Page "Lucy Stone" Paragraph 59

Stone and Blackwell set up house in Orange, New Jersey, and Stone bore her first child in September 1857: Alice Stone Blackwell.

Blackwell attended the birth, but both before and afterward was often away on business, leaving Stone alone to raise the child.

When the infant was only a few months old, Stone protested a tax assessed on her property, arguing since she was not able to vote, that this was " taxation without representation ".

The state of New Jersey sent a constable to her home on January 18, 1858 and some of her furniture was taken outside and auctioned off, starting with a marble table and two steel-plate portraits, one of William Lloyd Garrison and the other of Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase.

A sympathetic neighbor bought these three items for $ 10. 50 and returned them to Stone.

Enough was realized from the brief sale to meet the tax requirement .< ref name = NYT1858 > Publicity from the refusal to pay taxes served to highlight the cause for women's rights ; Stone made no further trouble with tax officials.

Later stories about Stone's feminine tax resistance involved tales of a much grander auction that included sentimental items such as a baby cradle and carriage, and even the whole house.