BLACKWELL FAMILY    Henry B. Blackwell     Biographical PapersHENRY B. BLACKWELL
Reminiscences
(Copied from fragile sheets in Blackwell Archives
Library of Congress)
The salient points in the movement for the emancipation
of women from the semi-slavery in which they were placed by
public sentiment and usage 60 years ago, a slavery embodied in
the English Common law which then everywhere prevailed and which
still prevails wherever not expressly modified by statute. - Under 
this women had no freedom of speech, of education, of industry,
or of political expression, and married women no freedom at all of
personal, property, earnings or custody of their children, - This 
battle has been fought almost wholly during my life time, and I
have been intimately connected with many of the chief workers.
1st and preliminary
Free speech - The pioneers in this were Frances Wright, Ernestine
L. Rose, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone
and Antoinnette L. Brown - 
Education -Rev. Mr. Beane of Newburyport, Emma Willard, Mary Lyon,
in opening colleges, Rev. * the founder of Oberlin College
in 1832, Lucinda H. Stone of Kalamazoo through whose efforts mainly
the University of Michigan was opened to women, Ezra Cornell and
Russell Sage by whom Cornell College was made co-educational - 
Industry - In the ministry, Lucretia Mott, a Quaker preacher, and
Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, theological student in Oberlin and the
first ordained minister ever in orthodox Congregational Church
in South Butler, 1848. Back of all the Quaker women ministry - 
unpaid
In Medicine Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, and Marie Zakrzewska
1835 Harriet K. Hunt.

COPY - Henry B. Blackwell's record of dates
(Material in () added
from letter of Henry B. 
Blackwell to Alice,
Aug, 18, 1898 - "as nearly
as I can remember".)
1825-1832 English Recollections
1832-1834 Thompson Street
1834-1836 Long Island
1836-1838 Jersey City (going to school)
1838-1840 Clerking at $2.00 per week in Cincinnati, Ohio
1840-1841 Kemper College, St. Louis
1841-1845 With Mr. Ellis, clerk in bank in Cincinnati
Milling business in Cincinnati 
1846 Sugar refining
1847 Unsuccessful establishment of sugar refinery in
Cincinnati, which burned
1848 Again with Mr. Harris in New York
1848-1855 In firm of Coombs, Ryland & Blackwell, hardware
merchants, (Cincinnati)
1855 Married 
(Spent the summer of 1855 at Walnut Hills) (Then Lucy came
East and I remained at Walnut Hills until Spring of 1856)
1856 Bad Axe County, Wisconsin (Viroqua)
(Lucy and I spent summer and early fall of 1856 at
Viroqua and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, going thence to N. Y.
and boarding with Elizabeth on 15th Street that winter
and following spring.
1857 Purchase of house on Hurburt St. Orange and engagement in
agricultural book firm of C.M.Saxton & Co. 
(Bought the house on Cone St., Orange in summer of 1857 
and lived in it until 1859.
1858 Withdrawal from C.M.Saxton & Co. and keeping of books of
Vanderbilt Steamers for Joseph Torrance Vanderbilt's son-in-law.
1859 Engagement with Augustus O. Moore, agricultural book
publishers, in introduction of school libraries in Ill.
1859 (Bought the house next door on Cone St., and lived in it
during 1859 and 1860.)
1860 Residence in Evanston, Ill.
1861 Real Estate business in Orange & removal to Montclair
* 1863 to Sidney Day house, then to hillside.* Engagement in
Cornelius Bramhall's manufacture of kitchen ranges.
(Moved to Montclair in 1861 and remained there until
1862-3.)
1863 (Boarded at Gramercy Park in winter of 1863)page 2 - Henry B. Blackwell's record
1864 (Boarded in New York near East River. Bought house at
Roseville, N. J. and lived in Roseville till we moved 
to Boston in 1869.)
1864-1865 Removal to Roseville and return to sugar refining with
Dennis Harris.
1868 Removal to Boston. (see next item)
(Moved to Boston in 1869. During that year we spent 
summers at Coy's Hill (West Brookfield). Martha's
Vineyard and Kennebunkport.)
1870 Removal to Dorchester, Mass.
1870-1893 Residence in Dorchester with Lucy Stone.
1893-1899 Residence in Dorchester with [Lucy] Alice Stone Blackwell.
1909 - 80th birthday celebration, Boston.
(This last item should read 1893-1909)
Died Sept. 7, 1909

Henry B. Blackwell and
Lucy Stone
Information about property at 45 Boutwell
Avenue, Dorchester
Deeds as follows:
June 29, 1855 - Thomas Farmer, Dorchester
$10,500 to
Josiah H. Carter of Needham
(Aug. 18, 1854 the property was sold to Henrietta C. 
Farmer and Thomas C. by Moses Field Fowler
Nov. 19, 1870 - $20,000
Josiah H. Carter to Henry B. 
Blackwell.HENRY B. BLACKWELL
By Alice Stone Blackwell, May 4, 1945
Henry Brown Blackwell was born in Bristol, England, May 4,
1825. He came to America with his family in 1832. He became
warmly interested in the anti-slavery movement. While he was
still a young man, a reward of $10,000 was offered for his head at
a big public meeting in Memphis, Tennessee because of his active
part in the rescue of a little slave girl.
On May 1, 1955 he married Lucy Stone. They issued a joint
protest against the inequalities in the marriage laws, and, with his
full approval, she kept her own name. Some reactionary doggerel
in the Boston Post had said: "A name like Curtin's shall be his,
On Fame's loud trumpet blown,
Who with a wedding kiss shuts up
The mouth of Lucy Stone!"
Instead, he added his own eloquent voice to hers. They made a 
great team. Together they campaigned for Woman Suffrage in many
states. Together they founded the Woman's Journal in Boston in
1870. Ten thousand dollars was needed to start the paper. Mr. 
Blackwell gave Lucy Stone the first $1000 and she begged the rest.
In two years the $10,000 was gone and it became necessary to have
editors who would serve without pay. They assumed their responsibility
and kept the paper going, with help from various sources, including
later, the assistance of their daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, in
the editorship. Mr. Blackwell took no pay for his work either on
the Woman's Journal or in the Woman Suffrage Association, but put
money largely into both.
He survived his wife for sixteen years during which he continued 
to speak and work for woman's rights. He was the last man who
continued to attend regularly the annual meetings of the National 
American Woman Suffrage Association, after the work for woman

2 - Henry B. Blackwell
suffrage had been almost completely taken over by women. He was
always appointed chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. He
had a fine voice, and he had tact and discretion in dealing with persons
who wanted to offer freak resolutions.
He died September 9, 1909, much beloved. A memorial meeting
brought together a remarkable group of widely different speakers
who testified to the breadth of his interests and the good he had
done in many different fields.Both before and after his marriage, Henry B. 
Blackwell was as much interested in equal suffrage
 as his wife. From the earliest meetings until his
death, he was the only man who steadily attended the
suffrage conventions, almost if not quite every one of
them, and literally gave his life very largely to the
advocacy of the woman suffrage cause, both by
writing and by speech. We travelled from the Atlantic
to the Pacific at his own expense, never receiving
any money from the association.

(In handwriting of H. B. Blackwell)
Mr. Blackwell senior, in England
was a "Clarkson abolitionist." He found
New York merchants intensely pro-slavery. The
Cuban planters from whom he bought sugar,
frankly stated that they found it profitable
to work their negroes to death in seven years,
supplying their places from Africa. In 1837,
taking advantage of a temporary stagnation
of business, he made some sugar from beets
raised in his garden at Jersey City. There he 
moved to Cincinnati, intending there to refine
the Louisiana "costern [cistern] bottoms" and eventually
to establish the beet sugar industry, but died
a month after arrival, leaving a widow with 
eight children. The mother and three elder
daughters opened a school, while Sam and
Henry found employment in the banking-house
of Rowland Ellis. Later Henry became a 
partner in the milling business, and later
became travelling partner in the hardware
firm of Coombs, Rylands + Blackwells, buildingup a large trade in the Wabash Valley. In 1855
Henry married Lucy Stone and moved to
New York, residing in Orange and Montclair N. J.,
where he engaged in real-estate and sugar-refining.
During that time he introduced into the 
school districts of Illinois nearly 200 agricultural 
libraries. In 1861 he became interested
for some years in sugar refining. In 1867 
Mr. Blackwell and Lucy Stone visited every 
organized county in Kansas, in advocacy of
the Woman Suffrage Amendment, which
secured one-third of the popular vote. In
1869 he removed to Boston, where with his wife
Lucy Stone, and Mary A. Livermore, he established
the Woman's Journal which has never failed to
appear weekly for nearly 33 years. He has 
given the last 30 years of his life to work as an
officer in the American Woman Suffrage Association,
and as co-editor with his wife, and
later with his daughter. With his wife he took 
part in Suffrage Campaigns in Vermont, 
Colorado, Michigan and Nebraska; and

later in Rhode Island and South Dakota.
Ever since 1869 he has been an active participant
in the American and National-American Womans 
Suffrage Associations, and has visited in the
interests of Woman Suffrage almost every State
in the Union. For more than 30 years he
has been a land-owner in Kansas, and has felt
a deep interest in the growth and progress of the 
State. Mr. Blackwell's latest achievement has
been to secure for Massachusetts' mothers an 
equal right with fathers in the care and custody
of minor children. Mr. Blackwell is especially
interested in securing for women, by Act of Legislature,
a right to help appoint the Presidential
electors, regarding this as the highest form of
suffrage exercised by American citizens, and
a right placed by the U. S. Constitution in the
control of every State Legislature.

In the campaign in Kansas Mr. Blackwell
and Mrs. Lucy Stone took part in
organizing the first State Woman SuffrageAssociation, and then in company with ex-Governor 
Charles Robinson, and Hon. Sam Wood they held 
meetings in every organized County of that young State, 
travelling in wagons over the unfenced prairies, fording
rivers, and undergoing the privations and hardships of the
frontier life. It was while exposed to a heavy rain
at [Lecompton?], that Lucy Sone contracted a severe
cold which permanently impaired the power of her
beautiful voice. The suffrage seed planted in
Kansas homes during that remarkable series of
meetings has never died out and has resulted,
many years later, in the extension of suffrage
to Kansas women.

In 1853 he took an active part in the Free
Soil movement, and made at Greenwood Hall in
Cincinnati, a speech which effected a coalition
between the Free Soilers and the [Know?] Nothings,
which sent from Cincinnati to Columbus, the
delegation which made Salmon P. Chase
governor of Ohio. In this year he made
his first woman suffrage speech at a


great convention held in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 1854 he took part in the rescue of a slave girl
at Salem, O., and had a reward of $10,000 offered
for his head by a public meeting in Memphis, Tenn.
He visited the constitutional Conventions of North
Dakota, Montana, and Washington, and succeeded
in getting [a clause] for Montana women, a 
right to vote on questions concerning
taxation.

At the age of 77 Mr. Blackwell retains
unimpaired activity, vigor and enthusiasm. He
visits Kansas by invitation to take part in the 
State Convention at Topeka, believing that the
full enfranchisement of women is not far distant.

The wedding [of Lucy Stone and Henry B.
Blackwell] was made memorable by a Protest
signed by husband and wife, against the
legal irregularities of the marriage relation,
and pledging themselves to work for their removal.

In 1858, while Mr. Blackwell wasengaged in the introduction of agricultural libraries
in the West, Lucy Stone refused to pay taxes on
her New Jersey homestead, on the ground that 
taxation without representation was tyranny.  Her 
furniture, including her child's cradle, was taken
out of the house and sold at auction to pay her
taxes.  That same year, in response to a request
of Mr. Sam Wood, Mrs. Stone with her baby on
her knee, drafted the liberal legal provisions regarding
the property rights of married women,
which were afterward embodied in the Constitution
of this State. 
In 1872 Mr. Blackwell secured from the National
Republican Convention at Philadelphia at which we 
nominated General Grant, a woman suffrage
plank which commended woman suffrage
to respectful consideration, and the same 
year secured an unqualified endorsement
of woman suffrage in the Massachusetts
Republican platform, affirming "that the 


Republican party of Massachusetts, as the representative
of liberty and progress is in favor of extending
suffrage on equal terms to all American citizens,
irrespective of sex, and will hail the day when the
educated intellect and enlightened conscience
of women will find direct expression at the ballot-box." 

H. B. Blackwell
(From Year Book "The Literary Club"
of Cincinnati, O.) 
"The Literary Club was organized, 
October 29, 1849.  A preliminary meeting
at the rooms of Mr. Spofford had agreed 
upon a general plan and appointed
a committee to draft a constitution.
Subsequently the Club became a corporation
under the general laws of the State."  Meetings
were held weekly and in various places
until 1880 when it moved into quarters
specially constructed for the needs of the
Club. 
April 15, 1861, at a called meeting, the
Club formed a military company, the Burnet
Rifles, for purposes of drill.  Subsequently
fifty members entered the army.  This
resulted in a suspension of Club meetings 
until February 1864.
At the first meeting, Mitt White was 


elected president and A R Spofford
secretary.  The question adopted by vote
of the members present as the first one
for discussion was. " Ought a system of
universal and liberal education to be
conducted at the public expense in this
country?' 
In 1861, Rutherford B. Hayes called
a meeting of the Club to order to take
into consideration the propriety of forming
the nucleus of a military organization
from the members of the Club.  The roll
was called to ascertain how many members
wished to drill, and the following persons
answered to their names, viz: 
Anderson, Borden, Force, Foote, Goshorn,
Greenleaf, Hayes, Hutchison, Ingram,
James, Lord, Karr, Kittredges, Morgan,
Menzies, L. E. Mills, E. Mills, J. F. Meline,
F. M. Meline, McLaughlin, Noyes, 

Owens, Partridge, Rickoff, Stephenson,
T. C. H. Smith, Spofford, Stanton, Taft,
Warren, Williamson, D. T. Wright,
N. Wright, Jr.
Mr. R. W. Burnet was invited to
drill the company. 
Henry B. Blackwell was among the
incorporators, and the trustees included
Henry B. Blackwell, Nelson Cross, and A. R.
Spofford. 
Two of the members of this interesting Club
became presidents of the United States,---
Rutherford B. Hayes and William H. Taft. 
The chronicled essays read before 
the Club are significant of the future
work of the members. 
Among the list of subjects and dates
of delivery are: 
H.B. Blackwell, Poem, Oct. 29,  1874
Women in Government  , June 30,  1888
Women Suffrage  ,  Oct. 6, 1888 


Wm. H. Taft  The Molly Maguires,  April 10,  1880
Crime and Education  ,  Apr. 22, 1882
Criminal Law as Administered
in Hamilton
County,  Jan 26,  1884
Political Reform within
Party Lines  May 25, 1889 

A. R. Spofford, who later became Librarian
of Congress, delivered an Essay, Feb. 26,
1876, "The Art of Reading." 

Politics, literature, science, drama,
music, travel, theology, philosophy,
romance, morality, legislation, history,
occultism, commerce, finance, art,
education, and cooking were
among the range of subjects presented
by the members. 

August 27, 1900

Papa was in the hardware business 
from 1848 to [184] 1855 - one of a 
firm of 4 poor young men.  Says he 
worked harder during those [4] 7 yrs 
that at any other time of his 
life, & made nothing by it except 
a lot of Western land.  Once he & 
Mr. Mallory were travelling in the 
Wabash valley, & it was very hot, 
& they got very tired of the salt 
pork which was everywhere 
given them to eat; so they 
stopped whatever whey found a 
blackberry patch, picked their 
2-quart can full of blackberries, 
stopped somewhere where there 
were cows & got the people to 
milk into their pail; & they 
had sugar & a bag of crackers 
with them, & they used to 
make their supper by the 
roadside, off blackberries 
& milk & crackers, & then say 
when they got to their stopping 
place that they had had their
supper. They found it fine.  Papa told me this apropos
of a magnificent blackberry crop we had this year.(A short autobiography)    1901 (?)

Henry B. Blackwell was born in Bristol,
England, in 1825.  His father was a sugar
refiner of that city, so highly esteemed that
when he decided to go to New York in 1832
the Bristol merchants offered him any amount
of money at 2 (?) for use in his business, if
he would remain there.  For six years
the family resided in and near New York.
In 1838 the father with his wife and nine
children removed to Cincinnati with the
intention of putting up there a refinery for
the Louisiana sugars, but he died a
month later.  The mother and elder
sisters established a private school and
kept the family together.  This son was
brought up in a Cincinnati banking house
and afterwards engaged in business in the
West, at one time introducing 1500 agricultural
libraries in the State of Illinois.
Returning East in 1856, after his marriage
with Lucy Stone, the pioneer advocate of woman's
rights, he engaged in real estate and sugar

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refining in New York City and its vicinity.  In 1870
he removed to Boston with a competence,
and in connection with his wife established the
Woman's Journal, a weekly paper devoted to
the advocacy of equal rights for woman.  In
connection with Mr. Fred L. Ames of Cincinnati
and George P. Haint (?) of Portland, Me.,
he established the Maine Beet Sugar Co. which
made several hundred thousand dollars worth of
sugar, but found it impossible to obtain an adequate supply
of beets in the thin soil of New England.
Extensive real estate interests in Boston, out
elsewhere, with the editorial and financial care
of the paper have occupied him since his
residence in New England.  He has taken an
active part in equal suffrage campaigns in
Kansas, Nebraska, Vermont, Rhode Island, Colorado,
Dakotas, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
At 76 years of age he is still vigorous, active,
and alert.  In the management of his paper
he was associated with his wife from 1870
to 1893, and since her death, with theirdaughter, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell.
Mr. Blackwell's services to the suffrage
cause have not only been given without compensation
but he has always contributed largely to its treasury,
regarding it as the most important
of all reforms.
His sisters, Doctors Elizabeth and Emily
Blackwell were the first women who ever
took a thorough course of medical study,
securing diplomas and opening the
medical profession to women.

(Newspaper clipping)

Memphis, Oct. 1854

Mr. Blackwell - The thief who stoled
and robbed Mr. and Mrs. Robinson of their
negro girl whilst on their way home:
This is to notify you that I, Charley
Gillis, a native of North Carolina and a
slave for life challenge you to meet me
upon the field of Honor in mortal combat
and not wishing to have our soil stained
with the blood of one whose heart is so black
as yours must be, I will meet you,with
your abolition allies, in the city of Cincinnati
at such time as you may suggest within
the month of November next accompanied
with a few friends of my sable African
race, and we dare you to try to make us
free!  I will simply add, by way of advice to
you, to prepare to meet your God before coming
on the field of combat, for I, Charley, am a
good shot.  I will lodge my ball in the centerof your heart, and if you are not prepared, your
soul in hell, when I am sure it is destined 
to go if you repent not, for my Bible tells me
and tells you, Thou shalt not steal, and you
have violated that plain commandment in
stealing Mr. and Mrs. Robinson's negro girl. Meet
me you limb of the devil, without delay,
Major Charley Gillis
a slave for life and possessing
more honor than you, Mr. Blackwell.