USA > Wisconsin > Green County > History of Green County, Wisconsin > Part 11
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History of Green County.
preached to the society once in two months. As he was not willing to give up his other churches, and as all were anxious to have preaching every week, Deacon Davis went to Pennsylvania in 1845, to find a minister. Elder G. R. Patton, who had charge of five churches, was induced to give them up, sell his home, and come to Wisconsin. While he was selling his property Dea- con Davis came home, and found that during his ab- sence the people had engaged another minister, Elder Lewis. Deacon Davis remonstrated, but the desire to have Elder Lewis was by that time so great that remon- strance would have been in vain, had not the Elder him- self been touched by the injustice to his brother minis- ter, and refused to stay. Elder Patton arrived in Octo- ber, 1845, and is still the pastor of the church. In 1864 it was necessary to build a larger church. Since then, letters have been given to a great many who were go- ing west, or who wanted to form other churches. The number of members is now two hundred and fifty-one. The first dwelling house in Juda was that of George Debolt, who built a dwelling and a blacksmith shop about the time the first church was built. The next comer
was Garrett Clawson, who built a wagon shop. The third dwelling was Edward Tenney's, and through his efforts a postoffice named Juda was established there in 1849. Soon after this, Robert Hanna came from Penn- sylvania, bringing with him a few groceries and dry goods, which he kept for sale in his house. A little later another store was opened by - Broadbent, and it began to be hoped that there might sometime be a
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History of Green County.
village. Two hotels, kept respectively by Robert Han- na and John Overton, sprang into existence and into rivalry with each other; and when the coming of the railroad was foretold, Barney Taylor and John Overton platted the place as Springfield, a name now used only by lawyers and scribes, for, as the postoffice depart- ment refused to change the name of the office to Spring- field, the people have refused to call the village anything but Juda. Soon after Springfield, or Juda, was platted, a number of enterprising business men were numbered among those interested in her improvement. Promi- nent among these were Messrs. Axtell, Sherman, J. C. Chadwick, and S. and D. Witmer, and few, if any, have done more to promote the welfare of the vil- lage than was done by the gentleman last named. Being the only point of shipment in Jefferson-a town which has some of the best land, best farms, and best stock in the county-the growth of Juda is necessarily sure. The Judæan, a diminutive but spicy paper recently started by Witmer and Stair, will here- after be likely to keep before the people of the surround- ing country the good points of the village, chief among which are West & Reed's flour mill, Christian Karlen's American cheese factory (one of the largest in the state), the stores of Messre. Byrne, Newman and Stair, and the large stock business of J. C. Chadwick.
The first voting place in Jefferson was the house of A. Sanborn, near Twin Grove, which is a village of two streets, where the neighboring farmers have their children started on the road to learning and their horses
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History of Green County.
shod, where they hear the gospel Sundays, and get their mail and all the treasures of a country store on week- ·days, and where the only butter factory in the county in which the churning is done by horse power may be 'seen. The factory belongs to J. M. Chadwick, and is under the direction of Robert Start.
The twin groves were a favorite resort of the Indi- ans, and there were well-worn trails to the grove from Freeport and Mineral Point, that, like the old trail from Monroe to Exeter, lasted years after those who made them had passed away. After the coming of the whites, the Indians stopped each year at the groves, on their way from Fort Winnebago to Chicago, where they were paid their annuities, and, as they filed along in their trail, which in places was a foot below the sur- face, the line was sometimes half a mile long. About two hundred spent the winters of 1835-'6 and '36-'7 at "the groves, and one night in the fall of '36, they dug and carried away all but one bushel of an acre of Mr. Clark's turnips. And yet they were not an unmixed evil. Besides their services as tanners,-and the most durable suits the settlers had were made from skins the Indians tanned,-they brought with them tea-kettles, frying-pans, and various household conveniences, which they may have stolen somewhere else, but which the whites gladly bought, paying in provisions.
The first house at the corners, as Twin Grove is sometimes called, was the house of Jonathan Hill, built about 1845. It was a good place for a blacksmith shop, and Jonathan Cabel, who made the second home there,
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History of Green County.
kept a wagon and blacksmith shop. Among the farm- ers who lived near was Isaac Sanborn, who about 1850- started a pottery there, where jugs and crocks have since been made almost every year; and about the close of the war Harrison Clevenstein opened a store there. Since. then there has always been one store there. Rightsell & Co., E. L. Walker, and George Wells have done a large business there. The postoffice at the corners was first christened Montezuma. It was then moved south- west and named successively Hope, Josephine, and New- kirk, with which name it went back to the village about IS60. Not being very profitable it was discontinued for- a time, and when it was established again it was named. Twin Grove.
LARGEST FARMERS IN JEFFERSON IN 1876.
Names.
No. of Acres.
Names.
No. of Acres.
J. Andrews,
180
D. Holmes,
- 220
J. J. Armstrong,
IS5
John Howard, 160
Wm. Bradley,
160
H. Hunt, - 2So
G. W. Bridge,
162
D. Keister, 160
*J. H. Bridge,
298
John Meyers, 201
S. Bryant,
240
G. R. Patton, 195
*John Carter, Win. Carter, - 160
338
W. C. Penn, 170
*J. M. Chadwick, 797
J. W. Roderick,
200
W. W. Chadwick, - 300
J. B. Searles, - 240
*J. Chambers, 368
*A. South, - 320
J. Chryst, ISO
Peter Starr, - 320
J. Emerick,
320
W. Stevenson, 160
John Fisher, -
200
A. Stull, 210
C. Foster, -
320
J. M. Swartz, 160
*L. Gapen,
400
M. G. Todd, - 415
M. T. Gapen,
240
A. Will, 160,
S. Hale, -
160
D. Witmer, 195.
I. Raymer, 225
*J. C. Chadwick, 870
C. Roub, - 177
J. J. Chadwick,
200
*Jacob Roderick, 640
*Largest stock growers.
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History of Green County.
TOWN OFFICERS FROM 1849 TO '77 INCLUSIVE.
CHAIRMEN.
JEREMIAH BRIDGE.
JAMES STEVENSON.
JOHN BARREY.
L. GAPEN.
H. DUNWIDDIE.
D. WITMER.
WM. COLDREN.
S. WITMER, (2 years).
H. DUNWIDDIE.
W.M. COLDREN, (2 years).
WM. COLDREN.
S. WITMER.
D. W. BALL.
D. WITMER, (5 years).
WM. BLACKFORD, (3 years).
E. J. BLACKFORD.
H DUNWIDDIE.
H. HUNT.
JOHN H. BRIDGE.
ISAAC TREMBLY.
CLERKS.
E. J. BLACKFORD.
S. M. HANNA.
J. ANDREWS.
H. HUNT.
E. HOSIER, (5 years).
H. FRANKENBERGER, (3 y'rs).
E. J. BLACKFORD, (4 years).
V. B S. NEWMAN.
W. F. PRITCHARD.
E. J. BLACKFORD, (3 years).
J. BOLENDER.
C. F. FISHER.
H. HUNT, (2 years).
J. A. PATTON, (3 years).
F. BARNUM.
J. RODERICK.
-
SYLVESTER.
The first of the Pennsylvanians in the eastern part of Green County was Allen Woodle, who came to southern Wisconsin in 1835. In the spring of 1836, Allen and Wm. Woodle, the latter bringing his family, came to Sylvester and built the first house in the town- ship, though it is thought Mr. McCraken bought, at the land sale in '35, the first land bought in the town- ship. In the fall they were joined by their brother, Joseph Woodle and his family. The settlers of 1837 were Joseph McCraken, a native of New York, but for some years a resident of Illinois, Thos. Woodle and Jesse Mitchell from Pennsylvania, and Davis Bowen from Virginia. Mrs. Bowen, who came in 1838, has lived in Sylvester longer than any other woman now there.
In the winter of 1837-8, Joshua Davis, a very esti- mable young man who came from Pennsylvania with Mr. Mitchell, died of the "winter fever"-probably the typhoid fever of modern times. He was attended by Dr. Harcourt, whose medical studies consisted, it is said, of a few experiments made with lobelia and a few
16
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History of Green County.
other medicines on a calf. He visited his patient three times a day and charged a dollar a visit. Dr. Harcourt, whose name was usually pronounced Haircourt, was no more popular in Sylvester as a preacher than as a doc- tor. The common opinion of him seems to have been expressed by Mr. McCraken, who, after listening to a long harangue of the doctor's, remarked to a fellow sufferer : " The Lord never called Haircourt to preach; oh, no! he wouldn't have done that. He called Bear- court, or some other court, and Haircourt thought he meant him." In some respects the Doctor seems to have been one of the most agreeable of the early preachers. He comforted those frightened by the doctrine of election, by saying : "Don't believe it; God don't choke religion down any of His children as an Indian rams a knife down the throat of a deer." In the funeral sermons of his own patients he was naturally to their virtues a little kind, and funeral sermons then had in them the possi- bilities of dreadful things. At one funeral in Monroe in 1843, the minister preached his subject to hell, showed a possible avenue of escape, and preached him in again so many times that the audience was almost frenzied. One woman rose to go out and the minister ordered her to sit down. She replied that she would not stay and hear such talk, to which he retorted, that she could not get through the crowd, but he had under-estimated the humanity of his audience.
Amos Sylvester of New York, Joseph and Jacob Reeder, Buckeyes, A. G. Houghton, a Kentuckian, who was in Monroe in 1835, and Rees Rush and Benjamin
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History of Green County.
Mitchell, Pennsylvanians, came in 1838. Among the settlers of 1839 were Thomas W. Thompson, who had spent one year in Clarno, John Sylvester, Sylvester Hill, Justus, James, and Andrew Sutherland, Erastus Hul- burt, Mrs. Rachel Sylvester, Mrs. Jerusha Colton, from New York, Dr. Wm. Griffith, who platted the village of Monroe, Jacob Stull, Isaac Betts, and Miss Rachel Palmer from Pennsylvania, and - Sullivan.
The first school in Sylvester was the York district school, taught by Mr. Isaac Woodle. The first wed- ding was that of Mr. Wm. Baird and Miss Elizabeth Woodle.
The citizens of Sylvester seem to have been the first in the county to avail themselves of that best means of education within their reach, a debating society. From 1842 to '50 the village of Monroe was never for any long time without some organization of the kind, but Sylves- ter had a society in the winter of 1839-40. Most of the questions discussed were political, and great interest was taken in the meetings. Sylvester lost the charac- teristics of a wilderness more rapidly than the towns that were settled before it. Settlers came in more rapidly, and it cost them much less time and trouble to get lumber and flour from Clarno and other merchan- dise from Monroe than it had cost those towns to get all the necessaries of life from Galena.
In Sylvester, as in the other towns, every house was open to travelers. Hospitality was both a duty and pleasure; but to a housekeeper who, like one of the hostesses of Sylvester, had a family of ten, with no
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History of Green County.
help, and with a house whose dimensions were only ten by fourteen feet, the duty must have been more appar- ent than the pleasure. In many cases, the acquain- tance begun by giving the stranger a dinner grew into a life-long friendship, but sometimes the visitor proved to be a nuisance. One housekeeper, to please some pretentious guests, killed her only brood of chickens long before they reached the size described as "frying," and, as a reward for her kindness, had the mortification of hearing her son pitied because, in his "boiled shirt," put on in honor of the company, he seemed too good to live in such a cabin, which cabin was one of the best houses in the county. Another housekeeper went to great inconvenience to get a good breakfast for two men who voluntarily promised to pay a high price. Breakfast eaten, they asked her to change a larger bill than she had ever had, and, as she could not change it, they paid nothing. Usually the amount paid was entirely at the option of the guests. Many travelers stopped at Mr. Thompson's in Sylvester. If they paid well, it was all right; and if they did not pay anything, it was all right. The highest price ever charged was a shilling a meal and a shilling a lodging. Once ten men and a woman with their horses stopped over night. They had their own provisions, except butter and milk, which Mrs. Thompson supplied. Every bed in the house, all the bedding, and all the stables were given up to the travelers and their horses, but the total charge of ninety cents was complained of as exorbitant. As a general thing, travelers were not delayed by being borne heav-
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History of Green County.
enward on flowery beds of case. Mr. Daniel Dunwid- die's house was the favorite stopping place in northern Spring Grove and Jefferson when the only bedstead in his house was of the kind described in the sketch of the village of Monroe. Three of the men who worked on the court house in 1841 roomed together in a smoke- house which had, of course, no window and but one door. The only furniture in the room was one ordi- nary bedstead and one bedstead fastened in the side of the house, and yet the $2.50 per week which each of these men paid was thought small pay for the accom- modations furnished them.
In 1842, A. R. and Chas. Sylvester and Nelson Hill built a saw mill on Sugar river, section twenty-two. It was at this mill that the first town meeting was held, and at this meeting the town was named. As soon as Mr. Thompson raised anything to sell, he began to go to Milwaukee occasionally, and the neighbors sent by him for anything they needed. This led him to keep gro- ceries for sale at his house. The business grew, and he opened a general store. To this he added, as they seemed called for, a blacksmith shop and a tailor shop, the tailor spending a part of the year in other towns. A great deal of business was done at this store, but in '49 Mr. Thompson died, and since the store was closed a few years later, there has never been any store in the town. Until about 1850, there was no post office in Sylvester. Nevada post office, the first in the township, was near the southern boundary. There were two postmasters, Zina Round and Jeremiah Lovelace.
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History of Green County.
Then, Sylvester post office was established at Thomp- son's store, and Chas. Thompson was the first post master.
Of all the ancient foes of dull monotony, no other had so long a life and so strong a constitution as a road fight. Road fights were common to all the towns, and they had an infinite variety which makes the selection of a typical example difficult, but perhaps Sylvester gives as good an example of them all as can be found. Mr. Justus Sutherland petitioned the town board of Sylvester to so change a road that it would go around instead of across his land. The petition was not granted. He appealed from the decision of the board to a justice of the peace. The commissioners summoned by the justice to consider the matter ordered the road changed, but, through ignorance of the law, did not file their order with the town clerk within the thirty days allowed by law, and the omission left the order of the town board in force. By the advice of his lawyer, Mr. Sutherland fenced up the road, but his opponents tore the fence down. It was taken down several times, for truth crushed to earth is not more sure to rise again than was this fence. Then Mr. Sutherland and his sons armed themselves and stood guard. The first traveler who came that way flourished a pistol at them, but, seeing them de- termined, turned around and went away. At the next term of court, suit was brought against Mr. Sutherland for obstructing the highway, but Judge Whiton decided that the road was not a legal road because the law re- quired that in every order for a road the width should
-
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History of Green County.
be stated, and this had been omitted in the case under consideration. Through the winter following this de- cision, the road remained fenced up, and the dispute was supposed to be ended. But Mr. Sutherland was still smarting under the injury which his feelings, if not his property, had sustained the year before, when the town board sent men on to his land to work the road, and at the next term of court he sued the board for trespass. This lead to a diligent study of road laws, and Judge Whiton learned that an act subsequent to that on which he had based his decision, legalized all roads in existence at the time the first law was enacted. He then reversed his decision, and the road was re-opened. Again Mr. Sutherland petitioned the town board, but with the same result as before; for before this time the road question had become the question that divided the town at elections, and the party opposed to a change in the road had elected its candidates. Again he appealed to the justice, also with the same favorable result as before; but this time the filing of the commissioners' report was omitted because Mr. Sutherland's lawyer, Geo. E. Dex- ter, had been elected state senator, and he thought the easiest way of settling the matter was to have the road changed by an act of the legislature. With this end in view, he introduced a bill which would have passed, all unknown to Mr. Sutherland's opponents, had not Judge Noggle, of Rock County, been a member of the legis- lature. The Judge had at one time counseled the town board, and he still felt enough interest in the case to de- feat Mr. Dexter's bill. The next step in the controversy
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History of Green County.
was the endeavor of Mr. Sutherland's friends to make it appear that the report of the commissioners had been properly filed. The a tempt was a failure, but about that time the board proposed a compromise to which Mr. Sutherland assented.
LARGEST FARMERS IN SYLVESTER IN IS76.
Names.
No. of Acres.
Names.
No. of Acres. 160
S. D. Ball,
176
Peter Mc Vean,
J. C. Barber,
601
G. Nicks, 200
E. Berryman estate,
275
G. S. Pengra, - 160
Geo. Bloom,
215
M. H. Pengra, 160
S. R. Bloom, 200
J. J. Putnam, -
410
J. E. Bowen,
430
Henry Roderick, - 480
.B. B. Bowell,
240
S. R. Stephens,
200
J. S. Brown,
165
Lavina Stewart,
327
G. W. Bulfinch,
160
Isaiah Staffaucher, 160
W. C. Gorham,
345
Sol. Sutherland, 160
Wm. Hartwig,
370
A. R. Sylvester, -
352
Darwin Hulburt,
I So
Samuel Vance,
360
Samuel Hutzel,
289
Mat. West, - 288
Jacob Luchsinger,
229
Samuel West, - -
524
S. T. Mallory,
200
LARGEST STOCK RAISERS.
Henry Roderick. A. W. Sutherland. P. McVean.
PROPRIETORS OF MILLS.
Samuel Ball, Saw and Grist Mill.
Samuel Dennis, Steam Saw Mill.
PROPRIETORS OF CHEESE FACTORIES.
W. C Gorham, American Cheese.
P. & H. Staffaucher, Swiss Cheese.
TOWN OFFICERS FROM 1849 TO '77 INCLUSIVE.
CHAIRMAN.
THOS. W. THOMPSON.
D. MURDOCK, (2 years).
CYRUS BENSON.
G. S. PENGRA.
WM. BULFINCH, (2 years).
SOLOMON SUTHERLAND.
M. H. PENGRA, (4 years).
G. S. PENGRA.
J. M. SEARLES.
M. H. PENGRA.
JASPER CLEMMER.
WVM. DUBOISE, (2 years).
A. W. SUTHERLAND.
J. S. BROWN.
I. M. BENNETT.
D. W. BALL.
L. FRANKENBERGER, (2 years). L. HARE, (2 years).
L. HARE, (2 years). G. S. PENGRA.
-
R. D. Searles,
160
T. A. Bowell,
245
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History of Green County.
CLERKS.
M. C. SUTHERLAND, (2 years).
OLIVER LINDLY, (3 years).
H. T. THOMPSON, (3 years). L. FRANKENBERGER, (3 y'rs).
W. W. SUTHERLAND.
M. COLTON, (2 years).
L. FRANKENBERGER, (2 y'rs).
M. H. PENGRA, (5 years).
J. M. MILLER.
W. S. PENGRA, (2 years).
M. H. PENGRA.
B. B. BOWELL, (4 years).
MOUNT PLEASANT.
Most fitly named of all the towns is Mount Pleasant. No one can ride over its gently sloping hills and through its long valleys at any time from seed time to harvest, without blessing the good taste of those who first described it in its name.
A part of the first land broken in the county was in this township, but as the house and furnace belonging with the farm were in Exeter, the honor of being the first settler in Mount Pleasant was reserved for John Mitchell, an Englishman, who came to the county with Camp and Collins. He had made important improve- ments when Mr. Pierce came to Washington in 1837. Leonard Ross and Elias Luttrell had also cultivated land in Mount Pleasant when Mr. Pierce came, but their home was at the Skinner diggings. When but one or two settlers had purchased land, the fairest por- tion of the township was seized by speculators. One man, Caleb Hopkins by name, bought 2,240 acres in
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History of Green County.
Mount Pleasant and Washington, the greater part of it in Mount Pleasant.
John Burt, Chester Bushnell, and perhaps Samuel Robb settled in Mt. Pleasant as early as 1840. Michael McNutt, Edward Raymond, John, Daniel, and Benja- min Rima went in 1842, and found there John Lewis, James and Thos. Gillett, Foster Steadman, and Lewis Nixon. Visitors of the township in '43 remember see- ing, on their claims, Wm. Boyles jun. (at whose house the first town meeting was held), Thos. Morton, Josiah Munts, Leonard Heacox, Lyman Smith, Lewis Vin- cent, Geo. W. Barks, John Manley, Abner Aikens, Edward Gillis, John McLany, John Sergent, and Whaley. Many of these men, like many who came after them, spent their first years in the county at Exeter. They followed each other into Mount Pleasant in such quick ·succession that the oldest inhabitants are unable to agree on the order in which they came. Among the settlers of '44 were Ira Foster, Benjamin and W. W. Truax, Abraham Pratt, Porter Pratt, Samuel Hopkins, Geo. Rogers, Barnett Sunday, Wm. Kessler, John Bain, James Cassle, James Bedell, Lewis and Artemus Silver, Pliny Colton, Wm. Fulton, -- St. John, and Baker. Various states were represented among them, but a majority of those named were from Ohio.
On the tenth of July, 1844, there was discovered in Mount Pleasant a murder, which caused the greatest ·excitement in the county at the time, and which has re- mained a mystery ever since. The murdered man was Mr. Arthur Smith. His body was found in his field in
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History of Green County.
the eastern part of the township, where he had been. breaking prairie. The ground still bore the marks of a. struggle for life, and, though the remains were so changed by the wolves and the summer sun as to be re- cognized only by the clothing, yet upon the skull, found some rods from the body, could be seen several fractures made by a small hatchet which had hung on the plow and which showed, when it was found on the ground, the use last made of it. Mr. Smith must have been killed the 28th of June, as he was seen about sunset that day, and the next morning his oxen were running about in the yoke. He had sold his claim for $200 in gold, and he was probably killed for his money. The con- tents of a trunk in his cabin were scattered in a way that showed there had been a hasty search there for some- thing; but the money escaped the eye of the murderer,. and was found, after the discovery of the murder, done up in the cloth intended for a wedding suit. Suspicion attached itself to several, but nothing was proved against any of those arrested; and some of those who attempted to ferret out the murderer became convinced that the deed was done by some one living out of the county. Thirteen years after this murder, an old man, whom trouble had made insane, shot and killed his son- in-law. He was tried and acquitted, and these two make up the record of violent deaths in Mount Pleasant.
Like Adams, Mount Pleasant had in old times a claim society which sometimes had exciting work to do. A man in Cadiz once entered eighty acres in Exeter that Mr. John Troy had claimed. The circumstances were
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History of Green County.
such as to excite general indignation against the specu- lator; and the society, most of whose members were Mount Pleasant men, sent him a summons to appear in Exeter at a specified time, with a specified sum of money to pay Mr. Troy for the improvements he had made. Instead of going himself, the purchaser of the land sent Mr. Noah Phelps, to make some compromise. Mr. Phelps proposed to the members of the society, most of whom were assembled to enforce their demands, that Mr. Troy should buy the land of the speculator, paying the government price. They grimly made answer that they had not a hundred dollars among them, but to the proposition that they should all sign Mr. Troy's note with him, in case some one could be found to lend him the money, they readily agreed. There was one man in Monroe who had the money-Mr. Alanson Corson. To him, Mr. Phelps and Mr. Gardner, would-be-peace- makers, betook themselves. It was night, but they called him up, obtained the money, and hastened on to Cadiz. The speculator was awakened and easily persuaded to deed the land to Mr. Troy; but, when he called his wife, she refused to sign the deed without a present of a new dress from Mr. Troy. By this time the patience of the sleepy and half frozen peace-makers was ex- hausted. They intimated that, previous to the bestowal of such a gift, Mr. Troy would observe the lady's so- journ in a country so warm that dresses suitable to the climate of Cadiz would be quite out of place. Still the wife insisted that a dress for a deed was one of the rights of women. She was strengthened and encouraged by
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