Twenty-five years in the West

by E. Manford

Will you go to glory with me?”

This scene, take it all in all, was the most abominable, outrageous, and disgusting exhibition I ever witnessed. “What do you think of that?” said I to a Methodist preacher, who was looking on with a satisfied air. “The majesty of the law must be sustained.” That same fellow was a hot headed rebel when the war broke out. His name was Kavanagh; he formerly resided in Indiana. The town was full of negroes; but they were silent; I saw tears in many of their eyes.

After publishing the Golden Era four years, I disposed of it to Thomas Abbott, and he soon after connected it with the Gospel Herald, a paper published in Indianapolis, Ind. It was being issued weekly when it was sold; but I found, by experience, that a weekly paper of our denomination could not be sustained in St. Louis, the expense of publishing, and of living being so high. While I issued the paper, I received hardly any compensation for all my toil; and Mrs. Manford did all her work gratuitously, and I could not have hired a person to do what she did for less than five hundred dollars per year.

The Golden Era had done a good work, and it was like parting with a dear friend to dispose of it. Its circulation when it went out of my hands, was thirty-five hundred, I think. Its name had become quite popular. Captain Bursie, who was a subscriber, named his splendid new steamer, “The Golden Era,” and Bridges Brothers, of St. Louis, who were also subscribers, called a cooking stove they patented, “The Golden Era.”

But I did not cease working for the good cause when the paper was disposed of; I rather worked harder than ever. For about two years I was absent most of the time, preaching in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.

Mrs. Manford was also in the field lecturing, not on theology, but on temperance, the elevation of woman, and general education. She delivered some excellent lectures on those subjects in Louisiana, Hannibal, Macomb, and other places. Let woman speak as well as man in the lecture-room, and even in the pulpit; let her speak on all subjects of human interest. As she belongs to the human family, she is as much interested as man in all intellectual and moral subjects. And heaven, having gifted her with a soul, instinct with wisdom, purity and goodness, she is well qualified to instruct and moralize her race. I know it is quite fashionable for men to flatter women by calling them their “better half,” “angel,” but to be indignant and disgusted if they aspire to a position outside of the kitchen or nursery. Such men are very polite to women in the street and drawing-room, but are wrathy if they will not be their drudges or play things. As woman is a citizen of the world as well as man, she is entitled to all the rights and privileges he is entitled to. The world should be open to her intellectual and moral activities, that she may make the best use of her time and talent. Let her “sue and be sued,” buy and sell, vote at the polls, and be president of these United States, if she can get votes enough. England’s best rulers have been queens, and why would not American women make good presidents?

Antiquated, and barbarous laws and customs, that have for ages degraded woman, are being modified or abandoned; and the day is not far distant when she will fill the place in society that God designed, and humanity requires. But it must not be expected that she will come from the wash-tub, or band-box, in the one place a slave, and in the other a pet, prepared fully for her new position and responsibilities. She may long make many blunders, and for a time illy perform her part, all of which many self-conceited, and self-appointed, “lords of creation” will point to and triumphantly exclaim, “Did I not tell you women were only fit for man’s convenience?”

I spent three months in the southwest part of Missouri, traveling on a circuit I established in that region. Preached monthly in twenty-five places, and rode from ten to forty miles nearly every day. Tried to get a minister to continue the work but failed. Good societies could have been established in Booneville, Georgetown, Calhoun, Clinton, Oseola, Leesville, Warsaw, Pisgah, Rocheport—places I visited. I also spent six months traveling and preaching in the northern part of the state. Visited twenty-two places monthly for six months, and rode most every day. Spent three days each month at home. I also failed in my effort to induce a minister to locate in that region. Clergymen of the liberal faith, residing in the free states, were averse to moving into Missouri, it then being a slave state. They were not only generally opposed to slavery, regarding it as “the sum of all villainy,” but they had no faith our cause could be permanently established among slave-holders. They thought that human slavery and Universalism were eternally and universally at war with each other.

The winters of 1855 and ’56 were about the coldest ever experienced in the West, and I spent both winters in Iowa, traveling and lecturing. Often rode on horseback all day when the thermometer was far below zero, and delivered a long discourse at night. The Iowa prairies are cold places in a cold day, especially to one whose face is northward. If I had twenty, thirty, or forty miles to ride, I always made it a rule not to go near a fire till I had finished my day’s travel. Some men I have rode with, must warm themselves by a fire, whenever they get a little cold, and swallow perhaps a dram of liquor; and I noticed that they always suffered much more from cold than I did. The best method for a traveler, in an arctic day, to get up an internal heat, is, not by whisky, not by sitting by a fire a few moments, but by thrashing his arms, swinging his legs, or running a short distance by the side of his horse.

I had a public discussion in Quincy, Ill., with a Methodist preacher, which continued four days. Large numbers attended, and much good was effected. The day after the discussion closed, which was Sunday, a society was organized, and soon after a meeting-house was erected. The society prospered for awhile, under the ministry of J. H. Hartzell, now of Buffalo, N. Y. But he leaving, it was finally disbanded, and the meeting-house sold, and many of its members united themselves with the Unitarian society of the place. Quincy is a flourishing town, on the east bank of the Mississippi river, and is growing rapidly in importance. The river will probably be bridged there within a few years.