Miss Anthony and her charges reached New York at 10 o’clock at night and went through snow and slush to a hotel but were refused admittance because it did not take women “unaccompanied by a gentleman.”  They made their weary way to another, only to be met with a similar refusal.  Finally she thought of an acquaintance who had had a wretched experience with a bad husband and was now divorced, and she felt that sympathy would certainly impel this woman to give them shelter.  When they reached the house they found her keeping boarders and she said all would leave if they learned she was “harboring a runaway wife.”  It was then midnight.  They went in the cold arid darkness to a hotel on Broadway, but here the excuse was made that the house was full.  Miss Anthony’s patience had reached its limit and she declared:  “I know that is not so.  You can give us a place to sleep or we will sit in this office all night.”  The clerk threatened to call the police.  “Very well,” was the reply, “we will sit here till they come and take us to the station.”  At last he gave them a room without a fire, and there, cold, wet and exhausted, they remained till morning.  Then they started out again on foot, as they had not enough money left to hire a carriage.

They went to Mrs. Rose but she could not accommodate them; then to Abby Hopper Gibbons, who sent them to Elizabeth F. Ellet, saying if they could not find quarters to come back and she would care for them.  Mrs. Ellet was not at home.  All day they went from place to place but no one was willing to accept the responsibility of sheltering them, and at night, utterly worn out, they returned to Mrs. Gibbons.  She promised to keep the mother and child until other arrangements could be effected, and Miss Anthony left them there and took the 10 o’clock train back to Albany.  She arrived toward morning, tired out in mind and body, but soon was made comfortable by the ministrations of her faithful friend Lydia.

[Autograph:  Abby Hopper Gibbons]

It was not long before the family became convinced that Miss Anthony knew the whereabouts of mother and child and then began a siege of persecution.  She had at this time commenced that never-to-be-forgotten series of anti-slavery conventions which were mobbed in every town from Buffalo to Albany.  In the midst of all this excitement and danger, she was constantly receiving threats from the brothers that they would have her arrested on the platform.  They said she had broken the laws and they would make her pay the penalty; that their sister was an “ugly” woman and nobody could live with her.  To this she replied:  “I have heard there was Indian blood in your family; perhaps your sister has got a little of it as well as yourselves.  I think you would not allow your children to be taken away from you, law or no law.  There is no reason or justice in a woman’s submitting to such outrages, and I propose to defy the law and you also.”