Woman of the Century/Cornelia Moore Chillson Moots

MOOTS, Mrs. Cornelia Moore Chillson, temperance evangelist, born in Flushing, Mich., 14th October, 1843. Mrs. Moots' parents were of New England lineage. Her father, Calvin C. C. Chillson, was a temperance advocate and was said to be a descendant of the Whites, who came over in the Mayflower. Her mother was a typical Green Mountain girl, a granddaughter of James Wilcox, a minute man of the Revolution, and the second man to enter Fort Ticonderoga at the time of its capture by Ethan Allen. Mrs. Moots' parents moved to Michigan in 1836. Abigail Chillson, the grandmother, then a widow, went with them. The new settlements were without preachers, and her grandmother Chillson, an ardent Methodist, often supplied the itinerary by preaching in the log school-houses and cabins of the early pioneers. Mrs. Moots' father was a stanch anti-slavery man, a member of the underground railroad, and the Chillson home was often the refuge of the slave set king liberty across the line. He died 3rd May, 1864. Her mother is still living and has more than a local reputation for deeds of charity and her care of homeless children. CORNELIA MOORE CHILLSON MOOTS Self-reliant, persevering, fond of books and of a highly religious temperament, those prominent characteristics in early life forecast something of Miss Chillson's future. She began to teach school at the age of fifteen and continued in that employment until she entered Albion College, in the fall of 1865. Her college career was cut short in the junior exhibition of her class, in the close of the winter term of 1869. She thought the president of the college overstepped his jurisdiction in criticising and dictating the style of dress she was to wear on that occasion. She left her seat on the platform, and, accompanied by one of the professors, left the hall, never to return as a student, although later, in 1882, the college awarded her a full diploma with the degree of A. B. She returned home and was immediately employed as a teacher in the Bay City high school, where she remained until she became the wife of William Moots, a merchant of West Bay City, Mich., in 1870. Household cares and the education of her little daughter, with occasional demands upon her to fill vacant pulpits, by the clergy of her own and other denominations, absorbed her time, until the death of Mr. Moots in 1880. As a Bible student she had always desired to visit historic lands, and that desire was granted in 1881. A trip through the principal countries of the continent was followed by a tour through the Holy Land and Egypt. The entire journey through Palestine was made on horseback. Always active in church, a new field opened to her as a temperance worker, and she turned her forces into the broad channel of temperance reform. She is now serving her third term as State evangelist in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She is radical in her views on temperance, admission of women to the Methodist Episcopal General Conference and equal suffrage, and believes in the same standard of morals for men and women. Before an audience she is an easy speaker, and is both persuasive and argumentative.