Pegi Deitz Shea - The Taxing Case of the Cows: A True Story About Suffrage

The Taxing Case of the Cows

A True Story about Suffrage

BY I RIS V AN R YNBACH AND P EGI D EITZ S HEZ

I LLUSTRATED BY E MILY A RNOLD McC ULLY

Clarion Books
H OUGHTON M IFFLIN H ARCOURT
B OSTON N EW Y ORK 2010

Thanks to the Historical Society of Glastonbury for all their help.

Clarion Books
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003
Text copyright 2010 by Iris Van Rynbach and Pegi Deitz Shea
Illustrations copyright 2010 by Emily Arnold McCully

The illustrations were executed in watercolor.
The text was set in Old Claude.

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Van Rynbach, Iris.
The taxing case of the cows : a true story about suffrage / by Iris Van Rynbach and Pegi Deitz Shea;
illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-547-23631-5
1. WomenSuffrageConnecticutHistory19th centuryJuvenile literature. 2. Taxation
ConnecticutHistory19th centuryJuvenile literature. I. Shea, Pegi Deitz.
II. McCully, Emily Arnold, ill. III. Title.

JK1911.C8V36 2010
324.6 2309746dc22

2009034136

Manufactured in China

LEO 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

4500226394

With love for Michael, Cecily, Amelie, and Joe.I.V.R.

To Alicia Suskin Ostriker, poet, mentor, friend.P.D.S.

A BBY and Julia Smith ran their old family farm in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Feisty and independent, the sisters loved their animals, especially their Alderney cows, Lilly, Proxy, Whitey, Paisy, Jessie, Bessie, and Minnie.

For generations, the Smith family had helped Glastonbury grow. They had always paid their fair share of taxes, which funded schools, roads, and other services. In 1869, when the Smith sisters were in their seventies, the town leadersall mendecided they needed more tax money. But they chose to collect an unfair share from single female landowners only.

At first, the sisters refused to pay. Abby argued that they should have the right to vote on a decision that affected them. The town leaders ignored her. The tax collector ordered the Smiths to pay a tax bill of two hundred dollars (about four thousand dollars today) immediately. Frightened they would lose their farm, Julia and Abby paid up. But the sisters, angered, began a public battle that would last for years and would capture America's attention.

Taxation without representationbeing forced to pay taxes they had no say aboutis what drove the American colonies to rebel against England in 1776. Smith ancestors had actually fought in the American Revolution. Now, almost one hundred years later, men could vote, but women still could not. Abby called their own case "taxation without representation."

Throughout 1873, Abby attended town meetings and demanded the right to vote. Often the men would not let her speak. When they did, they ignored her, not even recording her appearance in the minutes of their meetings. So Abby gave her speeches outsideher stage, an ox cart on the town green.

When the tax came due in October, the sisters paid an installment of twenty-four dollars12 percent interest on their yearly two-hundred-dollar tax bill. Male landowners were allowed to do this. But the town leaders insisted that the Smiths pay the total immediately.

On New Year's Day, 1874, a new tax collector, George Andrews, marched into the Smith barn. He demanded the seven cows, worth more than four hundred dollars, as payment for the overdue tax. The cows were to be held for one week on the property of the Smiths' neighbors, the Hales. If the sisters hadn't paid their entire tax by then, the town would auction off the cows and keep the money as payment.

The sistersand the cowswere furious. The cows bellowed in protest as Mr. Hale led them away. "Nothing could exceed the trouble we had getting them into my yard," Mr. Hale said. "The cows resisted every way possible." He and his wife sided with the Smiths.

The seven cows spent the week in Hale's tobacco shed, which measured only fifteen by twelve feet. Crowded, the cows stomped and groaned. They needed milking, but they wouldn't let the Hales milk them. Abby and Julia had to hike over for the morning and evening chore.

Mrs. Hale wouldn't let a drop of the cows' milk enter her house. She told Julia that "it seemed the cows were stolen."