Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/842

Rh conventions, were written'in such conditions of weakness and suffering, as only a hero could have overcome. She was a good writer, an effective speaker, and a preëminently brave woman, gifted with that rarest of all virtues, common sense.

The advocacy of woman's rights began in Santa Cruz county, with the advent of that grand champion of her sex, the immortal Eliza Farnham, who braved public scorn and contumely because of her advanced views, for many years before the suffrage movement assumed organized form. Mrs. Farnham's work rendered it possible for those advocating woman suffrage years later, to do so with comparative immunity from public ridicule. A society was organized there in 1869, and Rev. D. G. Ingraham, E. B. Heacock, H. M. Blackburn, Mrs, Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Mrs. Van Valkenburgh, W. W. Broughton and wife, and Mrs. Jewell were active members.

Prominent in Santa Clara county is Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield. From the first agitation of the subject in 1868, when she entered heartily into the work of getting subscribers to The Revolution, she has been untiring in her efforts to advance the interests of women. A lady of fine presence, great energy and perseverance, Mrs. Wallis has been able to accomplish great good for her sex. With a large separate estate, when the statutes prevented her as a married woman from managing it, she determined that the laws should be changed, and never ceased her efforts until she succeeded in getting an amendment to the civil code which enables married women to make contracts. The most successful suffrage meetings ever held in Santa Clara county have been at Mayfield. There Mrs. Wallis and her husband, Judge Joseph S. Wallace, make their spacious and luxurious home the rendezvous of lecturers and writers in the great work of woman's emancipation.

Mrs. Sarah Knox Goodrich of San José, was among the first to see the significance of the movement for woman's rights in 1868. Her husband, William J, Knox, who shortly before his death had been State senator, secured the passage of a bill, drafted by himself, giving to married women the right to dispose of their own separate property by will. Having been from her youth the cherished companion of a man who believed in the equality of the sexes, and being herself a thoughtful, clear-headed person, she naturally took her place with those whose aim was the social and political emancipation of woman, and has stood from the first a tower of strength in this cause, giving largely of her wealth for the propagation of its doctrines. Mrs. Knox Goodrich has for many years paid her taxes, sometimes exorbitant, under protest, and at important elections has also offered her vote, to have it refused. The county suffrage society has had an untiring leader in Mrs. Goodrich, and on all occasions she has nerved the weak and encouraged the timid by her example of unflinching devotion. The following extracts from a letter written by the lady will show how effective her work has been:

In 1872, our society was invited to take part in the Fourth of July celebration, which we did, and had the handsomest carriages and more of them than any other society in the procession. We paid our own expenses, although the city had