gan.

Mrs. Oliver Johnson and I spent two days at the Brook Farm Community
when in the height of its prosperity. There I met the Ripleys,--who
were, I believe, the backbone of the experiment,--William Henry
Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles A. Dana, Frederick Cabot, William
Chase, Mrs. Horace Greeley, who was spending a few days there, and many
others, whose names I cannot recall. Here was a charming family of
intelligent men and women, doing their own farm and house work, with
lectures, readings, music, dancing, and games when desired; realizing,
in a measure, Edward Bellamy's beautiful vision of the equal conditions
of the human family in the year 2000. The story of the beginning and end
of this experiment of community life has been told so often that I will
simply say that its failure was a grave disappointment to those most
deeply interested in its success. Mr. Channing told me, years after,
when he was pastor of the Unitarian church in Rochester, as we were
wandering through Mount Hope one day, that, when the Roxbury community
was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of
competition, he would gladly have been laid under the sod, as the
isolated home seemed so solitary, silent, and selfish that the whole
atmosphere was oppressive.

In 1843 my father moved to Albany, to establish my brothers-in-law, Mr.
Wilkeson and Mr. McMartin, in the legal profession. That made Albany the
family rallying point for a few years. This enabled me to spend several
winters at the Capital and to take an active part in the discussion of
the Married Woman's Property Bill, then pending in the legislature.
William H. Seward, Governor of the State from 1839 to 1843, recommended
the Bill, and his wife, a woman of rare intelligence, advocated it in
society. Together we had the opportunity of talking with many members,
both of the Senate and the Assembly, in social circles, as well as in
their committee rooms. Bills were pending from 1836 until 1848, when the
measure finally passed.

My second son was born in Albany, in March, 1844, under more favorable
auspices than the first, as I knew, then, what to do with a baby.
Returning to Chelsea we commenced housekeeping, which afforded me
another chapter of experience. A new house, newly furnished, with
beautiful views of Boston Bay, was all I could desire. Mr. Stanton
announced to me, in starting, that his business would occupy all his
time, and that I must take entire charge of t