Halfway Brook

When Mr. Andrews dropped by the first day of the New Year, Abby and Julia gave him their usual warm welcome. They soon found out exactly what the town men thought of Abby’s speech.

Mr. Andrews presented a document which gave him permission to immediately take Julia’s pet cows—unless they paid their tax bill of $101.39.

Julia and Abby pleaded for a chance to speak to the town again to see if they would allow them to pay twelve percent interest (one percent a month), the same as voters (men) were allowed to do, on the $2,000 the men owed the town.

Mr. Andrews ignored the sisters and left to remove seven of Julia’s eight pet cows. (The law required they be removed for seven days before the auction.)

Mr. A. also disregarded Julia’s plea to leave two cows so the young one would have a companion. The little one left behind cried the whole time.

Andrews led the seven cows (which rebelled all the way) to Neighbor Hale’s empty tobacco shed, two or three houses above the Smiths. Julia could hear the cows complaining all night. She worried about the comfort of her pets, all huddled in the 15-foot by 12-foot shed 24 (which she had measured herself).

The cows were more trouble than they were worth. Mr. Hale had to carry water (around twenty-one pails a day) some distance. Hay had to be brought from another building. The cows, of course, wouldn’t let him milk them, so he had to ask Mr. Kellogg to do the milking. And Mrs. Hale would not take a drop of their milk.

On January 8, 1874, in the “depth of winter,” since Abby and Julia would not pay their tax bill, Mr. Andrews led the seven pets from their crowded “home” to the auction signpost, a half mile away.

The procession—complete with drum accompaniment, began. Mr. Andrews led the best cow Jessie. Daisy, Proxy, Minnie, Bessie, Whitey, and Lilly, four men, a dog, and a drummer followed. Several teams and Julia and Abby in a wagon with Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg completed the “parade” (or funeral, as Mrs. K. thought) to the signpost.

The forty men at the signpost, hoping to get a good Alderney for cheap, bid so low, that Mr. Kellogg (with the money the sisters gave him) bought four cows for $101.39, the tax amount the sisters owed. Continue reading →

Though pure breed Alderney cattle no longer exist, at the time they were famous for their abundant supply of milk and rich butter.

Alderneys were a smaller cow and supposedly docile. But Julia’s brindle Alderneys would listen only to her. As soon as Julia called their names, they galloped single file and followed wherever she led them. They were obstinate and ornery for anyone else. If someone new was milking them, Julia had to stand where the Alderneys could see her, until they trusted the new milker.—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, p. 209.

Alderney, Jersey, and Guernsey cattle breeds originated on Islands of the same name in the British Channel.

Pure-breed Alderneys (which no longer exist) were smaller and more slender boned than Jerseys and Guernseys.

In June 1940, before the Germans took over, some 1,500 native Alderney folks were evacuated to mainland Britain. Some Alderneans went instead to Guernsey, where they were forced to stay for the war.

Most of the Alderney cattle were shipped to Guernsey where they interbred with the local Guernsey breed. The few purebred Alderney cattle which stayed on the island died at the hands of the Germans as did some 400 of the 6,000 people living in the prison camps.

The Alderney bloodline can be traced in some American herds.
—Jordan Allen, BBC News, “Alderney Cow: The Breed Jerseys and Guernseys Overshadowed,” February 5, 2013.

Alderneys are mentioned in Jane Austen’s novel, Emma (1815) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s, Cranford (1853).

On October 15, 1873, almost a year since the $100 tax increase, Abby Smith attended a Woman’s Congress in New York City with Frances Ellen Burr. The main national suffrage leaders there included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, her husband Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe.

No Speaking at this Time
When Abby returned from New York, she convinced Julia to go with her to their Town Hall to defend their rights. “The men will listen, see our point, and even apologize, the best way they can.”

But later that October, when Abby requested time to speak, the men made a rule that there should be no speaking at that time. “A faint heart never won a fair lady,” said Abby who was rarely discouraged, and tried again in November.

Tax Collection Time
At sunset Monday, November 3, 1873, the new tax collector George Andrews dropped by the Smith home to collect taxes. The sisters told Mr. Andrews that they first wanted to ask the town if they would allow them to vote.

What Rightfully Belongs to Every Human Being
On Wednesday, November 5, 1873 Abby, age seventy-six, who thought “everyone in the town friendly,” spoke to the men at Glastenbury’s Town Hall. It was the first speech she had ever given.

“You have the power over our property to take it from us whenever you choose…” Abby said. “Is it unreasonable” for “the town to put us on an equality with these men…God is a God of justice; men and women stand alike in his sight. He has but one law for both…

“And here where liberty is so highly extolled…one-half the inhabitants are…ruled over by the other half, who can by their own laws, not hers, take from the other half all they possess…”

Though the men treated Abby and Julia “with much respect” and applauded, they were silent when Abby stopped speaking. The sisters didn’t know what the men thought. Abby’s speech was published in the Hartford Courant.

When Collector Andrews called a second time to collect the sisters’ taxes, Julia and Abby told him they were waiting to hear what the town had to say after Abby’s speech. Mr. Andrews left and said he would call again.
—Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 214–216. Continue reading →

It was the summer of 1872. Abby and Julia Smith lived in their roomy, comfortable Kimberly Mansion—a white, two-story house with green shutters.

The home, well over one hundred years old, sat on the original 133 acres, which included woods, farmland, Abby’s beautiful flower garden, and meadows for Julia’s pet Alderney cows.

Abby and Julia continued to be known in Glastonbury for their hatred of slavery and the kindnesses they showed their neighbors and those in need.

They graciously entertained visitors, friends, and neighbors in their home which held seventy-seven years’ worth of family memories.

Julia talked faster. But it didn’t matter who did the talking, they both held the same views.

The Assessor
Late in the fall of 1872 a subtle breeze hinted that a tax storm was about to begin.

Collector Cornish stopped at Kimberly Mansion to collect two hundred dollars in taxes—one hundred dollars more than usual. Abby and Julia had not been notified and had not saved any extra money. Two widows in the neighborhood also had their taxes raised, but none of the men.

“As the assessor, I have the right to add as much as I please,” Mr. Cornish explained to the sisters.

Never one to be silent when there was injustice, Julia scolded Mr. Cornish. “This is so wrong to treat us in this manner. We could not raise money enough from our land to pay its taxes, but men…could raise tobacco and pay theirs readily.”

Mr. Cornish then consulted with the Selectmen who directed him to collect the whole amount. Abby and Julia paid the town over $200 that year.

“To be sure it increased our tax but little,” the sisters agreed. “But what is unjust in least is unjust in much.”

The comment referenced Mr. Hampden who, in 1637, would not pay the illegal ship tax, imposed by England’s King Charles I. The unjust tax was one of the reasons many left England for the New World and helped lead to the English Civil War, in Old England.

Challenging, but quite different, times were ahead for both Abby and Julia Smith and their second cousin Mary Ann Eldred Austin, during the 1870s. The decade began and ended with a death in each family.

The Austins
The 1870s were difficult years for Henry and Mary Ann Eldred Austin. In December 1870 Randolph Laing Austin, their youngest child, died. Not yet two years old, Randolph was their second child to die.

Hancy Zephina Smith, 1787–1871
On the last day of June 1871, the oldest Smith sister Hancy Zephina Smith died. Julia wrote that Zephina was “the life of the house, who had a keen sense of injustice.”

Abby and Julia were left to care for their large two-story home and farm with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg. Julia spent time in her study with a view of her beloved cows. Abby occupied her days caring for her cherished flowers.

The sisters could not possibly foresee the trouble their beloved home and Glastonbury property would cause in the fall of 1872.
—Excerpt from Abby, Laurilla, and Mary Ann, pp. 205–207.

In October 1869 Julia, Abby, and Zephina—the three remaining Smith sisters—received a second unexpected tax bill, which they paid. Since women could not vote, they had no way to dispute the second bill.

To the suffrage meeting we went…—Julia E. Smith, 1876.

The Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association
October 28, 1869 was “a raw, sour day.” But the snow on the ground did not stop Julia and Abby Smith from traveling the seven miles to Hartford for the first Connecticut Woman Suffrage meeting.

The event was organized by Isabella Beecher Hooker and Frances Ellen Burr, both friends or soon-to-be-friends of Abby and Julia. The CWSA hoped to persuade the Connecticut General Assembly to ratify the Sixteenth Amendment and give Connecticut women the right to vote.

Many of the men and women who had worked towards abolishing slavery, joined the campaign to give women the right to vote. This included a number of Beecher siblings: Isabella Beecher and her husband John Hooker, Catharine E. Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

Girls Should Be Educated
The first session started soon after ten o’clock, in the poorly heated Roberts’ Opera House. John Hooker (direct descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker) called the meeting to order. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Isabella’s half brother, prayed.

Rev. Nathaniel Judson (N.J.) Burton, pastor of the Fourth Congregational Church in Hartford, began the meeting with a good-natured talk.

Then the famous Hutchinson Family sang. The family, which originally included thirteen children, had been singing since 1841 first for Abolition and later Temperance Societies. Continue reading →

The house on the right with a white fence is C.C.P. Eldred’s house. The bridge crossed over Halfway Brook, the brook which impressed Laurilla Smith. The Austin home (not shown) is less than a half mile east (right). On the left is the Congregational Church where Rev. Kyte preached. It did not have a steeple when Abby and Laurilla visited. In the middle is the Methodist Church which was not built until 1859, and did not have a steeple until 1900.

Abby’s Eight Letters, 1854–1869
After Abby and Laurilla Smith returned home to Glastenbury (now Glastonbury), Connecticut, Abby, (though she did not like to write letters) became the sister chosen to reply to Mary Ann.

Abby’s straight forward, pleasant correspondence is a window into life at their Kimberly Mansion and the care the sisters had for each other. Abby’s letters updated Mary Ann on the Hickoks living in Greenville and Pennsylvania, often asked about Justus Hickok, who lived in Barryville with his family, and mentioned C.C.P. Eldred, the postmaster.

We learn that Abby was very impressed with James Eldred. She found Hannah Hickok Eldred “perhaps most interesting.” Laurilla was “the most interested” in Mary Ann who seemed like their mother (Hannah Smith) with three young daughters so close in age.

Always interested in Mary Ann’s family, Abby encouraged Mary Ann to write often and hoped she would visit them in Glastenbury. Continue reading →

Mary Ann Eldred Austin kept a scrapbook packed with poems (one of Charles Dickens’s), articles (one of Mark Twain’s), pictures (mostly of children), colorful stickers, and newspaper clippings.

Along with the images shown here, Mary Ann’s collection (owned and shared by her great-granddaughter Melva) includes first hand newspaper accounts of the burial place of President Garfield who was assassinated in 1881; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s death in 1882; a photo of Rev. Henry Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe; and a 1903 photo of President Theodore Roosevelt and his family.

The many poems include: three Mary Ann wrote, several of her daughter Emma Austin’s, and one of her son Lon’s, all published in papers in Solomon City, Kansas, 1879–80.