A woman in Madison county acted as census-taker, and performed her duty well. She was the niece of Mr. Justice Miller of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gen. W. J. Sanderson, internal revenue collector for the eighth district, employed two young ladies as clerks, Miss Brown and Miss Price, the former of whom is said to be his best clerk. She is the sister of Mrs. Smith, the circuit clerk of Laurel county. The successor of General Sanderson, employs his two daughters as clerks, and they receive the same pay as men who do the same work.
Many women in our State manage their own farms, My mother, during my father's absence as minister to Russia, took his farm of 2,500 acres (he making her his attorney), paid off a large debt on the property, built an elegant house costing $30,000, stocked the farm, and largely supported the family of six children, with money which she made during the war. She fed government mules, and did it so well that she would return them to camp before the time expired, in better condition than most feeders got theirs. She is now, 1885, conducting her own farm of 350 acres, selling several thousand dollars' worth of wheat, cattle, and sheep annually, giving her personal attention to everything, at the age of seventy. During the adventurous and perilous period of my father's life she shared his dangers, and was ever his mainstay in upholding his hands against slavery; and in that crowning point of his life, when he was mobbed in Lexington, my mother sat at his bed-side, and wrote at his dictation, "Go tell your secret conclave of dastardly assassins, Cassius M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them."
Two of my sisters, Laura and Anne, and myself are practical farmers, each having under her immediate superintendence the workmen, both white and black, on 300 acres. We raise corn, wheat, oats, cattle and sheep, buying and selling our own stock and produce. We took possession of the land without stock or utensils, and by our observation and experience, prudence and industry, have greatly improved the lands and stock, and annually realize a handsome income therefrom.
Miss Laura R. White of Manchester, sister of Hon. John D. White, who ably advocated our cause in congress as well as in his own State, was graduated with marked honor from the Michigan State University in 1874. Since that time she has studied architecture in the Boston Institute of Technology one year, worked as draughtsman in the office of the supervisory architect of the treasury department at Washington, two years, studied in the special school of architecture in Paris one year, and is now, 1886, prosecuting her studies with a liberal selection of French and English architectural works at her mountain home in Kentucky. Mrs. Bessie White Heagen, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Sarah A. White, was graduated with honor from the Roxbury High School of Boston, and from the
