Susan B. Anthony | Page 9

later when a Quaker elder tried to entice her with his fine house, his many acres, and his sixty cows. Although she had reached the age of twenty, when most girls felt they should be married, she was still particular, and when a friend married a man far inferior mentally, she wrote in her diary, "'Tis strange, 'tis passing strange that a girl possessed of common sense should be willing to marry a lunatic--but so it is."[19]
During the next few years, both she and Hannah taught school almost continuously, for $2 to $2.50 a week. Time and time again Susan replaced a man who had been discharged for inefficiency. Although she made a success of the school, she discovered that she was paid only a fourth the salary he had received, and this rankled.
Almost everywhere except among Quakers, she encountered a false estimate of women which she instinctively opposed. After spending several months with relatives in Vermont, where she had the unexpected opportunity of studying algebra, she stopped over for a visit with Guelma and Aaron in Battenville, where Aaron was a successful merchant. Eagerly she told them of her latest accomplishment. Aaron was not impressed. Later at dinner when she offered him the delicious cream biscuits which she had baked, he remarked with his most tantalizing air of male superiority, "I'd rather see a woman make biscuits like these than solve the knottiest problem in algebra."
"There is no reason," she retorted, "why she should not be able to do both."[20]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Report of the International Council of Women, 1888 (Washington, 1888), p. 163.
[2] Charles B. Waite, "Who Were the Voters in the Early History of This Country?" Chicago Law Times, Oct., 1888.
[3] Janet Whitney, Abigail Adams (Boston, 1947), p. 129. In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote her husband, John Adams, at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, "In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors! Do not put such unlimited powers into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." Ethel Armes, Stratford Hall (Richmond, Va., 1936), pp. 206-209.
[4] Under the Missouri Compromise, Maine was admitted as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and slavery was excluded from all of the Louisiana Purchase, north of latitude 36°31'.
[5] The meeting house, built in 1783, is still standing. It is owned by the town of Adams, and cared for by the Adams Society of Friends Descendants. Susan traced her ancestry to William Anthony of Cologne who migrated to England and during the reign of Edward VI, was made Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and Master of the Scales, holding this office also during the reign of Queen Mary and part of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In 1634, one of his descendants, John Anthony, settled in Rhode Island, and just before the Revolution, his great grandson, David, Susan's great grandfather, bought land near Adams, Massachusetts, then regarded as the far West.
[6] Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Indianapolis, 1898), I, p. 10.
[7] Daniel and Susannah Richardson Read gave Lucy and Daniel Anthony land for their home, midway between the Anthony and Read farms. Here Susan was born in a substantial two-story, frame house, built by her father.
[8] Ms., Diary, 1837.
[9] Harper, Anthony, I, p. 25.
[10] Ms., Diary, Jan. 21, Feb. 10, 1838
[11] Harper, Anthony, I, p. 31.
[12] Ms., Diary, Feb. 26, 1838.
[13] Ibid., Feb. 6, 1838.
[14] Ibid., May 7, 1838.
[15] Harper, Anthony, I, p. 36.
[16] Ibid., p. 37.
[17] Ibid., p. 40.
[18] Ibid., p. 39.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid., pp. 43-44.

WIDENING HORIZONS
Unable to recoup his business losses in Center Falls and losing even the satinet factory, Susan's father had looked about in Virginia and Michigan as well as western New York for an opportunity to make a fresh start. A farm on the outskirts of Rochester looked promising, and with the money which Lucy Anthony had inherited from Grandfather Read and which had been held for her by Uncle Joshua Read, the first payment had been made on the farm by Uncle Joshua, who held it in his name and leased it to Daniel.[21] Had it been turned over to Susan's mother, it would have become Daniel Anthony's property under the law and could have been claimed by his creditors.
Only Susan, Merritt, and Mary climbed into the stage with their parents, early in November 1845, on the first lap of their journey to their new home, near Rochester, New York. Guelma and Hannah[22] were