CHAPTER VIII.

      Massachusetts.

       Table of Contents

      Women in the Revolution—Anti-Tea Leagues—Phillis Wheatley—Mistress Anne Hutchinson—Heroines in the Slavery Conflict—Women Voting under the Colonial Charter—Mary Upton Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in 1848—Woman's Rights Conventions in 1850, '51—Letter of Harriet Martineau from England—Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell in Paris—Editorial from The Christian Inquirer—The Una, edited by Paulina Wright Davis—Constitutional Convention in 1853—Before the Legislature in 1857—Harriet K. Hunt's Protest against Taxation—Lucy Stone's Protest against the Marriage Laws—Boston Conventions—Theodore Parker on Woman's Position.

During the Revolutionary period, the country was largely indebted to the women of Massachusetts. Their patriotism was not only shown in the political plans of Mercy Otis Warren,25 and the sagacious counsels of Abigail Smith Adams, but by the action of many other women whose names history has not preserved. It was a woman who sent Paul Revere on his famous ride from Boston to Concord, on the night of April 18, 1775, to warn the inhabitants of the expected invasion of the British on the morrow. The church bells pealing far and near on the midnight air, roused tired sleepers hurriedly to arm themselves against the invaders of their homes.

      During the war two women of Concord dressed in men's clothing, captured a spy bearing papers which proved of the utmost importance to the patriot forces.

During these early days, the women of various Colonies—Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts—formed Anti-Tea Leagues. In Providence, R. I., young ladies took the initiative; twenty-nine daughters of prominent families, meeting under the shade of the sycamore trees at Roger Williams' spring, there resolving to drink no more tea until the duty upon it was repealed. The name of one of these young ladies, Miss Coddington, has been preserved, to whose house they all adjourned to partake of a frugal repast; hyperion26 taking the place of the hated bohea. In Newport, at a gathering of ladies, where both hyperion and bohea were offered, every lady present refused the hated bohea, emblem of political slavery. In Boston, early in 1769, the matrons of three hundred families bound themselves to use no more tea until the tax upon it was taken off. The young ladies also entered into a similar covenant, declaring they took this step, not from personal motives, but from a sense of patriotism and a regard for posterity.27 Liberty, as alone making life of value, looked as sweet to them as to their fathers. The Women's Anti-Tea Leagues of Boston were formed nearly five years previous to the historic "Boston Tea Party," when men disguised as Indians, threw the East India Company's tea overboard, and six years before the declaration of war.

      American historians ignoring woman after man's usual custom, have neglected to mention the fact that every paper in Boston was suspended during its invasion by the British, except the chief rebel newspapers of New England, The Massachusetts Gazette and North Boston News-Letter, owned and edited by a woman, Margaret Draper.

      They make small note of Women's Anti-Tea Leagues, and the many instances of their heroism during the Revolutionary period, equaling, as they did, any deeds of self-sacrifice and bravery that man himself can boast.

      The men of Boston, in 1773, could with little loss to themselves, throw overboard a cargo of foreign tea, well knowing that for the last five years this drink had not been allowed in their houses by the women of their own families. Their reputation for patriotism was thus cheaply earned in destroying what did not belong to them and what was of no use to them. Their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters drank raspberry, sage, and birch, lest by the use of foreign tea they should help rivet the chains of oppression upon their country. Why should not the American Revolution have been successful, when women so nobly sustained republican principles, taking the initiative in self-sacrifice and pointing the path to man by patriotic example.

In Massachusetts, as in other States, were also formed associations known as "Daughters of Liberty."28 These organizations did much to fan the nascent flames of freedom.

      The first naval battle of the Revolution was fought at Machias, Maine, then a part of Massachusetts. An insult having been offered its inhabitants, by a vessel in the harbor, the men of the surrounding country joined with them to avenge this indignity to their "Liberty Tree," arming themselves, from scarcity of powder, with scythes, pitchforks, and other implements of peace. At a settlement some twenty miles distant, a quantity of powder was discovered, after the men had left for Machias. What was to be done, was the immediate question. Every able-bodied man had already left, only small boys and men too aged or too infirm for battle having remained at home. Upon that powder reaching them the defeat of the British, might depend. In this emergency the heroism of woman was shown. Two young girls, Hannah and Rebecca Weston, volunteered their services. It was no holiday excursion for them, but a trip filled with unseen dangers. The way led through a trackless forest, the route merely indicated by blazed trees. Bears, wolves, and wild-cats were numerous. The distance was impossible to be traversed in a single day; these young girls must spend the night in that dreary wilderness. Worse than danger from wild animals, was that to be apprehended from Indians, who might kill them, or capture and bear them away to some distant tribe. But undauntedly they set out on their perilous journey, carrying twenty pounds of powder. They reached Machias in safety, before the attack on the British ship, finding their powder a most welcome and effective aid in the victory which soon crowned the arms of the Colonists. The heroism of these young girls was far greater than if they had fought in the ranks, surrounded by companions,'mid the accompaniments of beating drums, waving flags, and all the paraphernalia of war.

In the war of 1812 two young girls of Scituate, Rebecca and Abigail W. Bates, by their wit and sagacity, prevented the landing of the enemy at this point.29 Congress, during its session of 1880, nearly seventy years afterward, granted them pensions, just as from extreme age they were about to drop into the grave.

      Though it is not considered important to celebrate the virtues of the Pilgrim Mothers in gala days, grand dinners, toasts, and speeches, yet a little retrospection would enable us to exhume from the past, many of their achievements worth recording. More facts than we have space to reproduce, testify to the heroism, religious zeal, and literary industry of the women who helped to build up the early civilization of New England. Their writings, for some presumed on authorship, are quaint and cumbrous; but in those days, when few men published books, it required marked courage for women to appear in print at all. They imitated the style popular among men, and received much attention for their literary ability. Charles T. Congdon, as the result of his explorations through old