Oregon State Woman Suffrage Association, with Harriet W.
Williams, a venerated octogenarian, president. This estimable
woman had been one of the earliest leaders of the woman suffrage
movement in the State of New York, and her presence at the head
of our meetings in Oregon was a source of genuine satisfaction to
the friends of the cause in the new State of her adoption.
Subsequently, Mrs. Williams was compelled to resign on account of
increasing infirmities, but her wise counsels are still cherished
by her successors, whom she regards with motherly solicitude as
she serenely awaits the final summons of the unseen messenger.
Many of those who early distinguished themselves in this
connection deserve special mention because of their
long-continued zeal in the work.[509] If others failed us, these
were always ready to work the hardest when the fight was hottest.
And whatever might be our differences of opinion personally, we
have always presented an unbroken phalanx to the foe. The
original society at Salem having disbanded, its members joined
the new State Association organized at Portland, which has ever
since been regarded as the nucleus of all our activities.

In September of 1872, I visited the Oregon legislature, where I
went clothed by our association with discretionary power to do
what I could to secure special legislation for the women of the
State, who, with few exceptions, were at that time entirely under
the dominion of the old common law. The exceptions were those
fortunate women who, having come to Oregon as early as 1850 and
'52, had, by virtue of a United States law, known as the Oregon
Donation Land Act, become possessed of "claims," as they were
called, on equal shares with their husbands, their half, or
halves, of the original ground being set apart as their separate
property in realty and _fee simple_. This Donation Land Act
deserves especial mention, it being the first law enacted in the
United States which recognized the individual personality of a
married woman. It became a temporary law of congress in 1850,
mainly through the efforts of Hon. Samuel R. Thurston, delegate
from Oregon territory (which at that time included the whole of
Washington territory), aided by the eminent Dr. Linn of Missouri,
from whom one of the prin