ront. This was after their continued
warfare against "taxation without representation" had aroused the
opposition of their townsmen, but that first speech in 1873 was
the beginning of their fame. Abby sent it to me for publication
in the _Times_ of this city, but the editor not having room for
it sent it to the _Courant_, which gave it a place in its
columns, thus (unwittingly) setting a ball in motion that ran all
round the country, and even over the ocean. The simplicity and
uniqueness of the story of "Abby Smith and her cows," gave a boom
to the cause of woman suffrage as welcome as it was unexpected.
The Glastonbury mails were more heavily laden than ever before in
the history of this hitherto unknown town, for letters came
pouring in from all quarters to the sisters. The fame did not
rest entirely on Abby and her cows; Julia and her Bible came in
for an important share, and the newspaper articles in regard to
them were a remarkable blending of cows and Biblical lore, dairy
products and Greek and Hebrew. Many of the articles were wide of
the facts, being written with a view to make a bright and
readable column. For instance, a Chicago paper got up a highly
colored article in which it said that Abby Smith's mother--Hannah
Hickok--was such an intense student that her father had a glass
cage made for her to study in. The only vestage of truth in this
story was that, lacking our modern facilities for heating, Mr.
Hickok had an extra amount of glass put into the south side of
his daughter's room that the sun might give it a little more heat
in cold weather. Hannah Hickok seems to have had a mental
equipment much above that of the average woman of that day; she
had a taste for literature, and was something of a linguist, and
wrote, moreover, at different times, quite an amount of readable
verse. She had a taste for mathematics, and also for astronomy,
and made for her own use an almanac, for these were not so plenty
then as now; she could, on awakening, tell any hour of the night
by the position of the stars. Evidently Hannah Hickok Smith was
not an ordinary woman; and it is quite as evident that her
daughters were equally original, though in a different direction.
Women who have translated the Bible are not to be met with every
day--nor men eith