do all we can, not only in our
own town, but in the adjoining ones of Richmond, East Bloomfield,
Canandaigua, and Naples. I have promises of aid from people of
influence in obtaining signatures. In the meantime we wish to
disseminate some able work upon the enfranchisement of women. We
wish to present our Assemblyman elect, whoever he may be, with
some work of this kind, and solicit his candid attention to the
subject. People are more willing to be convinced by the calm
perusal of an argument, than in a personal discussion....

Our Society was composed of some fifteen or twenty ladies, and we met
once in two weeks, in each other's parlors, alternately, for
discussion and interchange of ideas. I was chosen President; Mrs.
Sophia Allen, Vice-President; Mrs. Horace Pennell, Treasurer; and one
of several young ladies who were members was Secretary. Horace
Pennell, Esq., and his wife were two of our most earnest helpers. We
drafted a petition to the Legislature to grant women the right of
suffrage, and obtained the names of sixty-two of the most intelligent
people, male and female, in our own and adjoining towns, and sent it
to our Representative in Albany. It was received by the Legislature as
something absurdly ridiculous, and laid upon the table. We introduced
the question into the Debating Clubs, that were in those days such
popular institutions in the rural districts, and in every way sought
to agitate the subject. I found a great many men, especially those of
the better class, disposed to accord equal rights to our sex. And,
now, as the highest tribute that I can pay to the memory of a husband,
I may say that during our companionship of thirty-five years, I was
most cordially sustained by mine, in my advocacy of equal rights to
women. Amongst my own sex, I found too many on whom ages of repression
had wrought their natural effect, and whose ideas and aspirations were
narrowed down to the confines of "woman's sphere," beyond whose limits
it was not only impious, but infamous to tread. "Woman's sphere"
_then_, was to discharge the duties of a housekeeper, ply the needle,
and teach a primary or ladies' school. From press, and pulpit, and
platform, she was taught that "to be unknown was her highest praise,"
that "dependence was her best protection," and "her weakness her
sweetest charm." She needed only sufficient intelligence to comprehend
her husband's superiority, and to obey him