October 27 the State Baptist Young People's Union at its anniversary indorsed woman suffrage. In December a rousing meeting was held in Canton, Congressman Elijah Morse presiding, with Mrs. Livermore and Miss Yates as speakers.
Among the deaths of the year was that of Frederick T. Greenhalge — the latest of a long line of Massachusetts governors who have advocated woman suffrage since 1870 — Governors Claflin, Washburn, Talbot, Brackett, Long, Butler and Ames.
At the annual meeting, in 1897, the speakers included the Rev. George L. Perin and Augusta Chapin, D. D. As the laws were about to be revised and codified it was decided to ask for an equalization of those bearing on domestic relations. The Women's Journal noted that never before had so many petitions for suffrage been sent in within so short a time. On February 16 the association gave a large and brilliant reception at the Vendome to Miss Jane Addams of Chicago. Col. Higginson presided, and Miss Addams, Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Livermore spoke. On April 17 a reception was given in the suffrage parlors to Mrs. Harriet Tubman, the colored woman so noted in antislavery days for her assistance to fugitive slaves, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney assisting.
Mr. Blackwell presided at the Festival, May 27, and eloquent addresses were made by the Rev. Dr. George C. Lorimer, Lieutenant-Governor John L. Bates, Mrs. Florence Howe Hall and many others, while letters of greeting were read from Lady Henry Somerset and Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England. It was Mrs. Howe's seventy-eighth birthday and she was received with cheers and presented with flowers.
On July 29 the annual meeting of the Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society, held at Adams, was "a woman suffrage convention from end to end," with Miss Susan B. Anthony as the guest of honor in her native town. Her friends and relatives from all parts of the country were present and addresses were made by the vice-president of the society, the Rev. A. B. Whipple, by Miss Shaw, Mrs. Chapman Catt, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Miss Blackwell, officers of the National Suffrage Association, and by Mrs. May Wright Sewall, vice-president of the International Council of Women,
