lled the "Know Nothings" came into
power, and although no petition was presented, a bill securing the
control of their own property to all women married subsequent to the
passage of the law, was passed. The power to make a will without the
husband's consent, was also secured to wives, though not permitted to
thus will more than one-half of their personal property. This law also
gave to married women having no children, whose husbands should die
without a will, five thousand dollars, and one-half of the remainder
of the husband's property. The following year the Divorce Law[38] was
amended, and shortly thereafter two old ladies, nearly seventy years
of age, having no future marriage in view, but solely influenced by a
desire to secure their own property to their own children, which
without such divorce they would be unable to do, although one of their
husbands had not provided for his wife in twenty years, nor the other
in thirty years, availed themselves of its new privileges.

The first change in the tyrannous laws of Massachusetts was really due
to the work of this one woman, Mary Upton Ferrin, who for six years,
after her own quaint method, poured the hot shot of her earnest
conviction of woman's wrongs into the Legislature. In circulating
petitions, she traveled six hundred miles, two-thirds of this distance
on foot. Much money was expended besides her time and travel, and her
name should be remembered as that of one of the brave pioneers in this
work.

Although two thousand petitions were sent into the Constitutional
Convention of 1853, from other friends of woman's enfranchisement in
the State, Mrs. Ferrin totally unacquainted with that step, herself
petitioned this body for an amendment to the Constitution securing
justice to women, referring to the large number of petitions sent to
the Legislature during the last few years for this object. Working as
she did, almost unaided and alone, Mrs. Ferrin is an exemplification
of the dissatisfaction of women at this period with unjust laws.[39]

MRS. FERRIN'S ADDRESS TO THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE IN 1850.

Long have our liberties and our lives been lauded to the skies,
to our amusement and edification, and until our sex has been as
much regaled as has the Southern slave, with "liberty and law."
But, says one, "Women are free." So likewise are slaves free to
submit to the laws and to