Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
considers it as much a duty as to say her prayers. Our women vote
with the same freedom that characterizes any class of people in the
most conscientious acts of their lives."
These various questions were happily solved in 1895, when Utah became a
State. Its Constitution gives women the right to vote on all questions,
and makes them eligible to any office.
The journey over the Rocky Mountains was more interesting and wonderful
than I had imagined. A heavy shower the morning we reached the alkali
plains made the trip through that region, where travelers suffer so
much, quite endurable. Although we reached California in its hot, dry
season, we found the atmosphere in San Francisco delightful, fanned with
the gentle breezes of the Pacific, cooled with the waters of its
magnificent harbor. The Golden Gate does indeed open to the eye of the
traveler one of the most beautiful harbors in the world.
Friends had engaged for us a suite of apartments at the Grand Hotel,
then just opened. Our rooms were constantly decked with fresh flowers,
which our "suffrage children," as they called themselves, brought us
from day to day. So many brought tokens of their good will--in fact, all
our visitors came with offerings of fruits and flowers--that not only
our apartments, but the public tables were crowded with rare and
beautiful specimens of all varieties. We spoke every night, to crowded
houses, on all phases of the woman question, and had a succession of
visitors during the day. In fact, for one week, we had a perfect
ovation. As Senator Stanford and his wife were at the same hotel, we had
many pleasant interviews with them.
While in San Francisco we had many delightful sails in the harbor and
drives to the seashore and for miles along the beach. We spent several
hours at the little Ocean House, watching the gambols of the celebrated
seals. These, like the big trees, were named after distinguished
statesmen. One very black fellow was named Charles Sumner, in honor of
his love of the black race; another, with a little squint in his eye,
was called Ben Butler; a stout, rotund specimen that seemed to take life
philosophically, was named Senator Davis of Illinois; a very belligerent
one, who appeared determined to crowd his confrères into the sea, was
called Secretary Stanton. Grant and Lincoln, on a higher ledge of the
rocks, were complacently observing the gambols of the rest.
California was on the eve of an important election, and John A. Bingham
of Ohio and Senator Cole were stumping the State for the Republican
party. At several points we had the use of their great tents for our
audiences, and of such of their able arguments as applied to woman. As
Mr. Bingham's great speech was on the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments, every principle he laid down literally
enfranchised the women of the nation. I met the Ohio statesman one
morning at breakfast, after hearing him the night before. I told him his
logic must compel him to advocate woman suffrage. With a most cynical
smile he said "he was not the puppet of logic, but the slave of
practical politics."
We met most of our suffrage coadjutors in different parts of California.
I spent a few days with Mrs. Elizabeth B. Schenck, one of the earliest
pioneers in the suffrage movement. She was a cultivated, noble woman,
and her little cottage was a gem of beauty and comfort, surrounded with
beautiful gardens and a hedge of fish-geraniums over ten feet high,
covered with scarlet flowers. It seemed altogether more like a fairy
bower than a human habitation. The windmills all over California, for
pumping water, make a very pretty feature in the landscape, as well as
an important one, as people are obliged to irrigate their gardens
during the dry season. In August the hills are as brown as ours in
December.
Here, too, I first met Senator Sargent's family, and visited them in
Sacramento City, where we had a suffrage meeting in the evening and one
for women alone next day. At a similar meeting in San Francisco six
hundred women were present in Platt's Hall. We discussed marriage,
maternity, and social life in general. Supposing none but women were
present, as all were dressed in feminine costume, the audience were
quite free in their questions, and I equally so in my answers. To our
astonishment, the next morning, a verbatim report of all that was said
appeared in one of the leading papers, with most respectful comments. As
I always wrote and read carefully what I had to say on such delicate
subjects, the language was well chosen and the presentation of facts and
philosophy quite unobjectionable; hence, the information being as
important for men as for women, I did not regret the publication. During
the day a committee of three gentlemen called to know if I would give a
lecture to men alone. As I had no lecture prepared, I declined, with the
promise to do so the next time I visited California. The idea was novel,
but I think women could do much good in that way.
My readers may be sure that such enterprising travelers as Miss Anthony
and myself visited all the wonders, saw the geysers, big trees, the
Yosemite Valley, and the immense mountain ranges, piled one above
another, until they seemed to make a giant pathway from earth to heaven.
We drove down the mountain sides with Fox, the celebrated whip; sixteen
people in an open carriage drawn by six horses, down, down, down, as
fast as we could go. I expected to be dashed to pieces, but we safely
descended in one hour, heights we had taken three to climb. Fox held a
steady rein, and seemed as calm as if we were trotting on a level,
though any accident, such as a hot axle, a stumbling horse, or a break
in the harness would have sent us down the mountain side, two thousand
feet, to inevitable destruction. He had many amusing anecdotes to tell
of Horace Greeley's trip to the Geysers. The distinguished journalist
was wholly unprepared for the race down the mountains and begged Fox to
hold up. Sitting in front he made several efforts to seize the lines.
But Fox assured him that was the only possible way they could descend in
safety, as the horses could guide the stage, but they could not hold it.
At Stockton we met a party of friends just returning from the Yosemite,
who gave us much valuable information for the journey. Among other
things, I was advised to write to Mr. Hutchins, the chief authority
there, to have a good, strong horse in readiness to take me down the
steep and narrow path into the valley. We took the same driver and
carriage which our friends had found trustworthy, and started early in
the morning. The dust and heat made the day's journey very wearisome,
but the prospect of seeing the wonderful valley made all hardships of
little consequence. Quite a large party were waiting to mount their
donkeys and mules when we arrived. One of the attendants, a man about as
thin as a stair rod, asked me if I was the lady who had ordered a strong
horse; I being the stoutest of the party, he readily arrived at that
conclusion, so my steed was promptly produced. But I knew enough of
horses and riding to see at a glance that he was a failure, with his low
withers and high haunches, for descending steep mountains. In addition
to his forward pitch, his back was immensely broad. Miss Anthony and I
decided to ride astride and had suits made for that purpose; but alas!
my steed was so broad that I could not reach the stirrups, and the
moment we began to descend, I felt as if I were going over his head. So
I fell behind, and, when the party had all gone forward, I dismounted,
though my slender guide assured me there was no danger, he "had been up
and down a thousand times." But, as I had never been at all, his
repeated experiences did not inspire me with courage. I decided to walk.
That, the guide said, was impossible. "Well," said I, by way of
compromise, "I will walk as far as I can, and when I reach the
impossible, I will try that ill-constructed beast. I cannot see what you
men were thinking of when you selected such an animal for this journey."
And so we went slowly down, arguing the point whether it were better to
ride or walk; to trust one's own legs, or, by chance, be precipitated
thousands of feet down the mountain side.
It was a hot August day; the sun, in the zenith, shining with full
power. My blood was at boiling heat with exercise and vexation.
Alternately sliding and walking, catching hold of rocks and twigs,
drinking at every rivulet, covered with dust, dripping with
perspiration, skirts, gloves, and shoes in tatters, for four long hours
I struggled down to the end, when I laid myself out on the grass, and
fell asleep, perfectly exhausted, having sent the guide to tell Mr.
Hutchins that I had reached the valley, and, as I could neither ride nor
walk, to send a wheelbarrow, or four men with a blanket to transport me
to the hotel. That very day the Mariposa Company had brought the first
carriage into the valley, which, in due time, was sent to my relief.
Miss Anthony, who, with a nice little Mexican pony and narrow saddle,
had made her descent with grace and dignity, welcomed me on the steps of
the hotel, and laughed immoderately at my helpless plight.
As hour after hour had passed, she said, there had been a general
wonderment as to what had become of me; "but did you ever see such
magnificent scenery?" "Alas!" I replied, "I have been in no mood for
scenery. I have been constantly watching my hands and feet lest I should
come to grief." The next day I was too stiff and sore to move a finger.
However, in due time I awoke to the glory and grandeur of that wonderful
valley, of which no descriptions nor paintings can give the least idea.
With Sunset Cox, the leading Democratic statesman, and his wife, we had
many pleasant excursions through the valley, and chats, during the
evening, on the piazza. There was a constant succession of people going
and coming, even in that far-off region, and all had their adventures to
relate. But none quite equaled my experiences.
We spent a day in the Calaveras Grove, rested beneath the "big trees,"
and rode on horseback through the fallen trunk of one of them. Some
vandals sawed off one of the most magnificent specimens twenty feet
above the ground, and, on this the owners of the hotel built a little
octagonal chapel. The polished wood, with bark for a border, made a very
pretty floor. Here they often had Sunday services, as it held about one
hundred people. Here, too, we discussed the suffrage question, amid
these majestic trees that had battled with the winds two thousand
years, and had probably never before listened to such rebellion as we
preached to the daughters of earth that day.
Here, again, we found our distinguished statesmen immortalized, each
with his namesake among these stately trees. We asked our guide if there
were any not yet appropriated, might we name them after women. As he
readily consented, we wrote on cards the names of a dozen leading women,
and tacked them on their respective trees. Whether Lucretia Mott, Lucy
Stone, Phoebe Couzins, and Anna Dickinson still retain their identity,
and answer when called by the goddess Sylvia in that majestic grove, I
know not. Twenty-five years have rolled by since then, and a new
generation of visitors and guides may have left no trace of our work
behind them. But we whispered our hopes and aspirations to the trees, to
be wafted to the powers above, and we left them indelibly pictured on
the walls of the little chapel, and for more mortal eyes we scattered
leaflets wherever we went, and made all our pleasure trips so many
propaganda for woman's enfranchisement.
Returning from California I made the journey straight through from San