Abby Louise Pettengill: Lily Dale's First Woman President

So we are to have a covenant of Peace between nations at Last! said I, looking up from the morning’s newspaper. My companion was gazing out through the vine-covered window toward the open blue. At my words she turned in her quick concise manner and observed,
One of the first Peace Conferences held in America took place at Lily Dale, did you know that?
I did not, and putting down my paper I waited for her to continue.
It was in August, 1904, and I was President of the City of Light Assembly at the time. We aimed to gather together in our summer sessions people interested in every phase of thought, and to make Lily Dale a center which peace and enlightenment could radiate upon all the world. We had a Peace Day and a Woman’s Day back in those times when both peace and suffrage were unpopular. It is a wonderful thing to live to see one’s beliefs become the live issues of the day!...
It was my suggestion, Mrs. Pettengill continued,
that we celebrate our first Peace Day at Lily Dale. You have never been to Lily Dale? Well, it is one of the loveliest spots in the world and just the place for such a celebration….I’ve concentrated upon Universal Peace night after night for many years. If only enough people would hold strong to this thought they could bring it, and –soon too. I have often wondered why we have not a Minister of Peace at Washington as well as a Minister of War!

Thus began the tribute to Abby Louise Pettengill written by Harriet Bartnett, author and friend. Abby Louise Pettengill, was born on March 9, 1843, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was seven of nine children born to Matilda Wheelock and her husband Willard Burnham. She attended the Hillsdale Michigan College and at the age of 21 married Charles Pettengill, of Springville, MA. They had 4 children.
One summer while Mrs. Pettengill was on her way from Cleveland to the seashore with one of her daughters, she made the acquaintance of Mrs. Marion Skidmore in the train and through the lady became interested in the two issues destined to have a far-reaching effect on her life. One was the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, then struggling valiantly against serious opposition; the other was Psychic Phenomena or in its religious form—Spiritualism.
As the train moved across the borders of Ohio into New York State, Mrs. Skidmore outlined the purpose of a little colony among the Chautauqua Hills, on the shores of the Cassadaga Lakes. It has been established as a summer camp for Spiritualists in 1880, where under proper direction its beliefs could be extended and tests of those claiming supernormal powers could be made and demonstrated. Mrs. Pettengill became so interested in what she heard that with characteristic impulsiveness, instead of going on to the seashore as originally planned, she alighted at Lily Dale and remained for the summer.
Thenceforward she attended each summer session and gradually became associated with the organization, until in 1904 she was made President of the City of Light Assembly.
We made a lot of Woman’s Day at Lily Dale, Mrs. Pettengill continued. We met the speakers at the train with the band playing. The carriage trimmed in ferns and yellow ribbons and with all the ceremony possible escorted them in state to the Leolyn Hotel. Susan B. Anthony came there for years to speak for Suffrage, along with other brilliant women, among them — Anna Howard Shaw, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Helen Campbell, May Wright Sewell, Emily Howland, Lucy Stone, Lucy and Mary Anthony and many others. It was a delight to come in contact with such women!
Aunt Susan used to say 'We love you but we don’t care anything about your religion! There was too much work in this world for her to do without troubling about another, she said. But one day-in a spirit of adventure perhaps –she went with me to a séance.
The first voice to speak gave the name of a long-deceased and evidently not very popular Aunt of Miss Anthony. No sooner had she announced her identify than Susan B. flashed back with her usual directness,
I don’t want to hear you. I didn’t like you when you lived and I don’t care to talk to you now. Why doesn’t Elizabeth Cady or some one else come? But as the Aunt insisted on being heard, the sitting came to an early end.
Yet even after her passing into the other world, this indominable leader seemed still to pervade the Cause for which she had labored with such heroic and unselfish determination throughout her long life. Dr. Shaw told Mrs. Pettengill that at one time when she was very ill and thought that the end had come, she was roused by a clear and distinct vision of Aunt Susan standing beside her bed, saying in an emphatic voice,
Are you going to desert us now?
These women of tremendous endurance and forcefulness, of unflinching resolution and absolute loyalty to a principal, have hewed out the path in the wilderness of social darkness for the emancipated woman of today. As the years pass and their effect upon the period in which they lived is regarded in the perspective they will assume surprising importance. The enfranchisement of twenty-two million women is a tremendous national triumph. And one which may be laid at the feet of Susan B. Anthony more than of any other one person, for it was her genius that outlined the campaign which year by year has advanced the Cause to its present success. Indeed, so keen was her judgment, so genuine and far-reaching her vision that she is said to have designated 1920 as the year of final accomplishment.
To have come in touch with such women was fuel to the flame of Mrs. Pettengill’s nature.