Susan B. Anthony's Visit to Oregon
By ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON and Susan B. Anthony visited San Francisco in the summer of 1871, and while the newspapers of that city were giving glowing accounts of the lectures and personnel of Mrs. Stanton, coupled with harsh and cruel criticisms of Miss Anthony, I called upon well-known attorneys of Portland, and through their assistance secured transportation from Ben Holladay for bringing the ladies by steamer to Portland. The steamer arrived in the night time, bringing Miss Anthony alone, as Mrs. Stanton was unable to accompany her.
Early the next morning I called upon Miss Anthony at the St. Charles hotel, where, instead of the "cranky old maid" the reporters of that period had been caricaturing, I was met by a softly spoken, motherly looking, modestly attired woman, to whom my heart warmed instantly. After some difficulty I succeeded in engaging the Oro Fino Theater for Miss Anthony's three lectures. Her audiences were large and good natured; but the daily papers were cold and critical, and but for my New Northwest, which had found a place in almost every household, I fear that our distinguished visitor would have gone from us with no very exalted opinion of our press or people. Her lectures over in Portland, we together visited a number of Willamette Valley towns, where our mission was well sustained and encouraged.
We visited the Oregon State Fair in September, and there being no public hall on the grounds for meetings, we spoke in an open space in the shade of the pavilion, where we were compelled to raise our voices to a screech in order to be heard above the commingled din of brass bands, steam whistles and the cries of competing showmen. On this occasion a certain military gentleman, a colonel and a bachelor, was espied in the audience whom Miss Anthony recognized as one who had characterized her in an article for a Kansas newspaper as a "slab-sided old maid." The good natured excoriation he received before he could get away was exceedingly amusing to everybody but himself; and I have never heard of his repeating the offense.
Returning from the Willamette Valley towns, we proceeded to Walla Walla, traveling up the Columbia as the invited guests of the late lamented Captain J. C. Ainsworth on one of the old O. R. & N. Company's palatial river steamers to Wallula, where we took stage for Walla Walla, thirty miles distant. The dust was a foot deep in many places, and the road abounded in hidden chuck-holes. But Miss Anthony rode fearlessly on the boot of a lumbering old stage coach, beside an obliging driver, who regaled her with the trite story of Horace Greeley's famous ride in Nevada, frequently ex-
