ld women in its iron grasp, by
the passage, in April, 1848, of the Property Bill allowing a married
woman to hold real estate in her own name in New York. Previous to this
time all the property which a woman owned at marriage and all she might
receive by gift or inheritance passed into the possession of the
husband; the rents and profits belonged to him, and he could sell it
during his lifetime or dispose of it by will at his death except her
life interest in one-third of the real estate. The more thoughtful
among women were beginning to ask why other unjust laws should not also
be repealed, and the whole question of the rights of woman was thus
opened.

In 1848, Spiritualism may be said to have had its birth, and the
remarkable manifestations of the Fox sisters brought numbers of people
to Rochester, where they had-removed as soon as they began to be widely
known. This form of religious belief soon acquired a large following,
causing much controversy and great excitement.

The Society of Friends had divided on the slavery issue and Miss
Anthony found her family attending the Unitarian church, which soon
afterwards called William Henry Channing to its pulpit. Both he and
Samuel J. May, the father of Unitarianism in Syracuse, became her
steadfast friends and never-failing support in all the great work which
was developed in later years.

[Illustration:

AUNT HANNAH, THE QUAKER PREACHER.
FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE.]

In July, 1848, the first Woman's Rights Convention had been held in
Seneca Falls and adjourned to meet in Rochester August 2. Miss
Anthony's father, mother and sister Mary had attended and signed the
declaration demanding equal rights for women, and she found them
enthusiastic upon this subject and also over Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia
Mott and other prominent women who had taken part. Her cousin, Sarah
Anthony Burtis, had acted as secretary of the convention.

In 1849 Mrs. Mott published her admirable Discourse on Woman in answer
to a lyceum lecture by Richard H. Dana ridiculing the idea of civil and
political rights for women. In 1847 Frederick Douglass had brought his
family to Rochester and established his paper, the North Star. As soon
as Miss Anthony reached home she was taken by her father to call on
Douglass, and this was the beginning of another friendship which was to
last a lifetime.

The year 1849 saw the whole country in a state of great unrest and
excitement. Eighty thousand men had gone to C