he school election in September, when the first
woman's vote was cast in Manistee county. Each succeeding
year has witnessed more women at the school election, until,
in 1883, they outnumbered the men, and would have elected
their ticket but for a fraud perpetrated by the old
school-board, which made the election void.

In August 1881, Mrs. May Wright Sewall delivered two
lectures in Manistee. In February 1882, a social,
celebrating Miss Anthony's birthday, was given by the
association at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Fowler, and was
voted a success. Through the untiring efforts of Mrs. Lucy
T. Stansell, who was also a member of the Ladies' Lever
League, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert gave a Manistee
audience a rich treat in her "Homes of Representative
Women," and her conversation on suffrage elicited much
interest.

During the autumn of 1882, petitions asking for municipal
suffrage were circulated. The venerable Josiah R. Holden of
Grand Rapids, father of Mrs. Fowler, then in his 88th year,
obtained the largest number of signatures to his petition of
any one in the State. A bill granting municipal suffrage to
women was drawn by Mrs. Fowler, introduced in the
legislature by Hon. George J. Robinson, and afterwards
tabled. At the session of 1885 a similar bill came within a
few votes of being carried.

In Grand Rapids there was no revival of systematic work
until 1880, when the National Association held a very
successful two days' convention in the city. In response to
a petition from the society, the legislature in the winter
of 1885 passed a law, giving to the tax-paying women of the
city the right to vote on school questions at the charter
elections. At the first meeting a hundred women were
present, and hundreds availed themselves of their new power
and voted at the first election.

The State Society held its annual meeting at Grand Rapids,
October 7, 8, 9, 1885, at which the address of welcome was given
by Mrs. Loraine Immen, president of the City Society,[322] and
responded to by Mrs. Stebbins of Detroit.[323]

The only religious sect in the world, unless we ex