Suffrage – South Bristol

Emily Parmely Collins

• (1814-1909), spouses Charles, Peltier, Simri Collins, two children
• Born in South Bristol, taught school there in her teens
• Organized first local women’s rights club “Women’s Equal Rights Club” in October 1848, group sent a suffrage petition to NYS legislature with 62 signatures, were rebuffed
• Anti-slavery and temperance advocate
• Lived in South Bristol for nearly 40 years before moving to Rochester
• Worked on front lines of Civil War as a nurse, was taken prisoner with wounded soldiers
• Lived in Rochester from 1858-1868, member of Unitarian Church, wrote articles in support of cause
• Lived in Louisiana from 1869-79, worked on women’s suffrage activities there
• In early 1880s moved to Hartford, CT, wrote for Hartford Journal under pen name “Justitia” supporting human rights, especially women’s
• Quote from newspaper (National Citizen, Syracuse, July 1880: “Believing that the world’s salvation depends primarily upon emancipation of woman, therefore I wish you and your noble compeers speed in this noble cause, a cause for which I would gladly live or die.” Emily P. Collins, Hartford
• In her Reminiscences, Collins remembered “from the earliest dawn of reason I pined for that freedom of thought and action that was then denied to all womankind. I revolted in spirit against the customs of society and the laws of the State that crushed my aspiration and debarred me from the pursuit of almost every object worthy of an intelligent, rational mind.”

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