Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/698

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668
History of Woman Suffrage.
668

MOZART HALL,

new york, may 13, 14, 1858.

The year 1857 seems to have passed without a National Convention, although the work was still vigorously prosecuted in the State of New York, but in the spring of 1858, the ninth National Convention was called in New York during the week of the anniversaries when crowds were always attracted to attend the various religious and reformatory meetings. Henceforward, for many years, a Woman's Rights Convention was a marked feature of this period in the month of May. There were several persons at this Convention who had not before honored our platform.[1] These, with the usual familiar speakers,[2] filled the platform with quite a striking group of

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    of men and women are equal. Whether slavery be abolished or not, I desire that a part of the said residue of my estate may be applied to the promotion of the kindred causes of Temperance, Woman's Rights, Non-Resistance and Free Trade, at the discretion of the said Phillips and his associates.

    Article 22. I particularly request that no prayers be solicited from any person, and that no priest be invited to perform any ceremony whatever, over or after my body. The Priesthood are an order of men, as I believe, falsely assuming to be reverend and divine, pretending to be called of God; the great body of them in all countries have been on the side of power and oppression; the world has been too long cheated by them; the soonerthey are unmasked, the better for humanity. As I have heretofore borne my testimony against slavery, intemperance, war, tariffs and all indirect taxation, banks and all monopolies, I desire to leave on record my abhorrence of them all. The fear of being buried before I am dead is slight, nevertheless it is greater than the fear of death itself. I therefore request my executors not to bury my body until at least three days after my decease. In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand and seal, this twenty-eighth day of March, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.

    charles f. hovey.

    Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Testator to be his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at his request, and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses.

    George L. Lovett.
    Thomas Mack.
    Wiliam W. Howe.

    I do prove, approve and allow the same, and order it to be recorded. Given under my hand and seal of office, the day and year above written.

    Isaac Ames,

    Judge of Probate and Insolvency.

    May 30, 1859.

  1. George William Curtis, Mrs. Eliza W. Fernham, Parker Pillsbury, Sarah Hallock, Mrs. Sidney Howard Gay, Sarah M. Grimké, Charles Lenox Remond, Lucy A. Coleman, Surah P. Remond, and the Hutchinson family, consisting of Jessie, his wife, and two children, and Abby, who sung among many other sweet ballads, "The Good Time Coming."
  2. Frederick Douglas, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Frances Dana Gage, Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline H. Dall, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, Aaron M. Powell.