|
Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Eliza Daniel Stewart 1816 ~ 1908
Mrs. Eliza Daniel Stewart, a leader in
all movements, whose purpose was the happiness and upholding of
humanity, in 1858 became a charter member of a Good Templar
Lodge organized in her town of Piketon, Ohio, and she remained a
warm advocate of the order for the rest of her life.
She delivered her first public
temperance address before the Band of Hope in Pomeroy, and
continued thereafter to fight for the temperance cause with
voice and pen. When the boom of cannon upon Sumter was heard she
devoted her time to gathering and for-warding supplies to the
field and hospital, and at length she went south herself, to aid
in the hospital work. She remained at the front during the Civil
War and became convinced that in the appetite for drink that had
come to so many of the soldiers the country was fostering a foe
even worse than the one which the soldiers had conquered by
force of arms. On the twenty-second of January, 1873, she
delivered a lecture on temperance in Springfield, which was her
first step into crusade movements. Two days later a drunkard's
wife prosecuted a saloon keeper under the Adair law and Mrs.
Stewart, called Mother Stewart since the war, going into the
courtroom, was persuaded by the attorney to make the opening
plea to the jury. And to the consternation of the liquor
fraternity, for it was a test case, she won the suit. It created
a sensation and the press sent the news over the country.
Thereafter Mrs. Stewart was known to the
drunkard's wives, if not as attorney, at least as a true friend
and sympathizer in their sorrows and they sought her aid and
counsel. Her next case in court was on the sixteenth of October,
1873, and a large number of the prominent women accompanied her
to the courtroom. She made the opening charge to the jury,
helped examine the witnesses, made the opening plea, and again
won her case amid great excitement and rejoicing. Next, in order
that the intensity of interest already awakened should not die
down, Mrs. Stewart, with the co-operation of the ministers of
the city, held a series of weekly mass meetings which succeeded
in keeping the interest at white heat.
On the second of December, 1873, she
organized a woman's league that was the first organization ever
formed in what came to be known as the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union work. Soon after she went to a saloon in
disguise on Sunday, bought a glass of wine and had the
proprietor prosecuted and fined for violating Sunday ordinance.
That was an important move because of the attention it called to
the open saloon on the Sabbath.
Then the world was startled by an
uprising of women all over the state in a crusade against the
saloons, and Mother Stewart was kept busy in addressing immense
audiences and organizing and leading out bands through her own
and other states. She was made president of the first local
union of Springfield, formed January 7, 1874. The first county
union ever formed was organized in Springfield in 1874 with
Mother Stewart as president In June; 1874, the first state union
was organized in her state, her enthusiastic labors throughout
the state contributing duly to that result In the beginning of
the work Mrs. Stewart declared for legal prohibition and took
her stand with the party which was working for that end.
In 1876 she visited Great Britain by
invitation of the Good Templars. There she spent five months in
almost incessant work, lecturing and organizing associations. A
great interest was awakened throughout the kingdom, her work
resulting in the organization of the British Woman's Temperance
Association. In 1878 she was called to Virginia and there
introduced the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the blue
ribbon work. Two years later she again visited the South and
introduced Woman's Christian Temperance Union work in several of
the Southern states organizing unions among both the white and
the colored people. Age and overwork necessitating rest, she
wrote, "Memories of the Crusade," a valuable and
interesting history, also "A Crusader in Great Britain,"
an account of her work in that country. Her long work finished,
though still young of heart, she passed her last years in
Springfield, Ohio.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
|