The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1884-07-31

incredible Her husband demanded that she
resist the appeals of filial affection and remain
with him and the business. He asserted his
authority as a husband, and supported it by cita-
tions from the Bible She urged her duty as a
daughter to the mother who bore her and
cared for her through her infancy, and main
tanned her position by quoting biblical pre-
scriptions. Defeated at every point her hus-
band suddenly discovered new method of
holding her. In those days such thing as
woman going alone to steamboat and taking
passage was unheard of. He refused to go to
the boat with her, and told her she would not
unattended. But she did SO, reached the steam
boat all right, secured her passage and went
home to her mother, who shortly after died.
A little later her husband appeared on the
scene, having sold out the Louisville establish
ment, and taken in payment a lot of wild
cat " Western money, a couple of cub BEARS
and a young panther. He gave the animals
habitation in the house, and one Of the COM
moner incidents was their breaking loose and
chasing the affrighted women through the
rooms until the hulking husband could be CALL
ed in with screams, when he would subdue
the brutes with well-directed blows of his
powerful fist. Mrs. Swisshelm's story of these
lively episodes, and the incidental allusion she
makes to the satisfaction felt for her own
frights when she saw the young panther chas-
ing her tyrannical mother-in-law through the
house, makes quite interesting reading
Her mother at death left her a little bit of
property, which her husband tried to compel
her to give over to him, and when she refused,
he threatened that, being the owner of her
person and services, he would file claim
against the estate for the time spent in nursing
her mother This brutality opened her eyes
to the condition of women before the law in
Pennsylvania
She had already gained a national reputation
by her vigorous writings against Negro slavery,
| and now she began an equally strenuous cru
SADIE against woman slavery. There was so
much right on her side that many of the more
Objectionable laws were speedily modified.
In January, l845, she began the publication
in Pittsburg of the Saturday Visitor, and made
every issue trampet-yoice against Negro and
woman slavery. Her articles struck home
every time, and were copied far and wide. She
gained such a reputation that in 1850 Horace
Greeley engaged her to go to Washington as
correspondent of the New York Tribune She
had fight to get the reporters gallery opened
to women, and, as usual, succeeded.
She maintained her Pttsburg paper which
| enjoyed marked success until 1857, when,
having been for years formally separated from
her husband, she resolved to leave the State
and go to Minnesota, that he might get a
divorce on the ground of desertion. She was
weary of the obloquy and bitterness which
pursued her on account of her singing pen,
and desired to retire to private life. But she
was inducedin short time to take charge of
the st. Cloud Chief Minnesota was then q
Territory. and the Pro-slayery Governor was
trying to force it into the column of Slavery
States. Mrs. Swisshelm antagonized the Gov
4..r,,1, hex USUAL vI5or
and her Office was mobbed and destroyed aad
| she narrowly escaped falling sacrifice to the
fury of the brutal Pro-slavery partizans.
During the war she went to the front OF the
Army of the Potomac as nurse in field hos
pitfalls and did magnificent work there-a
work hardly equaled, if at all. by any done by
anybody else. She threw all her wonderful
vigar and executive energy into the mission,
| and accomplished results in comforting and
| saving the badly wounded that astonished the
old dry-boned incompetents who were in charge
of much of the surgical work of the army.
Since the war she has lived quietly in Pitts
burg, occasionally contributing to the press
some Of her pungently written articles, the
sharpness of which knew no abatement to the
day of her death