EMILY PARMELY COLLINS: SUFFRAGIST WHO STARTED FIRST WOMEN’S EQUALITY CLUB IN AMERICA HAILED FROM S. BRISTOL

BY BETH THOMAS, BRISTOL AND SOUTH BRISTOL HISTORIAN

“From the earliest dawn of reason, I pined for that freedom of thought and action that was then denied to all womenkind.” - Emily P. Collins, Reminiscences travelled with fellow Bristol resident, Irena Joyner Totman, to nurse their sons back to health in Virginia. Irena was paid $10 per year for the right to tend to the medical needs of local residents. She seemed to receive the same respect as the local male doctor.

Atrue daughter of the American Revolution, Emily Parmely Collins was born on August 11, 1814 in Bristol, NY (now South Bristol) and lived there for 40 years. Her father, James, initially served in the Revolutionary War as a drummer boy. Later as a soldier, he helped evacuate New York with Washington’s troops, fought at the battle of Trenton and skirmishes along the Delaware River, and survived Valley Forge. It is not surprising that his spit re of a daughter, the youngest of eleven, would become one of the country’s rst su ragists.

Coming from such tough stock and being surrounded by a highly educated family with diverse interests and talents, Emily was appointed teacher of district number 11 in Burbee Hollow, Bristol, NY at age sixteen “at a salary paid to a man.” In 1832, she travelled to Michigan with her pioneer brother and taught in a log schoolhouse near Port Huron for a short time.

Early in 1848 upon her return to Bristol, she began her life of activism by writing a “letter of approval and encouragement” to Elizabeth Blackwell on becoming the rst woman enrolled in a modern medical school. A er attending the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, Collins returned to Bristol excited to organize the rst su ragists’ club in the world.

According to Alice Stone Blackwell in the New York Tribune on August 5, 1914, Emily Collins, while a patriot nurse, was taken prisoner and shut in a church with her wounded son and other Unionists, but she was able to sneak information to the Union Army.

When Collins lived in Rochester in the late 1860s, she wrote brief newspaper articles and joined other pioneer su ragists in petition to the Legislature asking that women be granted the privilege of voting. She also attended a meeting of Rochester’s Female Moral Reform Association, an organization to reclaim and reform prostitutes. She warned the group that their e orts would be “futile as long as women were made a subject class…” and proclaimed that “…only by enfranchising women and permitting her a more free and lucrative range of employment would it be possible to suppress this ‘social evil.’” e Woman’s Equal Rights Union (also called the Equal Su rage Society or the Equal Rights Association) met on October 19, 1848. ese 15-20 women met in alternating women’s homes every other week to discuss and exchange ideas. Soon a er its formation, the group dra ed a petition, signed by 62 men and women, and sent it to the NY State Legislature, where it was laughed o as “absurdly ridiculous.” e S. Bristol club met for over a year before disbanding due to bad weather and di culty meeting, but they continued to petition the legislature, and a Bristol women’s club has continued by several names to the present day.

She agitated that meeting’s audience and later audiences with her views against the conservatism of organized religion. She said churches and clergy “are striving to rivet the chains still closer that bind, not only our own sex, but the oppressed of every class and color.” She even believed liquor should be exclusively manufactured and sold at cost by the government, and industrialists should practice cooperation versus competition.

At this time, Collins wrote to Sarah C. Owen, a Rochester activist in October 1848, requesting a copy of the su rage petition, saying “We will engage to do all we can, not only in our town, but in the adjoining ones of Richmond, East Bloom eld, Canandaigua, and Naples…”

Both of Collins’ sons participated in the Civil War, one as a surgeon and the other, who had just graduated from law school when the war broke out, was wounded while a Captain of the Calvary. Collins

Collins continued her su ragist work in Louisiana with Elizabeth Lisle Saxon and then in Hartford, Connecticut, where Collins wrote extensively for the Hartford Journal and organized and became president of the Hartford Equal Rights Club with the help of Frances Ellen Burr. In 1907, two years before her death at age 95, Collins received a telegram of appreciation from the Convention of the National American Woman Su rage Association. She was mourned by a large circle of friends from the United States, England, and Australia.

How incredible it is to know a woman from S. Bristol played such an important role in the su ragist movement! Happy Women’s History Month! Ever forward toward equality for all humankind.

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April Fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s Word Book, 1906 (entries 1881–1906)

NOW HERE’S A TIP

By JoAnn Derson

* Check your local newspaper or city/county government for programs that provide free or near free water barrels or trees. Many areas have a program, and they really do help keep your water costs down if you have flowers or vegetable gardens.

* To keep the edges of lettuce from browning, tear it or use a plastic knife sold just for this purpose. Metal will make the edges brown.

* “If you want same-size cookies, roll and freeze your dough for 10-15 minutes. Most doughs will harden enough to slice into perfectly uniform slices, and the freezing doesn’t really affect cooking time too much. (Watch your first batch, though.)” -- R.L. in Missouri

* If you are reattaching a button to shorts or pants, try using dental floss, the unwaxed kind. It’s much stronger and can hold the button better than regular thread. Use a marker to darken it if the color is an issue.

* “Shaving cream can be used as a spot remover for many carpets. Use only a small amount, and follow up with a damp cloth.” -D.L. in New Brunswick, Canada

* “To prevent a skin from forming on the top of a can of leftover paint, you can inflate a balloon and stick it in the can, cut a piece of wax paper to fit or store the can inverted, so that the skin will form on the bottom and stay there when you flip it.” -- W.B. in Alabama