News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-08-21
DEATH OF A NOTED WOMAN.
The Late Mrs. Jane Grey SwissheIm and
Her Notable Career In Favor of Her Sex.

Mrs. Jane Grey Swisshelm, the vel
known philanthropist and journalist,
died in Swissdale, Pa, aged sixty y-eight
years. In the interesting autobiography
of Mrs. Jane Grey SnissheIm, ''Half O
Century" are revealed some of the cir
cunstances which must have caused
her intensity of utterance, mingled
sometimes with bitterness, upon slavery
and the subsection of woman. In 1888,
at the age of twenty-three, she went to
Louisville, KY, and there, seeing slav-
cry, increased her hatred of the system
and no doubt nerved her pen in her
warfare against it few years later. Her
domestic experience with tyrant hus-
band was more bitter and must have
been the secret spring which nourished
her intense hatred of the wrongs heaped
upon woman by custom and law. At
the death of her mother, after an illness
of several months, during which Mrs.
SwissheIm nursed her with daughters
affection, her husband was highly in
censed that the mother had not left her
little property to him instead of Miss
SwissheIm. On her refusal to transfer
the property to him, he threatened, in
her own graphic words:
"Being the owner of my person and
services, he had right to the time spent
in nursing mother, and he would file his
claim against her executors. In her
outraged womanhood she thus speaks:-
81 do not know why [ should have been
SO utterly overwhelmed by this proposal
to execute law passed by Christian
legislators for the government of a
Christian people, law which had never
been questioned by any nation, State or
Church, and was in full force all over the
world" Mrs. Swisshelm, after such ex-
perience with despotic husband, de-
voted all her energy to the overthrow of
such legalized injustice. She wrote
most passionately, but with rare ability.
for the freedom of the negro slave and
of the white wife in the Spirit Of Lib
erty, and especially in the Commercial
Journal in 1874, series of letters on
married woman's rights to hold prop
erty. January 20, 1S46, started the
Pittsburgh Saturday V2sitor, which
was devoted to the abolition of the slave
traffic. In the winter of 1850, she COM
menced writing letters from Washington
for the New York. Tribune, and was the
first woman engaged in that capacity. |
Another Office Mrs Swisshelm performed |
for her sex was their recognition as
reporters. She says:-"No |
woman had ever had place in the Con-
gressional reporters gallery. This door
L wanted to open to them, and asked for |
a seat there and secured the consent of |
Vice President MilIiard Fillmore"
Her series of 'Letters to Country
Girls" were commenced in 1849, and in
1854 were collected in book. After a /
serious railroad accident occurred the |
Visitor suggested red light on the rear
of every train. The suggestion was ac-
copied immediately. and was the origin |
of the red light signal In 1862, the |
Visjtoy merged into the Family Jour-
nal and Visitor, and Mrs. Swisshelm
was associate editor on it till 1857. Then
she resigned her position to retire to
private life, and migrated to Minnesota.
But she was persuaded to take charge
of the st. Cloud Visitor and afterward
the st. Cloud Democrat. These were
stormy times in Minnesota, and Mrs.
Swisshelm's editorial bombshells brought
mob violence upon her at one time. On
January 2, 1868, she resigned her posi-
ton and went to Washington, and dur
ing the rest of the war did heroic hospi-
tai work. Blessed by the love of one
daughter and thereverence of humanity,
she said to her friend, Mrs. Burleigh, in
reviewing the shadow and struggle and
of her eventful life: "Oh, but
it is good to have lived and suffered and
worked, to know that nothing can go
wrong with us if only we are right"