work among the advocates of woman suffrage, felt that Mrs. Lockwood had struck the key-note of the situation when she became a candidate for the presidency of the United States. When she realized Mrs. Lockwood's earnestness of purpose, her ambition was roused to the point of emulation; hence her candidacy for the mayoralty of Brooklyn, as the representative of the equal rights party for that office, for she believes that a local treatment is best for any disease. The result testified to the correctness of her belief. The campaign of ten days' duration with but two public meetings, resulted in her receiving fifty votes regularly counted, and many more thrown out among the scattering, before the New York "Tribune" made a demand for her vote. Mrs. Beckwith has compiled many incidents relating to that novel campaign in a lecture on the subject. She believes thoroughly that women should take an active part in the political as well as the religious and social field, thus becoming broader and more charitable, and none the less loving, kind and womanly. Free from jealousy of any sort, believing in individualism, she is naturally an earnest advocate of the cause of the oppressed of all classes. She has entered the regular lecture field and is an able and entertaining speaker, enlivening her earnestness with bright, witty sayings.
BEDFORD, Mrs. Lou Singletary, author, born in Feliciana, Graves county, Ky., 7th April, 1837. She comes of a good and distinguished
LOU SINGLETARY BEDFORD.
family on both sides. Her father, Luther Singletary, was of English descent and a native of Massachusetts, born in 1796. He was educated and spent his early manhood in Boston. Her mother, Elizabeth Hamilton Stell, was born in 1802, in Dinwiddie county, near Petersburg, Va. Mrs. Lou Singletary Bedford is the fifth child and third daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Singletary. Her father was a teacher, and his little daughter was placed in his school at six years of age. She had no special love for books, except for reading, spelling and grammar, but her ambition kept her at the head of most of her classes Nearly all of her education was received under her father's instruction in a country school, though she completed her course of study in Clinton Seminary. After leaving school she taught for a year or two. In 1857 she became the wife of John Joseph Bedford, a friend and associate of her childhood. There were six children born to them four of whom are living. The father, a grown daughter, and a son are dead. Of the three living sons two are married. The other lives in El Paso, Texas, and is assisting to educate the youngest and only remaining daughter. Mrs. Bedford's literary career has in a great measure become identified with Texas, her adopted home. Her first poems were offered for publication when she was in her sixteenth year, appearing under a pen-name. She continued to write until her marriage, from which time her pen was silent for nearly fifteen years. When home cares to some extent were lifted, the accumulated experience and deep thought of years of silence found vent in song. The result was two volumes, "A Vision, and Other Poems" (Cincinnati and London, 18S1), and "Gathered Leaves" (Dallas. 1S89). Mrs. Bedford has for many years contributed to various periodicals, and her influence is felt in social circles embracing many southern States. Her present home is in El Paso, Texas, where she fills the position of social and literary editor of the El Paso "Sunday Morning Tribune."
BEECHER, Miss Catherine Esther, author and educator, born in East Hampton, L. I., 6th September, 1800, died in Elmira, N. Y., 12th May, 1878. Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote Beecher, and the first nine years of her life were spent in the place of her nativity, where she enjoyed the teaching of a loving mother and a devoted: aunt, the latter of whom was a woman of great beauty, elegance and refinement, and to whose early instructions Miss Beecher often recurred as having a strong and lasting influence upon her life. In her ninth year Catherine removed with her parents to Litchfield, Conn., a mountain town, celebrated alike for the beauty of its scenery and the exceptional cultivation and refinement of its inhabitants. There, in the female seminary, under the care of Miss Sarah Pearse, Miss Beecher began her career as a school-girl. At an early age she showed talent for versification, and her poetical effusions, mostly in a humorous vein, were handed about among her school-mates and friends, to be admired by all. In her sixteenth year her mother died, and Miss Beecher's later writings carried an undercurrent of sadness in place of the happy, frolicsome poems of earlier days. As the oldest of the family, her mother's death brought upon her the cares and responsibilities of a large family. After a suitable period of mourning had elapsed, her father was married again to a woman of culture and piety, under
whose organization the parsonage became the center of a cultivated circle of society, where music, painting and poetry combined to lend a charm to existence. Parties were formed for reading, and it was that fact which led Miss Beecher again to take up her pen, in order to lend variety to the meetings by presenting original articles occasionally. One of her poems, "Vala," written at that time, possessed no mean poetic merit as the com position of a girl of seventeen, and was extensively circulated among literary circles, especially in New Haven. At that time her father, who had risen into the front ranks of influence in Connecticut, in conjunction with literary men connected with Yale College,
