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Belva Ann Lockwood 1830 ~ 1917
Belva Ann Lockwood
In the summer of 1884 Mrs. Belva Ann
Lockwood was nominated for the presidency of the Equal Rights
party in San Francisco, California, and this was the first step
toward giving woman suffrage a similar recognition to that
accorded the male vote. In 1888 she was renominated by the same
party in Des Moines, Iowa, and on this occasion awakened the
people of the United States as never before to the consideration
of the right of suffrage for women. The notoriety given to her
by these bold movements called forth much censure; nevertheless,
in a history of what women have done for the United States, Mrs.
Lockwood's life should figure prominently. She was born in
Royalton, Niagara County, New York, on the 24th of October,
1830. Her parents' name was Bennett, and they were of the
farming class in moderate circumstances, so their daughter was
educated first in the district school, and later in the academy
of her native town. At fourteen years of age she taught the
district school in summer and attended school in winter,
continuing that strenuous regime until she was eighteen, when
she became the wife of a young fanner in the neighborhood, Uriah
H. McNall. Her husband died in April, 1853, leaving one small
daughter who, later in life, became Mrs. Lockwood's principal
assistant in her law office. As Belva Ann McNall, a young widow,
she entered Genesee College, in Lima, New York and was graduated
therefrom with honor on the 27th of June, 1857. She was
immediately elected preceptress of Lockport Union School, and
here she ruled with efficiency and success for four years,
leaving there to become proprietor of the McNall Seminary, in
Oswego, New York. At the close of the Civil War Mrs. McNall came
to Washington, and for several years had charge of Union League
Hall, meanwhile taking up the study of law.
On the 11th of March, 1868; she became the wife of the Rev.
Ezekiel Lockwood, a Baptist minister, who, during the war, was
chaplain of the Second D. C. Regiment. Doctor Lockwood died in
Washington, D. C. on the 23rd of April, 1877, and three years
later we find Mrs. Lockwood taking her second degree of A.M., in
Syracuse, New York.
In May, 1873, she had graduated from the National University Law
School, of Washington, D. C, and after a spirited controversy
about the admission of women to the bar she was admitted to the
bar of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the district. She
at once entered into the active practice of her profession, and
accomplished over twenty years of successful work. For about
thirteen years of that time Mrs. Lockwood was in court every
court day, and engaged in pleading cases in person before the
court.
In 1875 she applied for admission to the Court of Claims, and
was refused, on the ground, first, that she was a woman and,
second, that she was a married woman. The contest was a bitter
one, sharp, short and decisive. But, undiscouraged, Mrs.
Lockwood had her application for admission to the bar of the
United States Supreme Court renewed. That motion was also
refused, on the ground that there was no English precedent for
the admission of women to the bar. Again, nothing daunted, she
drafted a bill admitting women to the bar of the United States
Supreme Court, secured its introduction into body houses of
Congress, and after three years of effort, aroused influence and
public sentiment enough to secure its passage in June, 1879, and
two months later, on the motion of the Honorable A. G. Riddle,
Mrs. Lockwood was admitted to the bar of that august tribunal,
the first woman upon whom the honor was conferred. After the
passage of the act Mrs. Lockwood was notified that she could
then be admitted to the Court of Claims. This honor she
accepted, and had for many years before that court a very active
practice. There is now no Federal Court in the United States
before which she may not plead.
In later years, however, she has confined her energies more
especially to claims against the government. She has even made
an argument for the passage of a bill before the committees of
the Senate and the House of Congress, and in 1870 she secured a
bill giving to the women employees of the Government, of whom
there are many thousands, equal pay for equal work with men. At
another time she secured the passage of a bill appropriating
$50,000 for the payment of bounties of soldiers and mariners,
heretofore a neglected class. During Garfield's administration,
in 1881, Mrs. Lockwood made application for appointment as
minister to Brazil, but these negotiations were terminated by
the unfortunate death of the President.
Mrs. Lockwood is interested, not only in equal rights for men
and women, but in temperance and labor reforms, the control of
railroads and telegraphs by the Government, and in the
settlement of all difficulties, national and international, by
arbitration instead of war. In the summer of 1889, in company
with the Rev. Amando Deyo, Mrs. Lockwood represented the
Universal Peace Union at the Paris Exposition, and was there
delegated to the International Congress of Peace in that city,
which opened its sessions in the Salle of the Trocadéro, under
the patronage of the French government She made nearly all the
opening speeches, and later presented a paper in the French
language on international arbitration, which was well received.
In the summer of 1890 she again represented the Universal Peace
Union in the International Congress in London, and here she
presented a paper on "Disarmament." Before returning to
the United States Mrs. Lockwood took a course of university
extension lectures in the University of Oxford. She was elected
for the third time to represent the Universal Peace Union, of
which she was then corresponding secretary, in the International
Congress of Peace, held in November, 1891, in Rome. Her subject
in that gathering was ''The Establishment of an
International Bureau of Peace."
Mrs. Lockwood now lives in retirement in Washington, D. C, but
her appearance upon a woman suffrage platform is always greeted
with applause. Mrs. Lockwood has always been a student, and one
of the most valuable acts of her career was when she became
prime mover in the university extension course in this country.
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.
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