The following is my reply; this correspondence was published in an Omaha paper, and from that I copy:

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA, Dec. 31, 1855. GENTLEMEN-Your favor of the 28th inst., extending to me an invitation to lecture in your city during the sitting of the legislature, is received.

Feeling, as I do, the importance of the Woman's Rights movement, and its bearings upon the welfare of the whole human race-realizing most deeply the injustice done to woman by the laws of our country in relation to the property rights of married women, &c., I shall take pleasure in complying with your request by presenting for the consideration of your citizens generally, and the members of the legislature particularly, some thoughts on the question of woman's right of franchise. It will afford me especial gratification to bring this subject before you at this time, when your legislature is about adopting a code of laws for the government of the territory. Should it meet your wishes, I will be with you on Tuesday evening, the 8th of January, or at such other time as will best suit your convenience.

To Wm. Larimer, Jr., J. H. Sherman, and others.

Respectfully,

AMELIA BLOOMER,

A correspondent of the Chronotype, of this city, wrote from Omaha of this lecture as follows:

Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who had been formerly invited by member of the legislature and others, arrived at the door of the State House at 7:00 o'clock P.M., and by the gallantry of Gen. Larimer, a passage was made for her to the stand. The house had been crowded for some time with eager expectants to see the lady and listen to the arguments which were to be adduced as the fruitage of female thought and research. When all had been packed into the house who could possibly find a place for the sole of the foot, Mrs. Bloomer arose, amid cheers. We watched her closely, and saw that she was perfectly self-possessed-not a nerve seemed to be moved by excitement, and the voice did not tremble. She arose in the dignity of a true woman, as if the importance of her mission so absorbed her thoughts that timidity or bashfulness were too mean to entangle the mental powers. She delivered her lecture in a pleasing, able, and, I may say, eloquent manner that enchained the attention of her audience for an hour and a half. A man could not have beat it.

In mingling with the people next day we found that her argument had met with much favor. As far as property rights are concerned, all seemed to agree with the lady that the laws of our country are wrong, and that woman should receive the same protection as man. All we have time to say now is, that Mrs. Bloomer's arguments on Woman's Rights are unanswerable. We may doubt the policy for women to vote, but who can draw the line and say that naturally she has not a right to do so? Mrs. Bloomer, though a little body, is among the great women of the United States; and her keen, intellectual eye seems to flash fire from a fountain that will consume the stubble of old theories until woman is placed in her true position in the enjoyment of equal rights and privileges. Her only danger is in asking too much.

Respectfully,

ONEIDA.

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So much interest was created by the lecture that a bill was drawn and introduced into the legislature giving to woman the right of franchise. This bill, I think, was drawn and presented by Gen. Wm. Larimer, formerly of Pittsburgh, Pa. It was not until the last day but one of the session that this woman suffrage bill came up, by special order of the House. A number of ladies were present to hear the discussion. Gen. Larimer spoke ably and eloquently in favor of the bill. On the vote being taken, it stood as follows: Yeas-Messrs. Boulwere, Campbell, Buck, Chambers, Clancy, Davis, Hail, Decker, Haygood, Hoover, Kirk, Larimer, Rose, Sullivan.-14. Nays-Messrs. Beck, Bowen, Gibson, Harsh, Laird, Miller, Moore, Riden, Morton, McDonald, Salisbury.—11.

Having passed the House, it was sent to the Council, where it was twice read, but failed, for want of time, of coming to a third reading. The session was limited to forty days-it was drawing to a closethere was considerable wrangling and excitement over county boundaries, removal of the capital from Omaha, etc.—men talking to kill time until the last hour of the session expired, and the woman suffrage bill not again reached, and so was lost.

There was no little excitement concerning the matter, pending the action of the legislature on the bill and afterward. Gen'l William Larimer was the special exponent of the bill. The opponents presented him with a petticoat, over which there came near being a general melee.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF REV. WILLIAM HAMILTON.

Every old settler in Nebraska will remember "Father Hamilton,” early and so long a missionary among the western Indians. I solicited his biography for this report from his own pen. The following letter in response I feel would be marred if it were changed, even in the "dotting of a single 'i,' or the crossing of a 't.'" I therefore present it just as it came to me.

DECATUR, BURT COUNTY, NEBRASKA,

Robt. W. Furnas, Esqr., Brownville, Neb.:

May 22nd, 1884.

MY DEAR FRIEND-Your kind favour of March was duly received, and it was then my intention to comply with your request as

soon as I could. I had much on hand that needed attention, but a longer time has elapsed than I intended, ere I should make the attempt to reply.

Without further apology, I remark, I was born in Lycoming Co. (now Clinton), Pa., on the banks of the Susquehanna, West Branch, on the First of Aug., 1811. The house that my father built shortly before his marriage is still standing, and is the home of my youngest sister, now in her 78th year. I am the youngest of eleven children, all of whom, with one exception, lived till mature life, and five of whom are still living. My father was a farmer, and settled there before the revolutionary war, and was among the number of those who composed what was called "The Big Runaway." His father was killed by the Indians, while peaceably engaged on his farm; yet the Indians had no warmer friend than my father, one evidence of which was his anxiety, when I offered myself as a Foreign Missionary, that I should be sent to the Indians in our own country.

I worked on the farm till my eighteenth year, and part of the time till in my 21st year, studying and preparing for college with our Pastor, Rev. J. H. Grier, and, in part, privately. I went to college in Washington, Pa. (now “Washington and Jefferson College"), and entered the freshman, half advanced, and graduated in two and a half years, in the fall of 1834. Four of our class of twelve still live; one, the Hon. Wm. Russel, who has been in congress, who also received the first honours; the other two, with myself, are in the ministry. During my junior and senior year, I kept bachelor's hall, as more economical than boarding, though boarding could then be had for $1.50 a week, and in the club it cost a dollar a week. It cost me thirty-seven and a half cents a week, during the first winter, when alone-coal, 31; light, 61; washing, 25; but when my brother, J. J. Hamilton, now also in the ministry, came from the plow to get an education, our boarding cost us seventy-five cents a week. I gained one year, and he gained two and half, going with two classes from the start. By boarding ourselves we had more quietness and more time to study, and needed less exercise, our principal food being bread and butter and milk, with occasionally a taste of meat, or some little delicacy, such as apple-butter. My brother, though keeping up with two classes, had no equal in mathematics, while he was doubtless the equal of the others in the other branches. At the request of the class,

no honours were given. Four in my class participated in the honours, the second honour being divided between two. If I may be pardoned for referring to self, as illustrating how some things were done, I may say that I told the one who got the third honour how to parse all his words in Greek, and wrote his Greek speech for him, which he drew by lot, and could not write one sentence in Greek correctly. Then, as a little amusement, I wrote my last composition in Greek Sapphic verse, and exchanged with the other member for criticism-S. L. Russel— but he did not go into the room to criticise, but asked me to exchange on the portico, and the professor readily excused him when I told him of the manner of exchanging. This was near fifty years ago, and is mentioned simply as illustrating how some things were done.

As my father was unable to do more for me I at once engaged in teaching in Wheeling, Va., but as the bully of Wheeling undertook to cowhide me for whipping his boy-quite a youth-and was laid up himself under the doctor's care, and it produced quite an excitement (those were the days of slavery), I did not stay long though all the virtuous part of the town sustained me. I left and went to the seminary at Pittsburgh, or Allegheny. Do not suppose I carried any deadly weapons, this I have never felt it necessary to do even in the Indian country. At the seminary I boarded in a private family and taught three children three hours a day for my board and a room in the attic. Having a prospect of a school in Louisburg, Pa., I went home in January, 1835, and taught school in Bellefonte, Pa., for over two years, studying divinity privately while teaching, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Northumberland in the spring of 1837, and returned to the seminary, resuming the studies with the class I had been with. During the summer I was accepted by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions as their missionary, and was married to Miss Julia Ann N. McGiffin, daughter of Thomas McGiffin, Esq., of Washington, Pa.; went back to my parents, was ordained in October, 1837, by the same Presbytery of Northumberland, and started west on my journey by stage, taking near a week to reach Pittsburgh. This we left on the 30th of October, 1837, and reached Liberty Landing on Saturday, November 18th, having been on the way nearly a month (from Pittsburgh), and more than a month from my home in Pennsylvania, and traveling from St. Louis to a point where Glasgow now stands, by stage. We had 86 miles yet to go to

reach the place of our future labors. Forty-five miles of that was on horse back to the old agency nine miles below East Black Snake Hills, where St. Joseph now stands. This we reached on the 27th of December, and were detained at the agency on account of there being no way to cross the Missouri River till it should freeze. From the agency to St. Joseph I footed it, while my wife and a little Indian girl and white girl in Mr. Ballard's family rode a-horseback. The ice was only strong enough to cross on foot, and we waited till the trader bought a mule from an Indian, and hiring it and an Indian pony, my wife rode the mule and the two girls rode the pony, while I took it afoot. We had twenty-five miles to go to reach the Indians on Wolf creek, and night overtook us at Musquito creek, still seven or eight miles from our place of destination. As it was intended for us to get through, no provision was made for camping out, or for dinner, supper, or breakfast. It was very dark, and knowing nothing of the road we encamped on that stream, and I spent most of the night in cutting wood, having an axe in my saddlebags, in which I fixed a temporary handle. The next morning we started breakfastless, and reached Wolf creek about eleven o'clock. The water at the ford lacked only three or four inches of coming over the pony's back and the bank was very miry, and not till near four o'clock did we get over, all getting wet. Fortunately, though it was the 29th of December, it was for the time of year moderate, or we might have perished. Mr. Irvin and wife were there in a log shanty, and we were most kindly received by them and shared their hospitality till we could fix up the other end of the log house for our home. He had a small quantity of flour and we got some corn and beef from the trader at Iowa Point, six miles away, when it was issued to the Indians. I walked this six miles on one occasion and ground corn on a hand-mill as long as it was prudent to stay, and carried the meal home on my back. On another occasion I went to Fort Leavenworth, fifty-one miles, to take the borrowed mule home, expecting to cross there and go thirty miles further to reach St. Jo. that now is, over eighty miles, to get to a place only twenty-five miles from the mission, and return the same way, but when I got to the fort the cold of the preceding night rendered the river uncrossable on account of the ice. About sundown, when I was near twenty miles from the garrison, though I then knew nothing of the distance, there came up