CHAPTER V.

OUR WEDDING JOURNEY.


My engagement was a season of doubt and conflict--doubt as to the wisdom
of changing a girlhood of freedom and enjoyment for I knew not what, and
conflict because the step I proposed was in opposition to the wishes of
all my family. Whereas, heretofore, friends were continually suggesting
suitable matches for me and painting the marriage relation in the most
dazzling colors, now that state was represented as beset with dangers
and disappointments, and men, of all God's creatures as the most
depraved and unreliable. Hard pressed, I broke my engagement, after
months of anxiety and bewilderment; suddenly I decided to renew it, as
Mr. Stanton was going to Europe as a delegate to the World's
Anti-slavery Convention, and we did not wish the ocean to roll between
us.

Thursday, May 10, 1840, I determined to take the fateful step, without
the slightest preparation for a wedding or a voyage; but Mr. Stanton,
coming up the North River, was detained on "Marcy's Overslaugh," a bar
in the river where boats were frequently stranded for hours. This delay
compelled us to be married on Friday, which is commonly supposed to be a
most unlucky day. But as we lived together, without more than the usual
matrimonial friction, for nearly a half a century, had seven children,
all but one of whom are still living, and have been well sheltered,
clothed, and fed, enjoying sound minds in sound bodies, no one need be
afraid of going through the marriage ceremony on Friday for fear of bad
luck. The Scotch clergyman who married us, being somewhat superstitious,