Home / Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. / Passage

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names

Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. 329 words

As there exists an apparent contradiction as to the particular roof under which this historic meeting was held, one account stating that it occurred at the Mawney house and another at the neighboring school house, it is proper to say here" that this discrepancy is removed by the statement made in Judge Hay's book, page 22, that the session opened in the Mawney house, but that " the society completed its organization " in the school house. In the association, as a coherent institution, coming into existence within the walls of sudh a building, may be found a prophecy of what the temperance movement in the future was to lay particular stress upon -- that is, upon temperance teaching in the public schools. Indeed, it should be said that the Moreau society itself was an educative organization as well as a moral one, having a circulating library and maintaining a lyceum. But, although it had at its head intelHgent, hig<h-minded and enterprising men, its career was hard and discouraging to its members. "That little, feeble band of temperance brethren," says Armstrong, '*holding ' their quarterly and annual meeitings in a country district school house from April, 1808, onward for several years, without the presence of a single female at their temperance meetings ;who were made the song of the drunkard ; who were ridiculed

BIRTH AT MOREAU OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORMATION. 1 27

by the scoffs of the intemperate world ; und'iscipHned in arms of even moral suasive tactics for warfare, and unable of themselves to encounter the Prince of Hell, with his legions of instrumentalities * * * vvere, nevertheless, the seed of the great temperance reformation." That Armstrong deplored the narrow ideas which prevailed to the discouraging of woinen from fraternizing with the society, is more explicitly shown in tihe words which express his gratification in the great numbers of women who, by their presence and cooperation, subsequently aided so much in the promotion of the work.