a half hour was to be spent in prayer. As it was particularly specified that this
half hour must be spent alone in prayer, a girl who had a roommate must literally
“retire into her closet” in order to fulfill the letter of the law. “Communication”
during school hours was, of course, strictly forbidden, even in those periods
when roommates were legitimately together in their room. For convenience

22
 Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary

in investigation and cross-question, “communication” was divided into

“communication of the first kind” or speaking; “communication of the second
kind” or writing, and “communication of the third kind” or making signs. The
hours for walking, gymnastics, and for every lesson were exactly apportioned.
Even if, as in our case, we were already familiar with some of the studies, it
was still required that we should not deviate from the number of hours and
minutes specified for every subject. Needless to say, it required little ingenuity to
circumvent a rule of which the letter seemed to be more valued than the spirit.
Each afternoon we were all called together, each girl in her proper section, and
our section teacher read the forty rules and called for confessions of violations.
There were those, strange as it may seem, whose active consciences and good
memories enabled them to report every violation of rules; others, less strangely,
who by some sort of compromise, appeared more innocent. Notwithstanding
the fact that this sort of exercise would not seem to cultivate a love of truth
telling, I cannot say that I saw any ill effects upon the characters of Holyoke
girls. On the contrary, every graduate of Holyoke whom I have ever known has
borne the indelible stamp of the Holyoke principles of conscience and duty. This
I attribute to the great personality of Mary Lyon, and its influence, as handed
down from generation to generation.

The teaching, as far as it went, was thorough and good, although

I was once much surprised when a professor from Amherst lecturing to us on
chemistry said, near the end of his lecture: “You are not expected to remember
all this, but only enough to make you intelligent in conversation”. The object of
education which this gentleman set before us was in reality far from the ideas
of our regular Holyoke teachers; they, though often narrow and mistaken in
their methods were truly interested in the development of the minds of their
students. I have often thought if parents and teachers could only have a more
correct idea of the objects for which a school ought to exist, how much more
useful the school would be. To be able to be intelligent in conversation, or to
appear well in social life is still sufficient to satisfy the educational requirements
of many people. The Amherst professor’s remark did in fact open up to me the
whole subject of education and its purpose. Women need education and needed
it still more at that time in order to become an essential part of that great body
of men and women who are, by reason of their trained minds, capable of great

23
The View from Mt. Holyoke College in the early 1900s.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
 Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary

undertakings in politics, and in society at large.

In spite of our numerous duties we still had some time of our own.
A few of us, therefore, established a literary society. The teachers, hearing of this,
demurred, but finally proposed to send a committee to attend our next meeting.
This chanced to be a debate, my sister being appointed on the one side and I
on the other. The committee offered no criticism at that time, but when the
end of the term arrived the members of the Literary Society were sent for and
informed that if they wished to return to the school they must understand that
there would be no Literary Society. My sister Oella, being a fluent talker, was
generally our spokesman, and so she inquired “what is the objection; does it not
make us independent?” “Yes”, said the teacher, “it makes you too independent.
Were not you and your sister on opposite sides of the debate?” Oella admitted
that we had been so appointed. The teacher then went on to argue that if we
spoke from conviction, this constituted a division and antagonism between
sisters, which was dangerous and indefensible, while on the other hand if we
were actually agreed in opinion, one of us must have been arguing against her
own conscience To understand how such narrowness and ignorance could exist
in an institution founded with such greatness of purpose, one must be able to
put one’s self back into a period when people generally had no idea of women’s
right to education, still less to social and political equality with men.

But the greatest of all my troubles was the theology. In Michigan

we had had no church, no Sunday School near us. My mother cherished the
teachings of the Reverend Hosea Ballou of Vermont, one of the founders of
Universalism, and she gave us our religious instruction. I had never before heard
the stern doctrines of orthodox preachers, and now heard them presented in
such an unqualified manner as I presume that few today have ever experienced.
In the so-called orthodox churches the manner of presentation has been much
modified, and hearers are not now shocked by those terrible pictures of the
results of being left without the recognition of the church. At one time a
distinguished preacher from Boston came and stayed for several weeks, his duty
among us being to inquire into our “state of mind”, and to hold daily services
with the purpose of converting any waverers. Needless to say, he was the object
of great admiration, and his presence created intense excitement. My sister and I

25
 Chapter III

were considered suitable objects for this zealous missionary, and we were invited
to evening meetings at which we were confronted with embarrassing questions
as to our religious convictions, which we were not prepared to answer. When a
young girl, who has never given any thought to such questions, is asked to define
her “state of mind” she does not know how to express herself. However, even
this proved profitable to us for we were now obliged to study our Bibles, and to
read and investigate in order to form our own opinions. We managed to evade
the religious persecution, privately sent to Boston for books, and set to work to
find out for ourselves whether we were to believe in such uncongenial doctrines,
and if not, how to give reasons for our non-belief. Through my private studies I
became thoroughly imbued with the doctrines of Divine Love, the Fatherhood
of God, and the Brotherhood of Man, which have ever since been the joy of my
life.

That I went to Mt. Holyoke Seminary I am thankful. There I

learned to think for myself, and adopted, through the stimulus of opposite views,
the great principles which I have taken as my guide through life, and which,
if consistently followed by our government, would furnish a solution of many
perplexing problems of the present time.

26
 CHAPTER IV
Antioch College

“THE GREAT EXPERIMENT”

After my experience at Mt. Holyoke, my father felt so much

sympathy for me because of my disappointment in the character of that institution
that in a burst of generosity and of real pride in my persistence, he told me that I
might go to any school that I chose. The field to choose from was not a large one
for I was now determined to go to a real college, and so far as I knew there were,
at this date (1856) not more than two of collegiate rank which admitted women,
Oberlin and Antioch. Oberlin, the older of these two, admitted “women and
negroes” but with many discriminations against the women. Lucy Stone and
Antoinette Brown had been graduated there, but were not allowed to read their
graduating essays in public, and had been forbidden any share in public exercises
of every other kind throughout their course. It was, too, in spite of a measure
of progressive spirit in its founders, as narrowly orthodox and bigoted on the
religious side as was Mt. Holyoke. I therefore decided upon Antioch, founded
three years before, and already beginning to attain some reputation. The college
was founded at Yellow Springs, Ohio, by the “Christian” denomination and took
its name from that ancient city where the Disciples were first called Christians,
but it is noteworthy that Antioch College, in spite of its denominational origin,
was an institution of no sectarian bias, and imposed no doctrinal teachings upon
its students. Horace Mann, who had been chosen president of this new college,
was then recognized everywhere as a great educator on account of his work
in the schools of Boston. In harmony with the ideas of the founders, he now
proclaimed that the new college was to try “a great experiment”, namely, the
education of women on the same terms with men. Attracted by these evidences
of a broad and liberal spirit, I went alone to Yellow Springs and entered college
in the autumn of 1856. I was not disappointed. Although the college was new
and poor, and lacked most of the equipment thought necessary in a college
even then, I found the intellectual atmosphere most congenial. The student body
was composed not of boys and girls, but men and women who had come to
study, many of them with well-defined plans of life and work, but many also not
Horace Mann was the president of Antioch College and coined the term
“ The Great Experiment” which refered to the equal education of women
along side men.
 Antioch College

strictly prepared for college work. A large accession of these able and mature but
unprepared students made it necessary to offer additional work in mathematics
and Latin. These students were to be advanced rapidly until they should be able
to join the entering class of the following year. A contemporary says: “Such
work in the class rooms as was done by these students one rarely sees. Gifted,
thoroughly alive, older than most students on entering colleges, leaving business
of various kinds in order to make the most of opportunities offered, inspired at
having at their head one of the greatest and wisest men ever known, such were
the men and women who came to Antioch at that time. The work done in those
classes was heroic. To be sure we played sometimes, and the sound of laughter
was never merrier than at old Antioch!”

Horace Mann was a most noble looking man; I often thought

when I saw him walking into the college chapel that he had a truly king-like
bearing for he was tall and straight, and of a most impressive dignity. He could
see truth clearly himself, and he favored the efforts of all earnest people. He
gave the students many inspiring ideas, the greatest of his lessons in my memory
being, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” But
even he was blinded to a great extent by the habits of thought in which he had
been educated, and I wondered much that a professed advocate of coeducation
was so disinclined to face its obvious results. As time went on he seemed actually
to dislike anyone who held advanced opinions varying from his own. In people
of this sort, however, the college soon abounded in consequence of its well
known, broad and tolerant policies, and the subject of coeducation began to
give our president some anxiety. He often exhorted us in his chapel talks to
remember that we were trying “a great experiment”. This was so frequent that
it became a sort of joke with us. Occasionally he would send for some of the
prominent women students in order to inquire into their views on this question.
On one occasion he sent for Rebecca Rice, one of my classmates and one of the
most popular girls in the college, and asked if she thought that the education of
women would lead to their wishing to enter professions. She replied that such
was her opinion. He told her then that if he thought, as she did, he should think
he was doing very wrong in remaining at the head of a coeducational school.
But whether he had really come to regret his “great experiment”, I do not know,
for he died the next summer after this conversation. There was great mourning

29
 Pictured here is Lucy Stone, a prominent American suffragist and a
close friend of Olympia. She was highly influential during Olympia’s
early work as a suffragist. Library of Congress.
 Chapter IV

when he died, for he had been held in deep reverence. In spite of the timidity,
conventionality, or whatever it was, which contended with his great ideas, his
name will live because of the latter, for, as it has been well said “men may die,
and parties pass away, but Justice is eternal; and he who works in harmony with
the principles of Justice is immortal”. Coeducation entered upon by Mr. Mann,
anxiously but from a sense of right and justice, was destined to be successful, and
to be taken up by other educators until the admission of women to almost all
colleges and universities has been achieved. He was succeeded by the Reverend
Thomas Hill who came to Antioch from Harvard College, and at the end of his
first year in June, 1860, I took my bachelor’s degree.

Meantime, my mother and father, pleased with my account of

Antioch, had decided to remove there in order that all the children might be
educated. A small house was purchased and the family home established there
in my sophomore year. Our house became well known to the students, and was
a center for many gatherings, especially of the more radical elements. These
were various, among them being a contingent of water-cure and food reformers.
One of these was Mrs. Susanna Dodds, who afterward became known as the
proprietor of a large sanitarium in St. Louis. From Mrs. Dodds I learned for the
first time the curative value of water and the manner in which various reactions
are obtained by application of hot or cold water, knowledge which has been
useful to me all my life, and remained with me long after my Greek and Latin
had passed away. Mrs. Dodds was one of a group, myself also of the number,
who were interested in dress reform and adopted the costume which had just
been originated by Amelia Bloomer. Some of these girls, true reformers in spirit,
thought that a real principle was at stake in wearing this dress. I could not believe
that, but I found the dress convenient and comfortable, not only for study and
classes, but for the activities of which I was fond, long walks, jumping the rope,
etc. I kept up the wearing of this dress while at Antioch, but as I grew older and
went out among people I dropped it, as did, indeed, all the other advocates of
the Bloomer costume. The location of Yellow Springs is picturesque, and there
were many fine walks. “The Glen” was and has remained to the present day an
unfailing source of enjoyment for those who love Nature. It is a beautiful ravine,
cut off from the world, a secluded spot which every student at Antioch will
remember as interwoven with memories of the college. Our walks there were

32
 Antioch College

most enjoyable, and then there was Clifton, only three miles away, Xenia, six,
and Springfield, twelve. A walk to any of these towns furnished good diversion
after our studies. But there were drawbacks to our pleasures; these, though
seemingly harmless, were not entirely agreeable to Mr. Mann, and he announced
his intention of going to Boston to secure a woman who, he thought, would
bring the women students into a more civilized condition. As it was stated that
this woman was to be exclusively for us, we feared that she would be one of
the “prunes and prisms” sort and reduce us to a mere school life. Finally she
came. We planned to test her scholarship. As there was a pretty large German
class, and some who thought themselves very good in German, we gave a party
inviting all the German students with the instructions that no word was to be
spoken there unless in German. The lady from Boston was present, as she was
expected to be at all our merry-makings. When we assembled we began to talk
rapidly in German; she would hopelessly remark “I have forgotten my German”,
a sentence which she repeated many times and it became afterwards a familiar
saying with us. Her stay was very short, as she found us, I fear, uncontrollable.

We had a good many lectures from such men as Horace Greeley,

Wendell Phillips, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others. Every such course was
arranged by students. The lecturers were all men, and when we girls ventured
to inquire why no women had been invited we were told that there were no
women comparable to the men they had secured. I determined to have a woman
as a supplementary lecturer, so I put notices about that the women were invited
to meet at recess on a certain day in the reception room. Everyone was curious
to know the meaning of this invitation. When a goodly number had arrived I
moved that Miss Beedy take the chair; for I recognized that she was opposed
to my idea. When the meeting was called to order I stated that women were
left off the lecture program, the claim being that there were no women to be
compared to the men whom they had engaged. I said there were Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, anyone of
whom would compare very well with the men of the course, and that what we
had to do now was to raise the money, and select the speaker. They all agreed. We
chose Antoinette Brown for our speaker, and we proceeded to raise the money
immediately. It shows how much public opinion has changed since then, that
we were obliged to take such measures to get our women heard. As the lecture

33
On the left is Olympia in the then
fashionable Amelia Bloomer dress.
While popular in the mid 1850s
for the flexibilty it allowed women
to have, the outfit it soon became
ridiculed.

Bottom Right: The front facade of

Antioch College in Yellow Springs,
Ohio.
 Antioch College

was to take place on Saturday night, I thought Miss Brown might be invited to
preach on Sunday in the college chapel but I was told that on Sunday Mr. Craig,
one of our Professors, was to speak in the chapel. I then determined to have her
preach in the Christian Church, and I proceeded to hunt up the Trustees, all of
whom lived at a long distance from town in order to get their permission for her
to occupy the church on Sunday morning. We were finally successful in securing
the church, and she preached to a large audience. It was the first time I had
heard a woman preach, and the sense of the victory lifted me up. I felt as though
the Kingdom of Heaven were at hand. Professor Craig, of our Antioch faculty,
was a very popular man and thought to be very progressive. At one time he gave
out a notice that he would speak on Sunday to the young men, and on the next
Sunday to the young women. On the first Sunday he took for his subject two
characters from the Bible “Samson and Samuel”. Samuel, he said, represented
the spiritual life of Israel, but Samson represented the physical strength. He
made two long sermons on these, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon,
eulogizing both characters. On the following Sunday, he preached two very
short sermons to the women, taking “Ruth and Esther” as his subjects. Ruth, he
said “represented the plain prose of women’s life. She did not go about trying
to get her name into the papers. She followed Boaz. She followed him to the
field. She married Boaz, and that there was all there was of it. That was the plain
prose of woman’s life.” In the afternoon he spoke on Esther. He said,”Esther
represented the poetry of woman’s life. She wanted to save her people. She was
willing to put herself in peril to accomplish this. She said ‘if I perish, I will
perish, but I will go before the King.’ And she went to make her plea, which was
successful”. The women students were indignant at these sermons, as most of
them were thinking of some work or position outside the common field society
had assigned to women, and the idea that the plain prose of woman’s life was
simply to marry Boaz, was repugnant to us, and especially the very peculiar way
of getting a husband.

Our societies claimed some of our time and attention. There were
two of these, “The Star”, the young men’s club, and “The Crescent”, that of the
young women. I should have preferred one society composed of both men and
women, making no discrimination, but recognizing the rights and abilities of
each member irrespective of sex. But the time was not ripe. Such an innovation

35
Women’s Dormitories at Antioch: View of the sunken in terrace
adjoining the main lounge.

A rendering of the campus and new dormitories ca. 1949.

View of the dormitories from the Northeast.

Taken from Loeb Library

 Antioch College

would have been too radical. So “The Star” and “The Crescent” went their
separate ways except for an occasion or two when we invited the other society
and had a public meeting in which each tried its best to outdo the other.

And now the popular mind was becoming absorbed in the events
which led up to the Civil War. People were talking of nothing else. Lincoln’s
name was on all our lips. It was a time of excitement and the students were
deeply interested in all that was being done. Some of them had political
ambitions, and engaged actively in agitation, getting up meetings and speaking
wherever opportunity offered. There were meetings in all the school houses and
halls. These I attended, and took part in them whenever I could. It was my first
active interest in politics.

The war came on, and many of our best students enlisted. In one
of the first battles the son of our next door neighbor was killed, a promising
young man who had enlisted with the greatest enthusiasm, and soon Will
Hathawaway, a jovial young man, who had been a frequent visitor at our house,
also fell. His death was a great shock to us all for he had been prominent in all
of our student gatherings. Others dropped away, one by one. After finishing my
course in June, 1860, I remained for most of the following year, chiefly at home
in Yellow Springs, so that I was intimately acquainted with the local doings, and
followed closely the fortunes of all those with whom we had been intimate. My
mind was not only full of the excitement of the day, but also with the plans for
my own personal future, for I had already conceived the idea of studying with a
view to entering the ministry, and was planning to take this step in the following
year.

37
 CHAPTER V
The Ministry

During the years of my college work I had been gradually forming

the determination to become a preacher. Ever since my experience at Mt. Holyoke
I had been anxious to tell the people the truth about the doctrine of endless
punishment. I vainly supposed that if people could only be told that there was
no such thing as everlasting punishment as it was then literally preached they
would be rejoiced. Such was the ignorance of the world in which I had grown
up that I had been astounded at the religious teachings administered at Mt.
Holyoke, and shocked at their repulsive character. At Antioch College I found
the spirit of liberality and religious tolerance to which I had been accustomed
in childhood, so that it was not strange that I had slight conception of the
widespread character of the superstitions to which people clung in the belief
that they were essential to religion. I knew nothing then of the difficulties I was
to experience later, and it was well that I did not or I should hardly have had the
courage to enter on the course I was planning.

While at home during the year 1860-1861 subsequent to gradua-

tion, I wrote to all the theological schools of which I could hear, asking if I might
be admitted as a student. From the Unitarian School at Meadville, Pennsylvania
I received the reply that they would like to have me for a pupil, but their Trustees
thought it would be too great an experiment. I wrote Oberlin and was informed
that I could be admitted but could not be allowed to take part in any public
exercises. I remembered how Lucy Stone had graduated there and had not been
allowed even to read her graduation essay in public. I had always greatly admired
Antoinette Brown, also a graduate of Oberlin, and have described in a previous
chapter how I was instrumental in bringing her to speak at Antioch. She was the
only woman I knew of who was preaching, and I doubt not that my admiration
for her had some influence in my determination to enter the ministry. Yet even
she had not had official ordination from any denomination, and therefore did
not have the authority or influence which ordination should give.
 The Ministry

I was determined to seek ordination. Realizing that I would not be

likely to gain this through preparation at Oberlin, I now wrote to St. Lawrence
University, the Universalist Divinity School, situated at Canton, New York. Mr.
Ebenezer Fisher, the President, replied that I would be admitted and would
have all the opportunities that the school afforded, but he felt called upon to
state that he did not think women were called to the ministry. But, he said, “I
leave that between you and the Great Head of the Church”. This, I thought,
was just where it should be left, and I could not ask anything better. But when
I arrived I was told that I had not been expected, and that Mr. Fisher had said
that I would not come as he had written so discouragingly to me. I had supposed
his discouragement was my encouragement, and I went with high hope and
great expectation. I determined, at any rate, to make the best of it and to like
everybody and everything. In spite of the real opposition to my becoming a
minister, which I later found existed at St. Lawrence, I was treated fairly by the
Professors insofar as my work was concerned, and had nothing to complain of.
Some of them, and also their wives, were even cordial and kind, President Fisher
was a good man, devoted to Universalism and to St. Lawrence, and, in spite of
his discomfiture at my entering the school, was just to me as a student, and never
discriminated against me until I began to take steps looking toward ordination.

There were, I think, about fifteen in my class. Not all had

been through college, or had shown any special fitness for the ministry. Every
Wednesday we read before the class sermons which we had composed, and each
was invited to criticize. The young men usually indulged in very derogatory
remarks about my sermons, which I found hard to bear. The mildest of these
criticisms was this frequent one: “Well, it was very good, but I should hardly
call it a sermon”. There were two young men who prided themselves on devising
various petty forms of annoyance, like getting under my windows and mimicking
my voice which they thought peculiar. It is good to remember that both of them
left our ministry within a year of their entrance, for I think they could not have
had the right spirit, and their ministry would only have been a make-believe.
I tried not to notice these disagreeable things, realizing that it was the first
time in this country that a woman had undertaken this task, and wishing that
others who would come after me might not experience the same treatment. I,
therefore, felt it essential that I should carry my course through successfully at

39
 Chapter V

all hazards. Besides, there were other students who manifested a far different
spirit. There were Edward Morris, and F. S,, Bacon, and Herman Bisbee, and one
or two others who were always encouraging and gentlemanly in their behavior.
I remember them gratefully.

Here, as everywhere else in the country, at this time political

feeling ran high, and the school was divided into two distinct camps; the
Republicans and the Democrats. Strange to say, the Republicans were very much
opposed to me, and therefore the Democrats took my part. It was curious to see
the Republicans demanding freedom for Negroes, and upholding every effort
in their behalf, while opposing with all their might the education of women in
the Theological school. I could but look with scorn upon their eloquent appeal
in behalf of the Negro, while they were using all their command of the English
language to bring the idea of women’s preaching into contempt. But I did not
care for this. I was only intent upon finishing my course, and getting ordained,
so as to be ready to take the position of pastor of some church. Desiring to gain
experience in such work I went to Ogdensburg, New York, during my first winter
vacation to arrange for some religious services, the first effort of the kind I had
ever made. I went to the hotel where I met with the kindest treatment from the
hostess, who helped me make the necessary arrangements. At this time it was
not considered proper at all for a woman to have her name on a sign announcing
her business. But there was one woman who had some kind of a store, and
had her name on a sign. I thought that as she was a Universalist she would be
willing to cooperate with me and help with the singing, which I understood she
had formerly done. But she was not so disposed. I had arranged with a choir
who formerly sang for the church, and they were all willing except this woman,
but they all refused when they found that she would not sing. I went about
and collected other singers. The evening before the service the woman came to
the hotel and said to the hostess, who was very friendly to me, that they had
concluded that they would sing and “make it respectable”. The hostess told her
that Miss Brown would preach whether there was any singing or not. So I had
two choirs, and the service went off very well. I appointed a meeting for the next
Sunday, the preparation for which moved smoothly on. I spent all my vacation
there, and then having bought Scott’s “Commentaries on the Bible” I came back.
It was with a feeling of victory that I rode up to my boarding place and had the

40
 The Ministry

driver carry in my books.

After that I had no difficulty in getting appointments to preach

in the vicinity of Canton. During the long vacation in summer I succeeded in
getting some appointments in the northern part of Vermont, the first being at
West Derby. There was no railroad going to West Derby, and most of the journey
was made by stage. Later, when we reached Troy, it was necessary to engage a
special team. I went with some trepidation. I was the only passenger in the stage
all day. As the boy who drove the stage was always wasting time, talking to people
for whom he had done errands, I felt very anxious to be getting along. I could
sometimes overhear his accounts of his passenger, and this remark frequently
occurred: “She says she is going to Derby”. All this time I felt as though I should
fly away. The day was wearing away when we reached Troy. There still remained
some twenty miles, and there was no public conveyance. I went to the hotel and
told them I must go. They said there was no conveyance to be had. I saw a horse
and buggy standing at the hotel door. I said “whose horse is this?” A young man
standing by said it was his. I asked why he could not take me. He said he could
not get in my large valise. I asked a man to turn my valise end foremost and set it
in the buggy, and then I said I was ready to go. The crowd standing on the steps
laughed, and said to the owner “the woman is going whether you go or not.”
Finally he got in and we drove off. It was getting dark and I felt very uncertain,
and disliked the man’s persistent efforts at conversation and questions, but I
determined to go on. We arrived at about ten; when we entered the town I told
the driver I did not know where Mr. Foster lived, and he would have to inquire
the way. When we arrived I told him to put the valise down in the yard, and I
would send for it after I had introduced myself. Paying him the money I had
agreed upon I went in. After some time I said my valise was outside and perhaps
they would bring it in, Mr. Foster went out and found the man still sitting there.
He asked about my errand, saying “she was very anxious to get here”, Mr. Foster
explained that I was a minister, and was going to preach the next Sunday. “What
denomination?” he asked, “The Universalist” said Mr. Foster. The man burst into
a loud laugh, and said “I thought she was a Universalist all the time”.

My second year was less disagreeable than the first. The students
had ceased to look upon it as a strange thing to have a woman in their classes.

41
 Chapter V

Mr. Fisher had spoken quite favorably of my sermons, and I was preaching in
towns near Canton, finding no trouble in securing all the appointments I could
fill.

In the course of my second year I learned that the Northern

Universalist Association would hold its annual meeting at Malone, New York, I
resolved to go there and formally ask for ordination. I felt
more uncertain of securing ordination later, and therefore determined to get it
there if possible, since I thought that this ordaining council, knowing something
of my work and character, might be more favorable than some other body
elsewhere. When the day for my application approached I was told that Mr.
Fisher was opposed to my being ordained, and in fact he called upon me to
state that I could “go to Malone if I chose”, speaking in a significant manner
which seemed to say that I would be sorry for he would oppose me. The week
before, I had preached at Huvelton, and the people there had invited me to be
their pastor. A delegate from Huvelton was a member of the ordaining council,
so I went into the presence of that body feeling quite confident, and although
there was much discussion and opposition, I spoke for myself, and when the vote
was taken it was in my favor. The ceremony took place. Mr. Fisher had so far
overcome his feelings that he took part in the exercises. This was the first time
that the Universalists, or indeed any denomination had formally ordained any
woman as a preacher. They took that stand, a remarkable one for the day, which
shows the courage of those men.

After the ceremony of ordination I heard that Mrs. Fisher, who

had been especially opposed to me, had said gloomily to one of my classmates:
“You will see now the consequence of this. Next year there will be fifteen women
in the class, and then women will flock to the ministry”. A remark from another
person expressed a fear that “the profession would soon be swamped with
women who would bring down the price of preaching”. Such comments seem
laughable enough to us now. Even down to the present there have been at no
time more than two or three women at once in our Universalist theological
schools. I worked very hard at all times to interest women in the ministerial
profession, and did succeed in inducing a few to go to St. Lawrence, as well as in
persuading some who were already sufficiently prepared to seek ordination. One

42
Pictured here is Olympia Brown around 1863 soon after gradu-
ating from the Theology School of St. Lawerence University.
She was the first woman to graduate from a theology school and
become a full time minister. Schlesinger Library.
 Chapter V

of the most notable of the latter was the Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford. Yet despite
all such fears, and after the lapse of more than sixty years*, no such number of
women have sought entry into the profession as was apprehended in 1863. Not
over sixty women are now preaching in Universalist Churches. Row slight an
understanding of the value and importance of the ministerial service comments
like those quoted above imply! If there really were women truly prepared for
the ministry, and sincerely called to that service, could there be too many of
them? Surely no one could think so who was actuated by no smaller motive
than to spread the teachings for which the church stood. When I read of the
vain discussions of the present day about the Virgin Birth and other old dogmas
which belong to the past, I feel how great the need is still of a real interest in
the religion which builds up character, teaches brotherly love, and opens up to
the seeker such a world of usefulness and the beauty of holiness, and I can but
wish that the predictions of my old time opponents had been realized, and that
there had been multitudes of women ready to enter into the work. I can but wish
that it were mine to go on now preaching, preaching, wherever I could find an
opening.

The question of recognition as a minister being settled, I now went

on with my studies to the end of the year. I had not thought of what my salary
or position might be, but only of getting the chance to tell as many people as
possible about the humane teachings of the Universalist Church, which I was
sure they would joyfully and gladly embrace when they heard them preached.
But this was in my enthusiastic day, before I had learned the tenacity with which
people will cling to any error, however abhorrent, in which they have been
educated, before, too, I had dreamed of the intensity of prejudices entertained
even by people who were liberal and tolerant in certain limited fields. I had
noted an instance of this while visiting my friend, Mrs. Cushing, at Columbus,
Ohio, previous to my going to the Theological School. Mrs. Cushing was an
old Antioch student, but she had left college a year or two before me. She was
one of the first women in this country to study medicine, and she had already
begun to practice as a physician in Columbus. We were good friends, and had
many things to talk over. I was amused at the prejudices which soon became
* Written in 1925.

44
 The Ministry

apparent, for when I spoke of calling upon the Universalist Minister of the
town, I found that Mrs. Cushing, who was a rigid Presbyterian, had no respect
whatever for a Universalist, and was most unfavorable to my visiting one of that
church. However, I called upon him. I found that while his religious views were
similar to my own he became very cold when Mrs. Cushing was mentioned, and
showed himself much opposed to women’s practicing medicine. Here were two
people, both advanced in their respective lines of thought, who ought to have
been sympathetic in the great work for humanity, kept apart and antagonistic by
silly and needless prejudices.

After my graduation I made arrangements, with the help of

Professor Lee of St. Lawrence University, to fill the pulpit at Marshfield,
Vermont, left vacant by Rev. Eli Ballou, who wished to go to the northern part
of the state. There was one stipulation only, that the first Sunday was to be a trial.
If they liked it I was to go on; otherwise not. I reached Marshfield after a long
drive on Saturday night, and on Sunday I preached. The church was filled and all
seemed pleased. Therefore, I went on but I could not realize that people would
be willing to have as a teacher and spiritual guide a woman whom they would
not have in their own families. I had yet to learn this. After Monday morning
had been spent in seeking a place to board, I was returning to the hotel when I
was overtaken by a woman in a one-horse buggy who stopped me, saying “Is this
Miss Brown?” and asked if I would like to come into the country to board. I told
her I would love to board anywhere. She said her husband had sent her down to
get me, as he knew I would not find any place to board in Marshfield. They lived
a mile away in the country. I learned that there was a great prejudice against him
because he was a Democrat. He was called “Barefooted Smith”. But I never met
anyone who showed me more kindness and appreciation than he. And although
a Democrat he had sent one son to the army who was brought home dead
while I preached in Marshfield. I think he did as much for the cause of liberty
as some very fluent Republicans. I enjoyed their treatment of me, which was
very courteous during all my stay. As Marshfield only occupied half my time, I
soon made arrangements to preach the other half at East Montpelier about six
or seven miles away. Mrs. Smith always rode with me on Sunday morning. We
would start early and always get there before the congregation, and when they
came we would go on with the service.

45
 Chapter V

As the fall of 1863 came on I felt anxious to go home. Many

changes had taken place in our family life. My sister Oella had been married
before I left Yellow Springs, my younger sister Marcia had graduated from
college in 1862, and gone away from home to teach school, and my brother
Arthur who was to study law was to be placed at the University of Michigan.
As the family was scattering, it seemed best to go back to Michigan which we
had always considered our home, and a house was purchased in Kalamazoo.
Before occupying it, however, my mother spent much time in Ann Arbor with
my brother who had entered the University. Soon after entering he had a serious
attack of inflammatory rheumatism, from the effects of which he never wholly
recovered. The news of his illness reaching me made me feel that I must go home
and see my mother and brother. I therefore resigned my pastorate at Marshfield
and East Montpelier, thinking that whether I returned to the East or not, I
should prefer a single and larger parish.
During a few weeks at Ann Arbor, where I tried to render such
service to my mother as I could, I attended a lecture by Dio Lewis, a pioneer
in physical education. In no school at that time was much attention given
to gymnastics, and the idea of the beneficial effect of physical exercise and
avoidance of drugs had been little stressed. I was very much impressed with this
lecture, and resolved that I would go as soon as possible to Boston to enter Dio
Lewis’ newly opened school of gymnastics. The school was for women, especially
teachers, and I hailed it as an opportunity to develop my chest and shoulders
and thereby to strengthen my voice. In this unexpected way I was attracted again
to the East. I found the school all that I had hoped. Not only was the physical
training profitable, but Dio Lewis gave regular lectures and also brought many
people of note to the school. Mr. T. F. Leonard gave lessons in elocution, and I
took this opportunity of improving my voice. When the time came for me to go
to my next pastorate I still kept on going to Mr. Leonard for private lessons in
elocution. There was then a great prejudice against this study, though the fact is
that the voice is as susceptible of improvement as any part of our bodies.

I consulted the Rev. A. A. Miner, then considered the head of

our church, as to where I had best apply for a pastorate, and in general as to his
views on the outlook for women’s preaching. He spoke of the opposition still
prevalent and remarked, “It is no use opposing them. If they can’t preach they

46
 The Ministry

won’t preach. People don’t do what they can’t do.” After some consideration he
said that Weymouth would be the best place for me to start in. To Weymouth
(or more properly Weymouth Landing) I accordingly went, and presented
myself to the Secretary of the Church who laid the matter before the trustees.
The result of their consideration was that I was invited to preach one Sunday on
trial. I stayed in consequence by their invitation, and preached for six years. After
I had been preaching some months a formal installation service was held on July
8th, 1864, in which several ministers took part, Rev. Sylvanus Cobb preaching
the sermon, and other portions of the service being taken by J. E. Davenport, C.
H. Emerson, R. A. Ballou, E. Hewitt and J. C. Bartholomew, all of whom were
well-known Universalist ministers.

My pastorate in Weymouth was perhaps the most enjoyable part

of my ministerial career. The work had all the fascination of a new problem. I
had nothing else to divide my attention, and my people were thoroughly united
and most congenial. They were interested in all good things, and approved of
every step of a forward nature. As Weymouth is situated conveniently near
to Boston they had been in the habit of going there to hear Theodore Parker,
Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and the other reformers of the day,
and had taken in their ideas. There were in my church the tolerant and kindly
Elias Richards, William and George Baker, faithful advocates of Universalisrn;
Mr. and Mrs. James Blanchard, in whose pleasant family I boarded for a time;
Miss Jane Clapp and Miss Kate Cushing, whose self-sacrificing work I shall
always remember; and many others whose names cannot be recorded here. It
was here, also, that I became acquainted with Mr. John Henry Willis, whom I
afterward married. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of my church,
and was well known for his loyalty and unselfishness.

I had not been long settled in Weymouth when the whole nation
was shocked by the assassination of President Lincoln. A meeting of ministers of
all Weymouth churches was held immediately to arrange for a union memorial
service, but one or two, who had already expressed willingness to unite, now said
that they had changed their mind, and some others appeared uncertain or even
opposed. It presently became evident that they were all unwilling to unite in a
service with a woman preacher. Therefore, we held our own service. I preached

47
Portrait of John Henry Willis, a local businessman in Racine
WI, taken soon after his marriage to Olympia Brown. Photo is
from the Racine County Historical Society and Museum, Inc.
Photo taken of Mrs. Olympia Brown during her stay
as minister in Racine Wisconsin. She is pictured here
with her suffragae pin and ribbon. Courtesy of the
Unitarian Universalist Church, Racine, Wisconsin.
 Chapter V

as good a memorial sermon as I could, and when the day was over all my church
joined in approving my efforts.

Prior to my coming to Weymouth a division had arisen in the

church in regard to Spiritualism. My predecessor, Mr. Goddard, had become
deeply concerned over this subject or doctrine, and when I came to Weymouth
he remained for a time, holding séances which were attended by a number, who
having been alienated from the church found an interest in these exhibitions of
supposed spiritual power; some declaring that it would be impossible for them
ever to attend church again after being so “fed” at the spiritualist meetings. I
told them all that I was not illiberal or opposed to spiritualism and was willing
to attend any of the séances if desired. I hoped it might prove true, though I did
not consider spiritualism a principle upon which to found a church. Accordingly
I received invitations to various homes where demonstrations of spiritual
communications were to be held. I recall one in particular held at the house of a
lady prominent in Weymouth. A medium of some note who went by the name
of Barbara Allen was present. The company formed itself into a ring within
which Barbara Allen took her station. She made a long speech founded verbally
upon the Declaration of Independence and other well known expressions, after
which she took her seat in the circle and said she was in communication with an
Indian Chief who was ready to communicate with any of us who would like to
hear from their dead friends. I sat next to the lady of the house, who kept asking
me if I did not wish to hear from someone. I said I did not. Finally the medium
described a child dressed in blue. She thought it might be a cousin to someone
in the audience. Again I was appealed to by the hostess. “Miss Brown, do you
not recognize her?” But I could not think of anyone. Finally they appealed to a
young couple, who had lost a child, and they were sure the description was similar
to that of their child. This was considered a most satisfactory exhibition of spirit
power. There were several such occasions in Weymouth at which I felt I must
be present, since I had been invited and since I had stated I was not opposed to
Spiritualism. I have since then been at a number of Spiritualistic séances with
persons supposed to have the requisite qualities for a demonstration, notably
during my pastorate at Bridgeport, but although I gave faithful attention and
kept my mind as receptive as possible, I never at any time experienced anything
that seemed to indicate even remotely that a means of communication with the

50
 The Ministry

spirit world had been secured. I do not know what truth there may have been in
the claims which were made, and these by persons whom I knew to be sincere
and above intentional deception. But I can only say that I gained nothing of
any kind from such experiences. On the contrary I found the whole subject a
great stumbling block in my path, absorbing the interest and the time of my
parishioners, and those who would have been such and furnishing them nothing
substantial in place of the work and thought which they cast aside.

Our church had many visitors. Some came out of curiosity to see
how the experiment of a woman’s preaching was working. Others, and some of
these were men and women of great distinction, came to lecture. We brought, for
instance, William Lloyd Garrison. He had not yet become actively interested in
the Woman’s Suffrage question, and when on meeting him on a social occasion
I mentioned the subject I found I could not secure his serious attention for it,
“Oh, he remarked casually, “that was all settled by the anti-slavery movement.”
In the evening he gave a most interesting lecture ending with the beautifully
worded picture of a true Republic; afterward I commended his lecture. “But”.
I said, “there was a beautiful chance to bring in the subject of which we were
speaking”. He asked me in reply “have you tested these people on that subject?”
I said “I have often spoken of it in my sermons and as they are a very true people
I doubt not they are in favor of it”.

But we did a great deal of work besides arranging and attending

lectures. I was now preparing my two sermons every week, which for a time I
was in the habit of reading from my manuscript, but the difficulties of reading a
sermon effectively caused me to attempt to speak without a manuscript which
I succeeded in doing after a time. And from the time I left Weymouth until the
present day I have almost never used a manuscript.

In 1867 I interrupted my ministerial work at Weymouth in order

to go to Kansas at the request of Lucy Stone for a speaking tour of several
months in the interests of the Suffrage Amendment which was submitted to the
voters of Kansas in that year. I have elsewhere told the story of this campaign,
the first of any magnitude in which I ever engaged. Indeed, except my church
services, I had never before in my life had the responsibility of a whole meeting

51
 Chapter V

as I found necessary day after day in my Kansas campaign.

That my Weymouth parish was a very active one is shown by the

good interest kept up during my absence in Kansas. The church building had
been owned by the pew holders before I came to Weymouth, and it had been
voted to devote it to some secular object. The basement was already being used
as a meat market. I advised the church members to buy out the pew holders,
get possession of the church, and re-build it, which they did. On my return
from Kansas I found the church re-built; the basement being prepared for use
as a reading room and for lectures, with two ante-rooms to be used for our
social occasions. A new pulpit had been built, and a new organ installed. I was
afterward given by Mr. George Baker a beautiful work box made out of a part
of the old pulpit. The people were in good spirits, and ready for a campaign in
behalf of Universalism. I shall never forget my pleasure when I knew how much
they had done for the church in my absence.

Another work for suffrage to which I gave some thought and

time during my Weymouth pastorate was the founding of the New England
Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1868. This was the first association ever
formed in this country which had Woman’s Suffrage as its exclusive object, for
up to this time work for equal rights had invariably meant work for the Negro
more than for women. The old Anti-slavery workers in winning their victory
felt that all other victories were comprised in that, and I saw that although they
favored Woman’s Suffrage, they would do nothing for it unless we could make
our reform a clear-cut, separate, and single question. As I related in my book
“Acquaintances Old and New Among Reformers”, I conceived the idea of this
new association, secured the hall in Boston, advertised the meeting, brought the
audience together, and called the meeting to order. That I was right in thinking
the time ripe for the movement was shown by the large audience, and the many
distinguished people who were present. We arranged a large convention held in
the autumn of the same year in Horticultural Hall, the result of which was the
organization of the New England Woman’s Suffrage Association.

It was in 1870 that I received a call from the parish at Bridgeport,

Connecticut, and I accepted, thinking it a larger field of usefulness. A memorial

52
“Go and hear this gifted lady speak.” This is just one of the
sufferage posters remaining from when Olympia canvased
the state of Kansas from July to November 1867. Schlesinger
Library.
 Chapter V

meeting was held in the lecture room of the Weymouth Church, and my people
presented me with a parting gift of two hundred dollars, with which I bought
the Encyclopedia Britannica. Good resolutions concerning my work were
passed, and I bade Weymouth goodbye with regret.

I entered upon my Bridgeport work in the fall of 1870 in high hope. The church
was a good deal run
down, and although there were many members, they had lost interest, and there
had even been an inclination to close the çhurch, or to merge it in some other.
I found the people unlike my Weymouth people. They had no such breadth
of vision. I threw myself into the work of interesting them, working in the
Sunday School and preparing my sermons. I think I preached better during my
Bridgeport pastorate than at any other time of my life, and during the time I was
there the church took on a different aspect. In fact we succeeded in putting it on
a good foundation and the Sunday School was very much improved. There was
none in the city which the members attended with greater enthusiasm. Among
my parishioners was P. T. Barnum, the famous show man. He was very friendly
to me, and often made some complimentary remark as I came down from my
pulpit. It was during my Bridgeport pastorate, also, that I was often visited by
Mrs. Sylvanus Cobb, whose husband had preached my installation sermon in
Weymouth.

Another friendship made at this time was that of Isabella Beecher

Hooker, a sister of Henry Ward Beecher. I met her at a Suffrage meeting in
Washington, the first, I think ever held there, and this friendship proved to be one
of years. She came often from her home in Hartford to visit me in Bridgeport,
and together we planned and carried out many suffrage meetings in near-by
places. I have already mentioned my acquaintance with Phoebe A. Hanaford,
whom I had persuaded to enter the ministry, and it was at this time that I was
instrumental in establishing her as pastor of a church in New Haven, where she
preached successfully for several years. Among the other friends whom I made
during this Bridgeport period were Frederick Douglass, Mary A. Livermore,
and Susan B. Anthony, to mention only a few. Of Miss Anthony I shall say
much more in another place. As the work for Woman’s Suffrage was coming to
take a larger place in my activities, I saw more and more of its great advocates,

54
 The Ministry

and began to realize that outside my family I now had two great interests in my
life where I had had but one. During the first years of my stay in Bridgeport, I
went to Providence, Rhode Island, on the occasion of a convention, and there
met for the first time a cousin, Charles Fillmore, of whom and of whose mother
I had often heard. Mr. Fillmore afterwards took many occasions to visit our
house. He was a man of such broad ideas that I could talk to him on any subject
without the fear of saying something which should be modified.
I received many letters from him in subsequent years, and when he died I felt
that I had lost a friend who would be hard to replace. It was in Providence, at
the house of the Fillmores, that I was married in 1873 to
Mr. Willis, who had already established himself in business in Bridgeport. My
mother and many of my friends had advised me against marrying, as they felt
it would interfere with my preaching, but I thought that with a husband so
entirely in sympathy with my work marriage could not interfere, but rather
assist. And so it proved, for I could have married no better man. He shared in all
my undertakings, and always stood for the right.

My work for the church went on without interruption until it

became necessary to provide for the coming of my first child. I did not approve of
any of the Bridgeport doctors, and determined to go to a “water cure sanitarium”
at Elmira, N. Y. I requested a leave of absence, securing Mr. Lee of the Canton
Theological School to take my place, in which he gave great satisfaction. My
son Henry Parker was born on August 14, 1874, and I returned to Bridgeport
with no cause to be dissatisfied with the condition of my parish so far as I knew.
But some ill feeling began to appear, the exact cause of which I never learned.
There had always been a small faction in the church which had been opposed
to a woman as minister. This faction now began to work up its opposition, and
although (or because) my parish gave me a vote of endorsement passed by a large
majority, these enemies continued their underhand work, calling in ministers
from neighboring churches to go among the people promulgating this doctrine,
“what you need here is a good man”. It is not necessary to recount the results of
this, the division of the people, and the consequent acts of injustice, nor are these
facts incompatible with an actual record of successful work for between six and
seven years and an enlarged church and Sunday School. I left this church and
we remained in Bridgeport two years longer, during which time my daughter

55
 Chapter V

Gwendolen was born.

After this tempestuous time at Bridgeport I considered where I

should go to continue the work of preaching to which I had had, as I thought,
a distinct call. Therefore, hearing that the church at Racine, Wisconsin, was
without a pastor I resolved to go there if my services would be acceptable. My
husband, too, who was at this time without a business was pleased with the idea
of going to the West and beginning business in new surroundings. Accordingly,
I opened a correspondence with Mr. A. C. Fish, the clerk of the Racine Society,
and asked to be given a hearing. Mr. Fish’s reply was discouraging, or would
have been so to a minister who expected only prosperous conditions and an
easy pastoral routine. Racine, as Bridgeport had been when I went there, was a
parish in a run-down and unfortunate condition. A series of pastors easy-going,
unpractical, some even spiritually unworthy, had left the church adrift, in debt,
hopeless, and doubtful whether any pastor could again arouse them. Such was
the tenor of Mr. Fish’s letters but I replied that I was sent to just such places and
I asked him to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. His reply expressed
the parish’s willingness that I should try what I could do, so leaving my little
children with my husband and my mother, who had come to Bridgeport to help
me, I set out like one of old to find my own way.

Those who may read this will think it strange that I could only
find a field in run-down or comatose churches, but they must remember that the
pulpits of all the prosperous churches were already occupied by men, and were
looked forward to as the goal of all the young men coming into the ministry
with whom I, at first the only woman preacher in the denomination, had to
compete. All I could do was to take some place that had been abandoned by
others and make something of it, and this I was only too glad to do.

As in Bridgeport there were in Racine a sufficient number of

Universalists to compose a good society, if any pastor had the tact and energy
to bring them together again, and when I came to Racine on my voyage of
exploration I found a number of people ready and willing to start anew under
the proper direction. Hospitably entertained by Mr. And Mrs. E. B. Winship in
their beautiful little home on the bank of Lake Michigan, I went about calling

56
 The Ministry

upon the members of the church or ex-members, as many of them might be

called. With the help of several loyal friends we gathered good audiences for
two Sundays in our little “Church of the Good Shepherd”, then situated on
Monument Square, or “Market Square” as it was called at that time. At the
close of the second Sunday’s service a meeting was called at which a vote was
taken to call me as a settled pastor. It had been a hard two weeks work; it was in
the month of February, the rain fell steadily, no pavements had been dreamed
of, sidewalks were few, and the mud was the deepest I had ever seen. Racine,
situated as it is upon the banks of the winding Root River, is dependent upon
its bridges and these were then out of commission. A temporary and unstable
“bridge of boats” was the only means of communication with the western part
of the town where lived many of those whom I needed to visit.

Returning to Bridgeport I promptly set about the task of packing up our goods
and moving to Racine, and before summer came the change had been made,
and we were settled in a home which my husband bought situated on Lake
Avenue, *and near the homes of some of those who were to be my great reliance
in the church work. This continued to be my home ever since that time, over
forty-seven years as I write these lines.

Our church proved to be a very happy company of believers, bound

together by our regard for the great principles of Universalism, and we continued
for several years in a state of great harmony and good will. I greatly enjoyed this
period of my work. It seems hardly fair to attempt to name those who were most
prominent and helpful in the church, since I should inevitably omit many, but I
must at least mention here in addition to the names of E. B. Winship and A. C.
Fish already mentioned, those of Titus and Edwin Fish, brothers of the latter,
Richard B. Bates, long the clerk of the Parish and Superintendent of the Sunday
School, and their families. The best known and wealthiest man in the church
was J. I. Case, chief owner of the Case Threshing Machine Company, which had
already laid the foundations of several fortunes, and owner of the famous race
horse Jay Eye See. Mr. Case’s influence in the early years of my pastorate was all
in behalf of the church and while not known for generosity along most lines, he
did his part towards its financial support.

57
 Chapter V

It was soon realized that the old church building was seriously
in need of repair, but we had no funds with which to undertake the work. An
offer was made by Mr. Case to pay one-half, estimated at $2500.00, provided
an equal sum could be raised and paid in within ten days. We were not ac-
customed then to the large figures so common today, and this proposal seemed
almost impossible of realization. But I set out next day in company with one
of the church women and by canvassing steadily for ten of the hottest days I
have ever experienced we were able to report success, and to claim Mr. Case’s
pledge. We rented a small hail where we held services while the church was
being remodeled, and during this time I went on a lecture tour through the
New England States. My place was taken by my sister Oella, then Mrs. William
Schuyler of Chicago, who was a very eloquent speaker. On my return we had
a dedication day with appropriate services, and there was great rejoicing. The
church never seemed more prosperous or more promising. But our peace was
presently broken by a law-suit, famous in Racine annals, between J. I. Case and
his nephews, the Fish Brothers already mentioned. It is difficult now to recall
the questions at issue in this suit, and they would have little interest for any
reader if I could state them. Upon our church the influence of this suit was deep
and lasting. The bitterness engendered permeated every organization to which
both parties to the suit belonged, and it soon became clear that no organization
was strong enough to hold them both, not even their church. The result for
the latter was the departure of Mr. Case and all his family and connections,
since it was impossible for anyone’s influence to keep him there. Sympathizers
there were with both sides, and the blow to the church organization from this
apparently irrelevant quarrel may be imagined. However, we continued our work
and weathered the storm as best we could.

In a small town like Racine the church of the time of which I am

speaking was one of the most important social and educational influences. It felt
it my duty, as well as a pleasure, to bring to the town as many important speakers
as I could command, and our church became known for its lecture courses and
entertainments. Some of those who had come to Bridgeport at my invitation now
came to Racine to speak. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward
* Then called Chatham St.

58
 The Ministry

Howe, Mary A. Livermore, Phoebe Hanaford, Theodore Tilton, May Wright

Sewall, and others of less distinction but great merit occupied our platform at
various times. In some cases it was necessary t secure a larger audience room,
and several successful meetings were held in the Blake Opera House, one in
particular called the Woman’s Council bringing an especially brilliant group of
speakers from abroad.

While I was carrying on the work of my parish, the demands

of the movement for the enfranchisement of women were growing ever more
pressing. My work in Kansas, lecture tours in New York State and New England,
work on petitions to Congress and State Legislatures had all been incidental to
my preaching. On going to Wisconsin in 1878 I had begun at once to share in
the movement which there was in its infancy, and in 1884 accepted the Presi-
dency of the State Woman’s Suffrage Association an office which I was to retain
for almost thirty years.

In 1885 the so-called “School Suffrage Law” was passed by the

Wisconsin Legislature to which I shall allude in another place. This law gave
rise to much discussion and being interpreted as giving women full right to
vote, necessitated a thorough canvass of the state in order that the women might
be instructed in regard to their rights. The consequence of this was at length
the resignation of my ministerial work in Racine, which occurred in 1887. I
had held this post nine years. But I had no intention of giving up my ministry
altogether. In fact, I preached a great deal after this resignation; four years in
Mukwonago, Wisconsin; two in Columbus, and one in Neenah at different
subsequent periods. In resigning my Racine pastorate I recommended the Rev.
Mr. Spafford as my successor, who followed immediately and occupied the
pulpit for several years.

There is certainly room for women in the ministry. It is often said

of a preacher “he is a good preacher but no pastor. He does not call upon his
people”. This is because one man cannot do everything, and the same person is
not usually suited to both pastoral work and pulpit service. Many of the larger
churches now have two ministers for this reason. One of these should be a
woman. Our church papers are always calling for preachers, and if women were

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 Chapter V
welcome and made efficient preachers as they would be in that case, many women
would come into the ministry. But women are not urged to enter the ministry.
At a convention a few years ago at La Crosse, Wisconsin, the audience being
composed largely of women, a minister addressed himself wholly to young men,
showing them the great advantages of Lombard University, (a coeducational
institution, by the way). I called out, “What about young women, Doctor?” He
replied that no church had ever asked that a woman pastor be sent so far as
he knew. He then described the difficulties which a woman would encounter,
but, said he if a woman accepts these difficulties Lombard is hers”. I afterwards
showed him that just such a talk as he had given created a public sentiment
against women’s preaching. Ministers are themselves largely responsible for the
limited number of women who enter the ministry. The churches are prepared
by such talk as that of which I have given an illustration, not to want a woman
as pastor. Yet notwithstanding this discouragement and small remuneration a
number of women are doing good work as ministers, chiefly in the Universalist
and Unitarian denominations.

Our women’s colleges are filled with young women many of

whom, with proper encouragement, would make good ministers. We must
present the needs of the church and the fitness of the profession for women
to these students. The difficulties and discouragements in their way must be
overcome by the indefatigable efforts of individual women, so that prejudices
will be conquered and church rules, where necessary, amended.

*Note: The Mukwonago and Neenah pastorates were not resident pastorates. She
filled these pulpits between the years 1893 - 1898 when other responsibilities
were heaviest, going to her Sunday appointments on Saturday, returning on
Sunday.

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 The Ministry

Pictured above is the Church of the Good Shepard

where Olympia Brown served as Minister begin-
ning in 1878. Courtesy of Unitarian Universalist
Church in Racine, WI.

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 CHAPTER VI
WOMAN SUFFRAGE WORK *

Soon after graduating at Antioch College, I went up to Cleveland,

Ohio, to visit in the family of Judge Tilden. Mrs. Tilden was one of the most
pleasing and at the same time most earnest women that I have ever met. Her
daughter Mattie had been a student at Antioch and was frequently at our
home in Yellow Springs, her talent and brilliancy making her visits occasions
of enjoyable conversation and entertainment. She now invited me to spend the
holidays at her home in Cleveland, Mrs. Tilden was the mother of a large family
and her hospitality was well known.

At this time Mrs. Tilden had received from Mrs. J. E. Jones, of

Salem, a petition to the legislature of Ohio, asking for legislation which would
enable married women to control their inherited property and their earnings in
case of having a separate business, and the guardianship of children. She was
unable with her many household cares to circulate this petition as requested. She
thought, perhaps, I would be willing to spend “a couple of days” in circulating the
petition and requested that I begin at once on Euclid Avenue. I was more than
glad to do something for woman’s rights and circulating the petition seemed to
offer an opportunity. I began upon Euclid Avenue in the morning and at night
brought in the first blank filled. It contained eighty-nine names. It was my first
woman’s rights petition. But Euclid Avenue was only just begun and I continued
the next day and the next and so on every day excepting Sundays until spring.
I regretted the necessity of stopping my work on New Year’s day, which was
then given up to fashionable calls, but was obliged to submit to the inevitable.
One wonders now that there should have been opposition to so plain and just
a request but many and many were the long arguments I had with men on this
subject.

When one is young, time seems of little account and I did not
object to discussing the subject a whole hour at a time with men whose principal
argument was usually that it would not do to have women have money in their
own name, or to have the guardianship of their own children, lest the husband
 Woman Suffrage Work

should die and the wife marry again and some other man should take the money
and assume the guardianship of the children. The whole argument implied that
women were incapable of independent action and that a mother’s love would
count for nothing in protecting her children and providing for their welfare.
The argument is most insulting to women and indicates a want of confidence
not only in their ability, but their loyalty to their children. I have often heard
similar suggestions even in later years and never without indignation. Thus the
circulating of the petition became woman’s rights propaganda and every day
brought some new and curious experience. Sometimes on coming home at night
from a long day’s tramp, I would find a woman there filled with terror and
bitterness, demanding, “Take my name off that paper. My husband laughs at
me. He says I would be asking to vote next.” There were many amusing incidents
which I met in going about. Once I rang a doorbell and an old school-friend
who was living there answered the bell. I commenced without observing who
she was, setting forth the meaning of my petition, when she began to laugh,
and looking up we greeted each other with enthusiasm. I canvassed, I suppose,
nearly the whole of Cleveland, visiting not only the homes, but also the business
places, and asking every man or woman that I saw to sign the petition.

In the spring, Mrs. Jones, already mentioned, who seemed to be at

the head of woman’s rights work in Ohio, wished me to meet her at Columbus
to attend a hearing before the legislature where the petition was to be presented.
That city had been canvassed in the residence part, but at that time it was
considered quite unusual, if not improper, for a woman to visit the offices and
places of business of men. No woman in Columbus had been willing to do this.
I spent a week in Columbus presenting my petition in the business places of
the city. The petitions were all pasted together and made an immense roll which
I could hardly carry. When unrolled by the member who presented it in the
Ohio Senate, it extended through the chamber and far out into the corridor.
The members of the Senate all cheered. We had a very enthusiastic hearing at
which Mrs. Jones and “Aunt Fanny” Gage and others spoke. I was considered
too young to take part, but I felt amply rewarded for my winter’s hard work in
* Most of the text of this chapter is quoted from “Acquaintances Old & New
Among Reformers” (1911) Chapters III, V, VI, VIII.

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 Chapter VI

merely having the privilege of sitting upon the platform and listening to the
grand arguments of these noble reformers. But, what was my delight when I
heard afterward that the petition was the means of securing important property
rights to the women of Ohio!

During the war all work for woman’s rights was suspended.
Women employed themselves in scraping lint and making bandages, preparing
needle work and pin cushions, holding fairs, raising money and otherwise
working for the soldier. The first call after the war for reformatory effort was
in the spring of 1866. 1 had been settled a short time over my little church at
Weymouth, Mass., when I received a letter from Susan B. Anthony inviting me
to attend a Woman’s Rights Convention in New York City. I had never been in
New York City and unsophisticated as I was, it seemed like a great undertaking.
I prepared myself for the event by getting an entire new outfit of clothing. I
recollect that my dress was crepe marette, a silk and wool fabric much in vogue at
that time. It was of a drab color and there was a large cape of the same material.
My bonnet matched the dress in color and was trimmed with a pink rose on
one side. This drab array seemed to me modest and exceedingly appropriate
for a person going to a Woman’s Rights Convention, like the green veil with
which “Josiah Allen’s wife” prepared herself for her visit to President Arthur,
“dressy, but not too dressy.” I also invested in a twelve-dollar silk umbrella which
even now I remember as having been very pretty; also a new twenty-five dollar
leather valise, quite beyond my means, but what was money when preparing for
my first Woman’s Rights Convention.

Thus equipped I set forth with a beating heart for the great city,
filled with speculations as to the people that I should meet and the speeches that
I’ll should hear. On the way I thought of where I should stay. After looking over
a list of New York hotels I decided upon going to the Irving House. That name
sounded literary and distinguished and so to the Irving House I went. I found
myself very comfortable there and reasonably near to the church in which the
meeting was to be held. Early in the morning I arose and after breakfast repaired
to the church more than an hour before the time for the meeting.

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 Woman Suffrage Work

I saw a large placard on the side of the church announcing

“WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION HERE TODAY,” Having reached
the right place I was content to sit in the park and watch for the opening of the
church. After a time I saw a few old women wearing “Paisley shawls,” black in
the center with colored borders, going in. I then felt that it was time for me to
enter.

As I recall that meeting now it seems to me that it was very small

and the audience quite out of proportion in number and character to the dis-
tinguished speakers on the platform. There I saw for the first time Henry Ward
Beecher, Theodore Tilton, Parker Pillsbury, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Stanton
and others. Mrs. Stanton was the speaker of the occasion. As I remember her at
that time, her hair was quite dark and drawn down over her ears according to
the fashion of that day. She read her manuscript, and while it was exceedingly
well read and the style of writing was in the same grand eloquence which always
characterized her utterances, yet her whole appearance upon the platform was
in striking contrast to the strong and undaunted manner in which she faced
her audience and told them great truths in later years when her beautiful white
curled hair added a charm to her radiant face.

But, however she appeared at that time or any other, whether

she read or spoke, she was always the great statesman and the grand orator.
Mr. Beecher made a short address, and also Theodore Tilton. In the afternoon
Wendell Phillips gave a lecture addressed to women of which the burden was
that women should first give up fashion and folly and become more serious and
earnest, and he repeated several times, as a sort of refrain “Albany can do nothing
for you.” I think the few women who had the courage to venture out at that
small meeting were not the ones who needed the lecture and the oft-repeated
assurance that Albany could do nothing for us was rather disheartening.

After the afternoon session a number of people repaired to the

ante-room where they organized “The American Equal Rights Association,”
which was to work equally for women and negroes.

It was not long after the organization of the Equal Rights Associa-

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tion that a large convention was held at Albany, New York. There I met for the
first time Lucy Stone, and she explained to me her reasons for retaining her own
name after marriage.

What she said impressed me much. It is undoubtedly true that

the custom of surrendering one’s name upon marriage originated when woman
was a mere chattel and marriage was a family arrangement based upon financial
considerations. In this view of the subject we perceive that the name merely
indicated the person to whom she belonged, as in slavery times when the negro
changed his name on gaining a new owner, the purpose being to indicate who
was his master and to what family he was attached.

She also said that all women who have arrived at years of maturity
should be called “Mrs.”; that “Miss” should be applied only to young girls, as
in the case of boys, “Master,” when used, indicates that they are not full grown
men. She mentioned what I knew before, that the retaining of her name was
fully understood and sanctioned by Mr. Blackwell, her husband, at the time of
their marriage.

I was very much pleased with Lucy Stone and what has been called
her “soft persuasive voice” was agreeable to me at that time. There, too, I first saw
and heard Frederick Douglass. Mr. Douglass certainly was a most magnificent
speaker. A rich vocabulary, keen wit, intense feeling, and a grand voice, also a
personality filled with magnetism, all contributed to make him a great orator.
Mrs. Stanton, on this occasion, gave a most beautiful and impressive lecture. She
was still confined to her manuscript and it was necessary to listen intently to
hear what she said. She afterward laid aside her manuscript, faced her audience,
and was heard distinctly in all the great halls of this country. She had a most
lucid and powerful mind. Her intimate acquaintance with prominent people,
members of Congress and others, as well as her agreeable personal appearance,
ready wit and extreme good nature, made her the most influential woman that
had yet appeared in America.

There, too, I met my Ohio friend, Mrs. J. E. Jones. She was kind
enough to commend my little speech, almost my first effort on behalf of women.

66
 Woman Suffrage Work

But she criticized me for being too earnest. The convention lasted two days, was
largely attended and seems to have been a great success.

The following winter Miss Anthony wished me to come over to

New York and accompany her on a tour of conventions and meetings about the
state. Parker Pillsbury and Francis Redmond were of the party. We were gone
about six weeks during which we held a large number of conventions, one or two
of which I arranged. Before starting on the trip I had written to Fort Plain and
other places for Sunday appointments. The committee at Fort Plain returned a
very cordial reply saying that they would be glad to have me preach for them
on the Sunday named. On arriving at the hotel, I sent word to the committee,
notifying them of my arrival. It seemed that the name and handwriting had
suggested to them a man. Imagine their surprise when they met me at the
hotel! They accepted the situation, however, with great good nature and the
Sunday service appeared to be acceptable. Being there, I improved the occasion
by appointing equal rights meetings at Fort Plain and a small neighboring
town. These meetings, arranged by me, were very successful and pleased Miss
Anthony very much. During this tour of conventions, we visited Mrs. Stanton’s
early home in the northern part of the state where I met her mother, a venerable
matron, and her two daughters, Harriet and Margaret, bright, beautiful young
girls in their “teens.” The meetings there were very satisfactory.

At this distance and with my larger experience, it seems strange to

me, that a tour in which so many diverse elements were combined should have
been attended with so little friction. Of course, Susan B. Anthony was the head
and front of the movement, making most of the arrangements and conducting
meetings. Parker Pillsbury was a most earnest and exceedingly radical man, who
did not mince words in condemning the popular evils. Miss Anthony and Mr.
Pillsbury were disposed to criticize my efforts to have our meetings opened with
prayer, as they considered prayer at the opening of such meetings a meaningless
form, as indeed it often is. Mr. Remond was a negro of considerable ability, but,
like many others of his race, he felt keenly the discrimination which is made
against them in society. These were equal rights meetings, supposed to be held
in the interests of the enfranchisement of negroes as well as women.

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 Chapter VI

Of course, Miss Anthony and I laid most stress on the rights

of women, although in doing so, we announced the great principle of human
rights and justice for all. We could seldom get through a meeting without some
bitter words from Mr. Remond illustrating the injustice done to the negro as
so much greater than the wrongs of women. He seemed to have no patience
with the presentation of our claims. On the whole, however, the trip was most
agreeable and apparently successful, although the seed sown in New York in
behalf of equal rights has never seemed very fruitful of results. While we were
on this trip, the news came that two amendments to the Kansas Constitution,
one enfranchising negroes, the other enfranchising women, had been submitted
to the voters of Kansas.

In the spring of 1867 Lucy Stone visited me at Weymouth,

Massachusetts. She had just come from Kansas where she had been with her
husband in the interest of the suffrage amendment submitted the previous
winter to the voters. She had visited the county seats, had met the state central
committee of the Republican party, and had arranged with them to send a
speaker who should keep the subject before the people during the summer. The
party had agreed to furnish the speaker with a conveyance about the state and a
traveling companion. When their campaign should open in the fall this speaker
would make a short address in each of the Republican meetings.

There were at that time very few women ready to speak on the
subject of woman’s suffrage and none could undertake the work during the hot
months of July and August. Mrs. Stone wished me to undertake the task, and
after a little consideration and consulting the trustees of my church I decided
to go. I reached Leavenworth the first day of July and went, according to Lucy
Stone’s direction, to Colonel Coffin, then a member of the Republican central
committee. Mr. Coffin was far from cordial. He knew of no such arrangement
in regard to conveyance and companion. He said in his abrupt way, “Why did
they not send Anna Dickinson? Anna Dickinson is the one we want here.”
However, we arranged a meeting in Leavenworth and another in a small town
in the vicinity.

I then went to Lawrence where I was most cordially entertained by

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 Woman Suffrage Work

the Reverend Mr. Brown, pastor of the Unitarian Church. Nothing was known
there of any arrangement for the trip, but Mr. Brown opened his church and we
held an effective meeting there. The church was filled and all seemed interested.
Mr. Milton Reynolds, whom I had formerly known at Albion, Michigan, was
the editor of the principal paper. He gave good notices and continued to do so
through the whole campaign, thus rendering valuable service to the cause.

The next day I went to Topeka where I met “Sam” Wood who was
then the chairman of the Republican central committee, and the backbone of
the party in the state. “Sam” had made arrangements for meetings, two every
day, including Sundays, for two months, beginning with a large meeting on
the Fourth of July in Topeka at which he and several others beside myself were
speakers. He had little “dodgers” printed which he had sent all over the state
to advertise the meetings. This began to look like business. The next day “Sam”
discoursed in a philosophical way about the futility of human expectations and
how unable we are to accomplish many things which we plan and how often we
are disappointed in the accomplishment of what we desire, finally stating that
the Republican party could not furnish a conveyance or a companion, or, in fact,
assist the campaign in any manner, but that he had written to places all along the
line where he thought there were good people who would entertain the speaker
and good men who would convey me from place to place. He had provided a
team and a driver to take me to the first appointment where he assured me I
would find a cordial reception and a conveyance for the next day, which proved
true. “Sam” Wood was a most singular character, a frontiersman, rough and
ready, filled with expedients, and overflowing with energy. He had been through
the border ruffian and John Brown periods and had been a conspicuous figure
in those troublous times. He knew many people in the state, and was, therefore,
able to make better arrangements for meetings than could have been made by
any other man, but he appeared to be ignorant of the distances between places
and these meetings were often fifty miles apart, making it necessary to start at
four o’clock in the morning in order to reach the first appointment at two P.M.,
when, after a short stay for lunch and a speech in some school house, we would
start at once in order to meet an engagement at eight o’clock in the evening.

There were good men in Kansas in those days, and although I

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 Chapter VI

secured conveyances by chance, sometimes riding with rough men, Indians, or

negroes, anybody that would go, there was not one instance on the part of those
men of rudeness or discourtesy or anything but utmost kindness and apparent
interest in the success of the campaign. Often men would leave their work, the
sorghum boiling in the kettle, or the plowing of a field, and borrow a horse or
a wagon and take the speaker on. The interest those men took in the cause was
most encouraging and inspiring.

Another difficulty was the fact that there were few roads laid out
in Kansas and we were obliged to follow a trail across the prairie, often very
indistinct, and accordingly, we generally lost our way and would travel round
and round, not knowing where we were. Once in a while we would meet a
countryman and inquire the distance to the next town to which we would
receive the illuminating reply of “right smart,” or “a good little bit.” Many a time
darkness overtook us wandering in uncertainty over the
prairie, and yet, strange as it may seem, I never failed to meet an appointment
during the whole campaign, and however late in the evening we arrived, we
always found a good audience waiting for us, singing and speaking to occupy
the time, as they knew we would necessarily lose our way. People came from
long distances, oftentimes riding ten or fifteen miles on horseback to attend the
meetings.

Kansas, at that time, was just emerging from the effect of the
border ruffian raids and the war in which many of her men had been killed.
She also had seen her fields stripped of vegetation by grasshoppers and her
people suffering from fever and ague and other diseases incident to the settling
of new countries. There were no railroads excepting one from Leavenworth to
Manhattan, and one short line from Wyandotte to White Cloud in the north.
There were few stage routes or liveries; automobiles were not invented and
telephones undreamed of. Even ox teams, so often the reliance of the pioneer,
were not in evidence in Kansas. Perhaps they were unsuited to that prairie
country. Consequently I had to ask at each meeting for some conveyance to
the next appointment. Once I had to make a long journey over the prairie and
the only conveyance I could get was a lumber wagon and an Indian driver. I
rode with some trepidation, but the driver only spoke once during the whole

70
 Miss Belva Lockwood and Rev. Mrs Olympia Brown in 1913.
Library of Congress.

Photograph entitled “ Rev. Mrs. Olympia Brown.” Taken between

1909 and 1919. Library of Congress.
 Chapter VI

ride. When about half way across the prairie he turned around and demanded,
“Why don’t you get married?” thus showing that his idea of woman’s sphere was
precisely the same as that of Theodore Roosevelt, Lyman Abbott, and other
refined men of our day. As I made no reply, he continued in silence the rest of
the journey.

At one time an old gentleman wished me to put in an extra

meeting a few miles from the regular route, promising to take me to the next
appointment in case I should do so. I went to his house and held a meeting
quite successfully, but it was with great difficulty that he could comply with his
part of the agreement. He had a large kettle of sorghum boiling, his buggy was
a poor, rickety affair, and it was inconvenient for him to leave home, but he was
as good as his word, and we set forth, losing our way, as usual, and reaching our
destination only about nine o’clock at night. However, the audience was there
and we had a good meeting. But there was no one with a conveyance ready to
take me on, and hence the little old gentleman felt compelled to continue the
journey. He continued with me several days, often worrying about his sorghum
and affairs at home, although I exhorted him to go back and leave me to my fate,
since people probably would prefer to provide a conveyance rather than to have
me stranded upon them.

One of the pleasantest experiences of the campaign was meeting

the Hutchinson family, John Hutchinson and his son, Henry, and daughter,
Viola. I met them first at Atchison and traveled with them some two weeks,
speaking in their concerts while they sang suffrage songs at my meetings. They
had a beautiful span of horses and a carriage which made traveling easy. They
were delightful people and their sweet singing stirred the enthusiasm of all.
Many of their songs were composed by Mr. Hutchinson himself. I remember
one in particular, “The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man,” which
they used to sing with great effect.

It would be tedious to mention all the good people who spoke words of
encouragement or otherwise aided, Governor Robinson, a pioneer in the state,
spoke in some of my meetings. Joel Moody, an editor of Mound City, with his
wife and two children accompanied me for twelve days. Mr. Moody often spoke

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 Woman Suffrage Work

in the meetings and with much effect. He was one of the foremost men of
Kansas at that time. Once, while the Moodys were with me, we were received by
an organized mob who hailed us with sticks and stones and shouts of derision.
They were determined to break up the meeting and while Mr. Moody went to
find a resting place for his weary wife and tired children, I faced the battle alone.

While I was trying to speak the rowdies kept up their noise,

shouting and throwing stones until the little school-house rocked and the
people inside trembled. It seemed that this mob had been organized in advance
by a young lawyer who intended to prevent the meeting. As we entered the
village after a long, hard day’s drive we were met by two men who informed us
in response to our inquiry that no notices of the meeting were up. I asked for the
principal men. They said, “There are no principal men.” I asked if there was no
minister. One replied that he was the minister. I said, “Will you not put a light in
that school-house?” He finally did so and the people who had known all about it
all the time rushed in. Then the hubbub began. After speaking in the midst of all
the confusion for a half an hour or so, I paused and asked if the opposition had
anything to say. Then the lawyer and his crowd came in. All was still when the
lawyer himself made an extended speech against woman’s suffrage, going back
to Queen Elizabeth. After annihilating her, he proceeded to denounce all later
women who had attempted to do anything. A row of women in “slat” sunbonnets
who sat on one side of the school-house and were evidently not edified by his
remarks kept whispering loudly, “You had better shut up. We’ve got no use for
you,” but after he stopped and Mr. Moody, who had returned, undertook to
speak, the noise and interruptions began again with new force until finally we
were obliged to close the meeting at ten o’clock and were glad to escape from the
town with only the loss of supper and breakfast and a night’s rest.

One of the incidents of the campaign which attracted most atten-

tion outside the state was my discussion with Judge Sears of Leavenworth.

The Republicans had sent out speakers to oppose us and these

speakers usually came just a day before or a day after my meeting. It so happened
on one occasion that their appointment was on the same date with mine. On
arriving at Oskaloosa, my escort learned that posters were up announcing that

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Judge Sears of Leavenworth would speak in the principal church in the town.
My notices were up for the same time and place, but he said the people of
the place wished me to speak and claimed I had the preference because my
notices were posted first. He went out to consult Judge Sears as to what could
be done. He replied that he was in the hands of his friends and would do as they
desired. I proposed to give him the first hour of the evening. He accepted the
arrangement. I quote from the report of the meeting given at the time in the
Kansas State Journal and reproduced in the History of Woman’s Suffrage, by
Susan B. Anthony and E. Cady Stanton.

The largest church in the place was crowded to its utmost, every
inch of space being occupied. Judge Gilchrist was called to the chair, and first
introduced Judge Sears, who made the following points in favor of Manhood
Suffrage: 1st. That in the early days of the Republic no discrimination was made
against negroes on account of color.

He proved from the constitutions and charters of the original

thirteen states, that all of them, with the exception of South Carolina, allowed
the colored freeman the ballot, upon the same basis and conditions as the white
man. That we were not conferring a right, but restoring one which the fathers in
their wisdom had never deprived the colored man of. He showed how the word
white had been forced into the state constitutions, and advocated that it should
be stricken out, it being the last relic of the ‘slave power.’

2nd. That the negro needed the ballot for his protection and elevation.

3rd. That he deserved the ballot. He fought with our fathers side by side
In the war of the revolution. He did the same thing in the war of 1812, and in
the war of the rebellion. He fought for us because he was loyal and loved the old
flag. If any class of men had ever earned the enjoyment of franchise the negro
had.
4th. The Republican party owed it to him.

5th. The enfranchisement of the negro was indispensable to reconstruc-

tion of the late rebellious states upon a basis that should secure to the loyal

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men of the South the control of the government of those states. Congress had
declared it was necessary, and the most eminent men of the nation had failed to
discover any other means by which the South could be restored to the Union,
that should secure safety, prosperity and happiness. There was not loyalty enough
in the South among the whites to elect a loyal man to an inferior office. Upon
each one of these points, the Judge elaborated at length, and made really a fine
speech, but his evident discomfiture showed that he knew what was to follow. It
was expected that when Miss Brown was introduced many would leave, owing
to the strange feeling against female suffrage in and about Oskaloosa; but no
one left. The crowd grew more dense. A more eloquent speech never was uttered
in this town than Miss Brown delivered; for an hour and three-quarters the
audience was spell-bound as she advanced from point to point. She had been
longing for such an opportunity, and had become weary of striking off into
open air; and she proved how thoroughly acquainted she was with her subject
as she took up each point advanced by her opponent, not denying its truth, but
showing by unanswerable logic that if it were good for certain reasons for the
negro to vote, it was ten times better for the same reasons for the women to vote.

The argument that the right to vote is not a natural right, but
acquired as corporate bodies acquire their rights, and that the ballot meant
‘protection,’ was answered and explained fully. She said the ballot meant
protection; it meant much more; it meant education, progress, advancement,
elevation for the oppressed classes, drawing a glowing comparison between
the working classes of England and those of the United States. She scorned
the idea of an aristocracy based upon two accidents of the body. She paid an
eloquent tribute to Kansas, the pioneer in all reforms, and said that it would
be the best advertisement that Kansas could have to give the ballot to women,
for thousands now waiting and uncertain, would flock to our state, and a vast
tide of emigration would continually roll toward Kansas until her broad and
fertile prairies would be peopled. It is useless to attempt to report her address,
as she could hardly find a place to stop. When she had done, her opponent had
nothing to say. He had been beaten on his ground, and retired with his feathers
drooping. After Miss Brown had closed, some one in the audience called for
a vote on the female proposition. The vote was put, and nearly every man and
woman in the house rose simultaneously. Men that had fought the proposition

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from the first arose, even Judge Sears himself looked as though he would like to
rise, but his principles forbade. After the first vote, Judge Sears called for a vote
on his, the negro proposition, when about one-half the house arose.

In the autumn Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony came from the
East, but it was difficult for them to find a conveyance, Governor Robinson
took Mrs. Stanton in his, for that time, luxurious carriage to some of the more
important places, while Miss Anthony remained In Lawrence distributing
literature through-out the state, and later holding meetings with George Francis
Train. Toward the end of the campaign the Republican party took a stand
against us. I had spoken in almost every settlement of any kind in the state and
the people were quite aroused. There seemed evidence that the measure would
carry at the polls. This alarmed them and they sent out circulars everywhere,
calling the attention of voters to the fact that the presidential election was near
at hand and that there was but one question before the people--that of negro
suffrage. Voters were urged to concentrate upon that and “leave all other issues.”

The Republican party sent out Rev, I.S. Kalloch and Judge Spear,
of Leavenworth, to speak against the cause and to denounce its advocates.
Among other opponents came Charles Langston, a negro orator, whose brother
had received great kindness from Miss Anthony and who had every reason
to be grateful to the noble women who had espoused the cause of the negro.
He appealed to the lowest prejudices of men, asking in public meetings if they
“wanted every old maid to vote?” and when on one occasion, at a picnic, he
followed me in speaking, he rebuked the audience with “preferring every thing
that had a white face to the negro.”

During the last two weeks George Francis Train came to Kansas,
as he said, “because he had property there and because he expected to be the
next President of the United States.” Mr. Train was a most unique person. He
held several great meetings in Leavenworth, Lawrence, and other places. In one
of his speeches he gave a parody on Longfellow’s “Excelsior,” something in this
wise:

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“The shades of night were falling fast,

When through a Kansas village passed
A maiden with a strange device,
And all she cried was Woman’s Suffrage,”

and so on through all the verses, each verse ending,

“And still she cried ‘Woman’s Suffrage.”

We felt that the Eastern friends had not given us the help that we had a right
to expect, and Mr. Train, as the State Record said, “gave an age of history in this
epigram”:

“The Garrisons, Phillipses, Greeleys, and Beechers, False prophets, false guides, false
teachers and preachers, Left Stanton, Anthony, Brown and Stone To fight the Kansas
battles alone.”

His epigrams always brought down the house. As examples of

these I quote the following:

“Kansas will win the world’s applause, As the sole champion of woman’s cause.”

“So light the bonfires, have the flags unfurled, For the banner state of all the world.”

“My mission to Kansas breaks the white woman’s chains,

Then three cheers for virtue and beauty and brains,”

“Do you want to set a proud example to all mankind?

Vote for women,”
“Do you want the people to rule instead of politicians?
Vote for women,”
“Do you want’ charity for all, malice for none, your creed? Vote for women.”

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“Do you want beauty, virtue and intelligence instead of vice and ignorance?
Vote for women.”
“Do you love your mother, your sister, your wife, your daughter, your sweetheart? Then,
for God’s sake, be men on Tuesday next and
Vote for women.”

One writer says in speaking of Train, “Train at this time was a

most magnificent specimen of manhood, about six feet tall, with curling black
hair, and black eyes. He made a most unusual appearance, and under any condi-
tions, perhaps, except with the greatest animosity of the Republican leaders and
the Republican press, would have been conceded by many the power to win the
battle. But there was so much politics, and so much men’s politics injected into
the campaign that the battle was lost.”

In those four months I traveled over the greater part of Kansas,

held two meetings every day, and the latter part of the time three meetings every
day, making in all between two and three hundred speeches, averaging an hour
in length; a fact that tends to show that women can endure talk and travel at
least as well as men; especially when we recollect how the Hon. Sidney Clark,
then candidate for Congress, canvassed, in the beautiful autumn weather, a small
portion of the state which I had traveled over amid the burning heat of July
and August; he spoke once a day instead of twice; he had no anxiety about the
means of travel, his conveyance being furnished at hand; he was supported by a
large constituency, and expected to be rewarded by office and honors; yet with
all these advantages, he broke down in health and was obliged to give up a part
of his appointments, and the Republican papers said, “It was not strange, as no
human being could endure without loss of health such constant speaking with
such long and tedious journeys as Mr. Clark had undertaken.”

On the whole, we had a rousing campaign and at the end gained

one-third of all the votes cast, which, although I felt then crushed and humiliated,
I now see was quite a victory considering that we had no party, no organization,
no money, and that the Republican party, which had voted for the measure in
the legislature and was then dominant in Kansas, preferred as voters the male
negro to the noble white women pioneers in the state.

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But disappointment and defeat were softened by a letter from

Susan B. Anthony:

“Dear Olympia:

“Never was defeat so glorious a victory. My dear Olympia, if ever any money gets
into my power to control, you shall have evidence that we appreciate the Herculean
work you have done here in Kansas the past four long months.”

I would have gone farther and done more for those words of appre-
ciation from Susan. I was a hero worshipper then. Pity it is that the illusions of
youth are so often doomed to be dissipated by larger experience.

Previous to the Kansas campaign there had been no regularly

organized woman’s suffrage society. The old Equal Rights Association was
formed to help the negro quite as much as women, and these two differing
subjects, although the great principle was the same, often caused clashes in
meetings. In Kansas many had objected to the presentation of the woman
question alone. Even Susan B. Anthony said, “Olympia, you have no right to say
one word more for women than you do for the negro,” and at a great meeting
in New York City in May 1868 following our return from Kansas, Frederick
Douglass won great applause by making a comparison between the needs of
the negro and those of women, saying, “There are no KuKlux Clans seeking
the lives of women. The voters are their fathers, their husbands and brothers,”
and he drew the conclusion that all should work for the negro to the exclusion
of woman’s suffrage. It seemed that there ought to be a distinctively woman’s
suffrage society.

After giving the subject considerable thought I concluded that a

Massachusetts Woman’s Suffrage Society ought to be formed, and accordingly
wrote to Abby Kelly Foster, then living at Worcester, Massachusetts. Abby Kelly
had been very prominent in the anti-slavery warfare, and had also advocated the
rights of women. The old abolitionists in that day imagined that with the freeing
of the slaves the whole battle for equal rights in this country was fought out. As

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Mr. Garrison once said in conversation, “The victory for equal rights has been
secured. Abby Kelly with bloody feet has led the way and marked out the course
for all women.” Consequently, one naturally turned to her. She replied, and said,
“Get a parlor or small hall in Boston and announce that all interested in the
subject are invited to meet on some day mentioned, during the May meetings.”

Mr. T. L. Leonard, an elocutionist, offered his hall on Summer St.

for the purpose. The announcement was made for two o’clock in the afternoon
and the notice given in the papers and at the antislavery and other meetings.
At the hour named, the hall was filled to overflowing and Mr. Leonard said
that people had been coming all the forenoon inquiring about the meeting.
Many distinguished people were present, Mrs. Caroline Severance was there;
Parker Pillsbury was there, and others. I recall especially Mr. Charles Burleigh,
whom I had never seen before, who, with his hair parted in the middle, his long,
light curls and placid face was, supposed by many to resemble Jesus Christ. His
power of speech was unusual, and he made a stirring appeal on this occasion. I
called the meeting together and stated what I thought. After some discussion
and considerable speech making, it was decided to appoint a committee which
should hold meetings during the summer, correspond with influential people
and call a convention in the early autumn for the purpose of organizing a
Woman’s Suffrage Association. Mrs. Severance was made the chairman of this
committee and Stephen Foster and two or three others besides myself were on
the committee. The result of the committee’s work for the summer was a large
convention held in the autumn in Horticultural Hall, Boston. At this meeting
Julia Ward Howe made her first appearance as a woman suffrage advocate. She
came forward in a somewhat hesitating manner and said in substance that
she had been opposed to the movement because “she did not like to have her
father, her husband, or her brother abused,” but “the cause had now gained
such proportions that she felt like paying it a tribute of respect.” Lucy Stone
sat near me and whispered, “1 think she might do more than pay a tribute of
respect.” Frederick Douglass also appeared at this meeting as usual setting forth
the disabilities of the negro; “they had had no colleges, no schools,” etc. Adin
Ballou, who was then a somewhat rioted reformer in New England, had assisted
in arranging the meeting and took part in the program. Mr. Garrison also gave
a grand lecture in the evening to a full house. Reformers are often deceived

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by a kind of mirage and see distant things near and suppose that victory is
at hand, when in reality, generations are yet to pass before it can be realized.
An instance of this was presented in Mr. Garrison’s opening remarks. He said,
“In the progress of every great cause there are three periods; first, a period of
indifference when no one cares, and there is no hostility; second, a period of
opposition and ridicule, people have begun to notice and to disapprove; third,
the period of victory, opposition has been overcome, ridicule has been silenced
and people are ready to receive the truth. In this cause we have passed through
the first two periods and are now entering on the period of victory,” In like
manner, Mr. T. W. Higginson argued against sending out lecturers to canvass
the state, because, he said, “The seed has all been sown. The work has been done.
We have now only to gather in the harvest,”

The result of this convention in Horticultural Hall in 1868 was

the organization of the New England Woman’s Suffrage Association, (probably
the first Woman’s Suffrage Association organized in this country or any other),
which has continued until the present time and through its yearly meetings has
exerted great influence in favor of liberty.

The first great National Woman Suffrage Convention was held

in Washington in 1869 and was followed by annual National Conventions in
Washington for years during the life of Mrs. Stanton whose great utterances
at these meetings and before Congressional committees laid the foundations
for Woman Suffrage everywhere, I attended the first and most of the other
conventions both before and after my removal to the West and was for many
years closely in touch with national leaders. While preaching in Weymouth and
Bridgeport I had regularly circulated petitions making it my duty to secure a
thousand names each year and had done much other local work beside making
the trips already described. During my Bridgeport pastorate I was invited on two
occasions to speak before the State Legislature of Connecticut, while Suffrage
bills were pending. I also spoke before the assembled Legislature in the interest
of Temperance. It was the first public work I had done for this cause.

I used to say that Susan B. Anthony was my pole star until I learned
to make no one my guide but to follow truth wherever it might lead and to do

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the duty of the hour at whatever cost. Miss Anthony was the founder of the
National Suffrage Association. Lucy Stone later in the same year, 1869, founded
the American Suffrage Association with which, also, I later connected myself.
The two associations continued active and rivals until they merged in 1889.
During this time, as later, there was ample room for more than one national
organization so long as each provided scope for aggressive, unique, original
leaders to do their work, every one in her own way. Indeed, such a division
suited the times better when money was scarce for such work, communication
between distant parts of the country less easy than it later became and advocates
of the cause few and scattered. At this time, too, the Beecher scandal absorbed
attention and divided public opinion. Discussion of “free love” doctrines brought
under suspicion every woman in the public eye, and the prominence of Victoria
Woodhulit made it seem to many people incumbent upon every woman to
declare herself pro or anti. Under such circumstances Suffragists themselves
were divided and it was difficult to hold a meeting strictly to the subject which
it had been called to discuss. Acquaintances took up my time by visits in which
they inveighed against free love and Mrs. Woodhull and pleaded with me to
start a crusade against both. I found it hard to keep from being entangled in
these discussions although I desired only to pursue my ministerial work, giving
such time as I could spare from this to the work of women’s enfranchisement.

The first years of my residence at Racine were devoted chiefly

to my church. Little had been done to organize sentiment for Woman Suf-
frage in Wisconsin though an association had been formed as early as 1869 in
Milwaukee by Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott and Miss Lily Peckham, a bright young
lawyer, with the help of Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Livermore.
Soon after this, several local suffrage societies were organized. In 1880 Susan
B, Anthony addressed a convention held in Milwaukee which was also my first
occasion of addressing a Suffrage meeting in Wisconsin. A mass convention in
Madison followed in 1882 and the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association
was there organized, which was destined to continue the work until the winning
of the vote in 1920. Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell assisted at the formation
* 1911

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of the new association. I became President of this association in 1884, an office

which I held until November, 1912.

As the years passed by it became more and more clear that I

must give myself more to the Suffrage work. There seemed to be no one else
in Wisconsin fitted and willing to take upon herself the combined work of
organizing, canvassing, speaking. As I have said in my chapter on the ministry
I brought the chief advocates of the Suffrage cause to Racine for lectures and
meetings but it was not possible for me to undertake lengthy trips about the
state and still do justice to my parish and my family. The immediate occasion of
my resignation therefore was the Suffrage Bill which passed the legislature of
1885 and was voted on and became a law in 1886. This law provided that every
woman having the proper voter’s qualifications should have the right to vote “at
any election pertaining to school matters”. Now in Wisconsin every election
“pertained to school matters,” - the State Superintendent being elected at the
fall election and local school officers in the spring. Such candidates’ names were
on the same ballot with others and the law made no provision for women’s
using a separate ballot box. So it seemed apparent that more was intended than
would be implied by a mere school suffrage law. Also, the members of the Senate
committee who discussed the bill and referred it said that it was intended to be,
in effect, a full suffrage law. Mr. Norman James, Chairman of the Committee
to which all Suffrage bills were referred said to me, “That bill is all you want.
Take it and work it for all it is worth, it is a Woman Suffrage bill,” In spite of the
testimony of the men who passed the law there were still many who believed
that it was not intended to allow women to vote for all candidates. However,
I was determined to avail myself of it as it was the only suffrage law we had.
Resigning my pastorate and securing a substitute for the fragment of a year
(1887) which remained, I began to tour the state, instructing the women on
the subject and urging them to vote at the next election. People were pretty
thoroughly waked up and in many places women voted and their votes were
accepted. Elsewhere they were not accepted and in Racine my own vote and
those of other women were rejected. We were now advised to bring suit to test
the law. I was not in favor of bringing a suit, saying I preferred the law as it
stood, in all its uncertainty, to a decision against us. But others of the Executive
Board of the Association did not agree with me and insisted that suit should be

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brought. In November, 1887, suit was accordingly brought in my name and a

favorable decision was rendered by Judge John B, Winslow of the lower court in
Racine who stated that the law authorized us to vote for all candidates, adding
“if it does not mean that it does not mean anything”. But an appeal was taken
to the Supreme Court where this decision was reversed and the law interpret-
ed as giving women the vote on school matters only. It was a great blow and
caused discouragement to all the workers who had hoped to gain practically
complete Suffrage under this law. Since the law provided no separate ballot
boxes, it remained inoperative for some fifteen years after its passage despite
many efforts of the women to avail themselves of it as a school law. Finally in
1901 it was made valid through legislation which provided separate ballots and
ballot boxes for women. The law was a comprehensive one enabling women to
vote on school bonds, amendments to the state constitution concerning school
matters, as well as for all school officers elected by popular vote.

I carried on this suit in my own name and this was accepted by

the Court. I did all my public or professional work both before and after this time
as “Olympia Brown”. In this I followed the example of Lucy Stone (Blackwell)
who had given, as I felts, cogent reasons for the practice. The retaining of my
own name was fully understood and approved by my husband at the time of our
marriage.

Note From this point no consecutive narrative could be offered as written

by Olympia Brown, In Chapter VII I have continued the history,
using fragments of manuscripts such records as I could command, and
occasional quotations from letters or other writings. Editor.
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The “School law” suit was only one of many trials which the
Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association and its president were called upon to
meet. But the work was continued, The State Suffrage paper “The Wisconsin
Citizen” was started in August, 1887, and was published without interruption
until 1917. The president with a few loyal followers kept up the organization’s
work, arranging meetings, soliciting memberships and contributions of money.
All work was voluntary and there was no money for headquarters in any part of
the state.

The state association had not, in the beginning, become auxiliary

either to the National or the American Association. After some hesitation,
Olympia Brown became an individual member of both in spite of their rivalry
and the very real difference in the matter of their principles or policies. In
the “Wisconsin Citizen” of February, 1890, in an article over her signature,
with the caption “We Should All Pull Together” she said, after comment-
ing on the efforts that were being made to bring the Wisconsin Association
into the National-American Association; “There are in the Suffrage ranks two
well-defined parties, one advocating Suffrage as a national right to be secured
by the Constitution and protected by Federal laws; the other may be called a
“States’ rights” party holding that Suffrage should be secured by amendments to
state constitutions, that Congress has and should have no jurisdiction. Now it is
thought by some that more will be accomplished by working along both these
different lines as two distinct organizations than can be done by subordinating
or surrendering either idea or line of work .... I, for one, am working for a free
ballot for men and women of the United States, secured by a constitutional
provision.” Feeling that a union in name was valueless without a union in spirit,
she held aloof from the new unified Association for several years. Susan B.
Anthony, however, made her a life member, saying in a letter quoted by Ida
Husted Harper ‘in her book “Life and Work of Susan B, Anthony”, Vol. II, p.
659, “Now I intend to make Mrs. Minor, Olympia Brown, Pheobe Couzins and
Matilda Joslyn Gage life members. I had thought of others, but these four are of
longer standing, were identified with the old National, and have suffered odium
and persecution because of adherence to it.”
 Chapter VII

It was in remonstrance against the “States’ rights” idea as applied

to Suffrage work, that is, against the growing belief that the work should be
centered on the winning of the vote through amendments to state constitutions,
while the work for a Federal amendment was made secondary, that a number
of suffragists of whom Olympia Brown was the leader founded in May, 1892,
the “Federal Suffrage Association of the United States”, later re-named the
“Woman’s Federal Equality Association”. It was believed, with good grounds,
that Congress had it in its power to pass a law which would enable women to
vote for members of the House of Representatives, according to the provisions
of the Constitution, Article I, Sections 2 and 4, the latter of which authorizes
Congress to change the regulations made by the states for the election of
members of the House of Representatives. The Association was composed of
members-at-large, and was without auxiliary branches. Its object was to work
solely with Congress for “Federal Suffrage”. Several able members, some of
them seasoned and accomplished workers for suffrage, accepted the idea gladly
and did all in their power to promote it through Congressional hearings, which
were arranged regularly, and occasional large influential public meetings, as, for
instance, a congress held at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco July
11 – 12 - 13, 1915.

The importance of the Federal Suffrage work was its renewal of

the attack upon the problem of securing the vote for all women of the country
through Congressional action rather than through the states. Could the enabling
act sought by the Federal Suffrage Association have been passed by Congress
it would have put so much power into the hands of women as voters that the
complete victory through amendment of the Constitution of the United States
might have been secured much sooner. However, though it never became a
large organization it did its part in helping to focus attention on Congressional
action and in making Washington the center of Suffrage work. Thus it made
a contribution through stimulation of other Suffrage workers. In later years
the devoted service of Clara Bewick Colby did much to keep the work of the
Federal Suffrage Association moving.

My mother’s work in Wisconsin had been made possible and had

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been promoted by the help of my father and grandmother. In the early days of our
Racine home the latter had come to live with us and during Olympia’s absence
she had supervised the home and children. My father, who had always been
most sympathetic with my mother’s interests and enterprises encouraged her to
keep up her public work and gave generous assistance through his printing plant
and the influence of his newspaper. But the days of these favorable conditions
were to be short. Early in 1893 after a happy Christmas holiday which my
brother and I had spent at home, our first vacation since entering the University
of Chicago, my grandmother suffered a nervous breakdown, while my father,
suddenly stricken by apoplexy, passed away on March first. The blow was
overwhelming, “Endless sorrow has fallen upon my heart”, wrote my mother
at this time. “He was one of the truest and best men that ever lived, firm in his
religious convictions, loyal to every right principle, strictly honest and upright
in his life”; and in writing to one who had in hand a biographical article, she
said “Much more may be said of his absolute sincerity of character, such as I
have never seen in any other person, his lack of pretension, his appreciation and
recognition of talent outside the lines of his particular work which we see in so
few.”

The loss was much more than a personal one. My father had been
concerned in many enterprises of importance in Racine and his readiness to aid
those in misery and in trouble brought him into the city’s charitable work. There
was a vein of quiet humor in him and a social genius which have always been
remembered by those who knew him.

The years 1893 - 1900 are in many ways painful to remember. My

father had been chief owner and business manager of the Times Publishing
Company which issued a daily and weekly paper and did a large job printing
business. This business had been built up with care and economy until it was
at the height of its prosperity in 1893. My mother now found herself wholly
occupied in caring for her seriously sick mother and forced to solve the problem
of selling or keeping our interest in the publishing company. At first it seemed
as if the best course were to trust to our partners in the business and derive what
profit we could under their management, but it soon was evident that the only
way to rescue any part of our share would be to buy out these partners. This we

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did at great sacrifice after a few months of agitation. We then had on our hands
a business unfamiliar to us though it was believed that as it was prosperous and
profitable it should also be salable. But we knew little of the undercurrent of
intrigue and ill-will which existed in the business world of this little town. We
soon realized that we had as enemies not only our former partners but various
individuals and groups, political and others, who were scheming to seize upon
the business for themselves. The paper was neutral in politics and would have
been a convenient machine for certain political elements. They did not wish to
pay much for it but expected to cheat us out of it. My mother also had to face
the disapproval of many people who considered the presence of a woman in a
business office improper, her associates even assuring her that subscribers would
be unwilling to pay their subscriptions to a woman. Many changes have taken
place since that time.

In the following seven years we had to face the panic and busi-
ness depression of the early nineties and all our affairs seemed to change for the
worse. We were often approached by buyers who, after the first few “feelers” had
been put forth were discovered to be the same people who had attempted to
seize the property in the beginning. Eventually a sale was made to out-of-town
parties and while we had suffered much loss we closed our connection with
the paper honorably, and in a measure satisfactorily, placing it in the hands of
good efficient men who conducted it in a manner worthy of its traditions. On
the very day of the transfer, February 28, 1900, my grandmother died. She had
been a great sufferer for more than seven years yet with her fine tastes in reading,
her unusual skill in handiwork and her conversational powers the time had not
passed unhappily. Even when her physical strength was least she had immense
resources within herself. In earlier years she had written much verse which
had, unfortunately, been destroyed. In these last years she turned again to the
solace of metrical expression and from time to time she wrote a short poem. The
following poems were written only a short time before her death and were fitly
introduced into the words spoken at her funeral by our friend, Rev. J. R. Effinger.

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RESIGNATION.

Reclining on a bed of pain

Before me passed the Ills of life;
The vanished years, and in their train
The varied scenes with sorrow rife,
The blasted hopes, the faded dreams,
The friends forever passed away,
The transient joys, their idle gleams;
I sickened at their sad array.

“Why was I born, if but to die?

Oh, why to me was being given?
Was it to suffer, toil and sigh?
Was this the just decree of Heaven”
Thus sunk in grief seemed to say;
An angel whispered, “Raise thine eyes”
I looked, and lot before me lay
The happy fields of Paradise!
One moment, and the scene was gone,
But to my soul a glimpse was given;
Though over the view the veil was drawn,
I felt it was a glimpse of heaven.
A joy ecstatic filled my breast;
No more at life will I repine,
But, thankful, bow to Heaven’s behest,
And humbly say, “Thy will be mine.”

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May 26, 1898

FAITH AND TRUST.

My days are dark with pain and woe

But faith in God deserts me never;
I trust in him, for well I know
His mercy will endure forever.

I do not weep that “dust to dust”

I know to be my certain doom,
I trust, and know in whom I trust;
Nor fear the terrors of the tomb.

Yet must I weep: the human heart

So fondly clings to life and love;
And lingering turns when forced to part
And dreads the vast unknown to prove.

Each spring brings leafage, flower and bloom,

Each autumn sees their quick decay;
Each summer ends in winter’s gloom;
And night succeeds the brightest day.

So runs the tide of human life,

Its spring of joy, its winter’s gloom;
Its hopes, its fears, its peace, its strife
Its certain goal, the silent tomb.

Author of life and light supreme,

Oh let Thy love my soul sustain;
From doubt, from fear, from death redeem,
Nor, let my murmuring lips complain.

What though to me it be not given

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To see the forms to me so dear,

Or view the azure vault of heaven,
Or voices I have loved, to hear.
I know that in Thy boundless love
Thy creatures all will be at rest;
On earth below, or heaven above
Thou wilt be there, and all be blest.

Oh let me with presumptuous thought

Not dare to quest question where or how;
Enough for me the lesson taught
In goodness that surrounds me now.
Oh! beautiful on every hill
Their feet who come with tidings glad;
“Rejoice, rejoice,” they whisper still;
Then, Mourner, be no longer sad.

A fairer world, a brighter sun

Shall shine for thee in endless day,
No longer weep that life is done,
God’s hand shall wipe all tears away.

In the loss of our grandmother we parted with one who had been
to my brother and me virtually a second mother from our early childhood. She
was full of ambition for our scholastic progress and moral growth and while
deeply affectionate, even indulgent, she never failed to see our faults and try
to rectify them. She died at the age of 89 having in the course of this long life
undergone all the privations of a pioneer in a new country, the labor of the
farmer’s wife as it was. In the earlier days when every process in the production
of food and clothing was employed by her or under her supervision and in her
own home, the anxieties and self-sacrifice incident to the rearing and education
of four children for whom she would accept nothing less than the best, and
when this was all done, she accepted the supervision of her grandchildren. Truly
a wonderful woman! When we write the history of our feminists we must begin
not with them but with their mothers. The editor of this memoir had spent the

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four years at home after June, 1896, at which time she was graduated from the
University of Chicago. Henry Parker Willis had also received his Bachelor’s
and Doctor’s ‘degrees from the same institution and had become a ‘Professor
of Economics in Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, his first
professional appointment.

This chapter of family history explains in a measure why during

this period Olympia Brown’s attention was unavoidably divided and her work for
the Suffrage cause seemed to flag. Even so, she continued annual state meetings;
suffrage bills were regularly introduced into the Legislature, and canvassers
employed by the State Association relieved the President of some part of the
burden. She would gladly have given up the office but there seemed to be no one
to take her place. The late nineties and the first few years of this century were a
dull period in Suffrage work, especially in Wisconsin. There was an indifference
which was harder to combat than real opposition. The great National leaders of
the earlier day were aged and none of equal power, inspiration and capability of
self-sacrifice had taken their places. In Wisconsin the workers were few, though
loyal, until the wonderful awakening came which began before the first decade
of this century was ended. Money was very scarce with the Suffrage workers.
Hardly a woman of wealth was numbered among them and subscriptions to
the work were gained chiefly by personal visits to anyone who seemed in the
least a likely “prospect”. Shoe leather was sacrificed, pride put forever into the
proverbial pocket, and utter weariness ignored as Olympia Brown plodded
the streets of Racine and other towns, making her calls upon those whom she
distinguished by the name of “supporting friends”. Nearly every number of the
“Wisconsin Citizen” of this period contains pathetic appeals for funds to meet
the running expenses of the organization. These were modest enough but as
difficult to gather as many times their amount would be today.

Even among the family trials and absorbing duties described above,
engagements outside Racine had been met. On August 9, 1893, she spoke at
the Governmental Congress, an auxiliary to the World’s Fair in Chicago. The
meeting presided over by Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, was held in the Hall of
Columbus in the Art Institute. The audience was a large one. The first address
was Olympia Brown’s. Her topic was “United States’ Citizenship”. On the same

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day the Federal Suffrage Association held its annual session and was addressed
by many other distinguished speakers, among them Elizabeth Boynton Harbert,
Helen M. Gougar, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Frederick Douglass. At the
close of the meeting the venerable John Hutchinson was introduced, at Mr.
Douglass’ request, and sang one of the old songs famous in the Kansas campaign
of 1867. Thus these three pioneers, of an earlier day, - Douglass, Hutchinson,
and Olympia Brown -, stood together once more and for the last time on one
platform. On September 22, of the same year, she spoke at a session of the
Parliament of Religions on the subject “Crime and the Remedy.” That remedy,
she reasoned, should be founded on the political emancipation of motherhood.

In the files of the “Wisconsin Citizen” of the 1890s and early 1900s
may be found records of much work in Wisconsin. I mention here also her
presence at the Annual Convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage
Association in Minneapolis, on May 30, 1901. The Minneapolis Journal of that
date, in its report of the opening meeting, said: “When the delegates rose, and
the Rev. Olympia Brown of Wisconsin stepped to the front of the platform
and turned her face heavenward, saying, ‘In the name of Liberty, Our Father,
we thank thee’, the impression even upon an unbeliever must have been that
of entire consecration and one was reminded of the early Christians when
they met and consulted, fought, and endured for the faith that was in them.”
She also delivered an address in one of the sessions. This was the first National
convention she had attended for several years and it is interesting to read her
comment upon it: “They were useful meetings, but the Association seemed to be
rather a training school to prepare efficient state workers than a society doing
a national work”; and again, “Of the many recommendations contained in the
plan of work only two or three related to national work; all the rest related
to work in the states and were necessarily unsuited to many of them.” These
comments again point to the contrast between her idea of national suffrage
work, looking to a Federal amendment and the principle on which the National
American Suffrage Association carried on its work at this time, that is, that
Suffrage work should be primarily with state legislatures, the function of the
National body being to promote state campaigns by means of influence, money,
and workers. This antagonism had deep roots and in consequence of it Olympia
Brown neither then nor later saw eye to eye with those who guided the affairs

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Part of the two photograph collection in Schlesinger
Library of Olympia Brown as an older woman.
Olympia Brown ca. 1908-1926.
 Chapter VII

of the National Association.

In the fall of 1901 my brother went to New York City to take the
post of economic writer for the New York Evening Post, and not long afterward
my mother followed him at his request, establishing a temporary home in which
she could watch over his health, taxed as it was by work and the strain of city
life. In the next year they removed to Washington where he became Washington
correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce. During this period, her
letters to the Wisconsin Citizen tell something of her contacts in these cities,
renewal of old acquaintances, and her impressions of new friends and scenes.

Returning from Washington in August 1902 my mother organized

and carried through the State Suffrage Convention in September. She again
went to Washington for October, November, and part of December, but with
my brother’s marriage on December 23rd and his return to Washington and
Lee University the Washington apartment was given up and this brief chapter
was closed. The death of Mrs. Stanton had occurred on November 13 and was
followed by memorial meetings in Washington at which my mother gave ex-
pression to her reverence for this great leader to whose statesman-like qualities
she had always paid tribute.

Work in Wisconsin for the next few years was dull and seemed
unrewarded. Annual meetings, tours in various counties, writing for the
“Wisconsin Citizen”, presentation of a Suffrage bill in each legislature were a
regular program. But public apathy and lack of money seemed unconquerable
difficulties. In surveying the history of Woman Suffrage one wonders why these
years were especially unfruitful, why there appears to be little to indicate the
powerful growth of Suffrage sentiment which was to become manifest only a
few years later. But seed had actually been sown and the cause was ready for
the stimulus which was to come from more than one source. One important
influence was the “Suffragette” activities in England, led by Mrs. Pankhurst and
her daughters. Their militant tactics began to be the subject of public comment
in 1907 and the perennial question of their rightness or wrongness was ever
before us. No one can calculate the deep influence of the Pankhurst movement
and methods of propaganda.

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Another important development was the work done in our

women’s colleges in the organization of Suffrage leagues among students and
faculty members. This was an excellent and timely project of the National
Suffrage Association. Mrs. Maud Wood Park was sent to Wisconsin in 1908
and Olympia Brown joined her in a tour of Wisconsin colleges in which leagues
were formed. From these colleges many graduates went home or to other towns
where they were an important influence in organizing Suffrage advocates. And
now the National Association was roused to a mighty effort to secure one
million signatures to a Suffrage petition to be presented to the Congress of
1909. The undertaking was too vast, the time too short for success though the
plan was good and the circulation of the petition with the incidental propaganda
was valuable. The states were assigned their quotas which at the presentation of
the petition in April, 1910, totaled less than half the original number hoped for.
Wisconsin’s list of 18,000 names was secured by a few workers and our Racine
home was headquarters for classifying, counting names, and pasting petitions.
In visits to my brother’s home in Washington in the winters of 1909 and 1910
my mother gave her time freely at the petition headquarters beside speaking
wherever opportunity offered, notably at the meeting of the Civic Federation in
Washington in January, 1910, and before the Maryland legislature in February
of the same year.

In June, 1910, came an invitation to be present at the fiftieth

reunion of the class which was graduated at Antioch College in 1860. With five
other members of her class she took part in the Alumni exercises.

The summer of 1910 was long to be remembered because of a

serious accident which befell my mother. While stepping across the hall one
night, somewhat dazed by sleep, she walked off the upper landing and fell to
the bottom of the stairs, breaking both wrists and her nose and sustaining other
injuries. The following few months were necessarily devoted to recuperation
and nothing was done about Suffrage work. Yet an eventful campaign was in
the immediate future. A Suffrage amendment to the State Constitution was
passed by the Legislature and was to be submitted to the voters at the election
of November, 1912. The years 1911 and 1912 were a time of hard work and
many trials. The Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association was made up for the

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most part of workers of many years, standing. During the dull years it had been
difficult to attract young women to the work so that the membership remained
small. It was a natural result that new organizations should now spring up, each
with its own promoters, and that there should be much overlapping, much
misunderstanding, much wasted or misdirected effort, which was hard to bear
because of the scorn for the older workers, expressed by some of the younger
people who were ignorant of the history of the movement and of the sacrifice
and labor which had kept it alive through the years. In some instances the new
Suffragists were animated by true interest in a cause of which they had recently
learned the importance. Others made the new work a means of gratifying their
own personal ambitions and desire for publicity. Olympia Brown welcomed
every new worker and was glad of any new organization which would cooperate
honorably with the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association. The details of the
1912 campaign, both pleasant and unpleasant, have been forgotten by most
people and history has shown their insignificance when merged in a larger view.
In spite of all the hard work the measure was lost at the polls, one of the chief
factors in its defeat being the brewing interests which feared the influence of
women as voters. The Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association held its annual
convention in Milwaukee in November, 1912. At this meeting, my mother
resigned the presidency, an office which she had held for 28 years. Her last
annual address, still extant, expresses in the practical, unsentimental manner
which was eminently hers in dealing with matters of fact or action, the necessity
that all forces working for Suffrage should be united and that in order to achieve
that end a new slate of officers should be nominated and instructed to meet with
representatives of other groups. The result was that within a few months union
was effected, out-of-state trouble makers disappeared and good leaders took
over the state work which was conducted efficiently until the winning of the vote
by federal amendment, ratification of which was completed in August, 1920. It
was characteristic of my mother that the “Cause” still took precedence of all
other considerations and she therefore continued work after 1912 as chairman
of the Racine County Branch which in some of the following years sent in more
money to the state treasurer than any other county.

One good result of the 1911-1912 campaign was my mother’s

publication of her little book, “Acquaintances Old and New Among Reformers”.

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Photograph from Schlesinger Library which depicts men and women in a
WWI loyalty parade. Olympia Brown can be seen in the front row on the
far left side. Schlesinger Library.
 Chapter VII

This was written at the suggestion of other Suffrage workers and all receipts
from sales of the book were contributed to the Suffrage treasury. Without this
purpose the book would not have been written. I have used freely quotations
from “Acquaintances Old and New” in my compilation of material for Chapter
VI of this present memoir.

In the fall of 191/4 I accepted a post as teacher of Greek and Latin

in the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland, and for the following twelve
years my mother spent winters with me there in my apartment. Here her activity
was still remarkable for a woman of her years. She took part in the work of
the Maryland Suffrage Association and also in hearings in Washington before
committees of the House and Senate.

A new organization with headquarters in Washington, founded

and headed by Alice Paul, at first named “The Congressional Union”, later, “The
Woman’s Party” adopted the militant methods and the steady forceful drive
toward securing the passage of a Constitutional amendment which appealed
strongly to my mother. To her it seemed a re-birth of the old radicalism of Susan
B, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The years of old age of those pioneers,
the following period of the ineffective leadership of Anna Howard Shaw, years
marked by divisions between the policies of state work and national work were
to her the “dark ages” of the movement. Of the Woman’s Party she once declared
emphatically, “I belonged to this party before it was born”. In accordance with
this sympathy, she did all that was in her power to help, yet without any flagging
of her interest in the local work in Maryland and in Wisconsin. One of her
special projects of these later years was the publication in 1917 of a book entitled
“Democratic Ideals, a Life of Clara Bewick Colby”, her old co-worker who died
in 1916. This was a labor of love and appreciation of the self-sacrificing work of
Mrs. Colby. It was hoped that this little book, placed in libraries would preserve
the memory of a pioneer feminist who might otherwise receive less than her due
in the recorded history of the movement. The book is also valuable in containing
a statement of the aims and history of the Federal Suffrage Association to which
Mrs. Colby contributed so much service.

A great pioneer celebration was held in Chicago in January,

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1920. The amendment had been passed by Congress in 1919, ratification was
proceeding, and its early completion was expected. Of the pioneers of the
early days my mother was the only survivor. The span of years from her Kansas
campaign of 1867 to January 1920 was more than half a century in which time
the Suffrage movement had grown from infancy to complete success. “All of it she
saw and part of it she was.” In her speech at the celebration she characteristically
looked at the future. “The question now arises what will the women do with
the vote? The women of the nation with ballots in their hands can and must do
something effective for their country.”

The years 1920-1926 were a period of great contentment. Winters

were spent in Baltimore where she enjoyed association with the Universalist
church, contacts with old Suffrage friends, meetings of peace societies, the Civil
Liberties Union, the Open Forum, and other liberal groups, and holiday visits
at my brother’s home in New York City. Summers were happily spent in our old
home in Racine where she was always busy with her reading, writing, planning
and developing her beloved garden facing Lake Michigan. I remember these
as years of well-deserved happiness. My sabbatical leave, 1925-1926, gave an
opportunity to carry out our long-cherished plan of a European trip. We started
soon after her ninety-first birthday, January 5, 1926, and took the southern
route to the Italian Riviera where we spent some weeks enjoying the sunshine
and beautiful scenes. The later high points of the trip were a visit to Geneva in
especial, the League of Nations buildings, and Paris where a few days’ stay gave
the pleasure of seeing some of the historic places and art treasures known from
books since childhood.

The last summer was a time of increasing weakness and on our

return to Baltimore in September, a more rapid decline began which ended in her
death on October 23rd, after a brief illness. We brought her to Racine for burial.
Many were the tributes of admiration and letters of sympathy. The Baltimore
Sun of October 25 printed the following editorial under the caption “An Ardent
Spirit Passes”, “Olympia Brown carried throughout her long and active life the
dauntless courage and the mental freshness of the frontier environment whence
she came. Queen Victoria had not been called to the throne of England when
this pioneer American Suffragist was born in a Michigan log cabin. Andrew

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Jackson was still President of the United States. Perhaps that helps to explain
why there was so little of Victorian stodginess, so much of Jackson in virility in
the character of Mrs. Willis, to use the married name by which, in accordance
with her principles, she was seldom known. It was a compliment to Baltimore
when, at the age of 80, this interesting and charming lady decided to make her
home here. At such an age no newcomer would be expected to write a name
in current issues. But the Rev. Olympia Brown, though well past her allotted
span, could not remain inactive. Perhaps no phase of her life better exemplified
her vitality and intellectual independence than the mental discomfort she
succeeded in arousing between her eightieth and ninetieth birthdays among
conservatively-minded Baltimoreans”.

I record here the erection of a memorial tablet in the Memorial

Universalist Church in Washington. Beside portrait relief, name, dates, and
designation as the first woman to receive ordination the inscription bears her
favorite quotation “He who works in harmony with justice is immortal.” This
tablet, given by my brother and myself, was hung in its present place in the
narthex of the church in 1930.

In recent years I was approached by the director of the Woman’s

Archives of Radcliffe College with the request that I give the Archives my
mother’s “papers”. Learning more about the Archives, I was convinced that
I could not better preserve the miscellaneous collection of letters, speeches,
sermons, pamphlets, etc. I accordingly gathered, sorted and sent all to the
Archives, beside a quantity of valuable books, many of them out of print, and
have received grateful acknowledgment of the gift. It is good to know that they
are appreciated and suitably placed where students may consult them. A copy of
this memoir will also be placed with them.

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 ADDENDUM

In 2011 –

What percentage of Unitarian Universalist ministers

are women?

Include those in training, more than half of the

ministers in the Unitarian Universalist Association
are women.

Today almost half of all American Protestant

denominations ordain women.
Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church
RACINE, WISCONSIN

Harvard Square Library

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS