eresting fact in her history, to woman, is that she
was the first State to emancipate wives from the slavery of the old
common law of England, and to secure to them equal property rights.
This occurred in 1848. Various bills and petitions, with reference to
the civil rights of woman, had been under discussion twelve years, and
the final passage of the property bill was due in no small measure to
two facts. 1st. The constitutional convention in 1847, which compelled
the thinking people of the State, and especially the members of the
convention, to the serious consideration of the fundamental principles
of government. As in the revision of a Constitution the State is for
the time being resolved into its original elements in recognizing the
equality of all the people, one would naturally think that a chance
ray of justice might have fallen aslant the wrongs of woman and
brought to the surface some champion in that convention, especially as
some aggravated cases of cruelty in families of wealth and position
had just at that time aroused the attention of influential men to the
whole question. 2d. Among the Dutch aristocracy of the State there was
a vast amount of dissipation; and as married women could hold neither
property nor children under the common law, solid, thrifty Dutch
fathers were daily confronted with the fact that the inheritance of
their daughters, carefully accumulated, would at marriage pass into
the hands of dissipated, impecunious husbands, reducing them and their
children to poverty and dependence. Hence this influential class of
citizens heartily seconded the efforts of reformers, then demanding
equal property rights in the marriage relation. Thus a wise
selfishness on one side, and principle on the other, pushed the
conservatives and radicals into the same channel, and both alike found
anchor in the statute law of 1848. This was the death-blow to the old
Blackstone code for married women in this country, and ever since
legislation has been slowly, but steadily, advancing toward their
complete equality.

Desiring to know who prompted the legislative action on the Property
Bill in 1848, and the names of our champions who carried it
successfully through after twelve years of discussion and petitioning,
a letter of inquiry was addressed to the Hon. George Geddes of the
twenty-second district--at that time Senator--and received the
following reply:

FAIRMOUNT, ONONDAGA C