Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Belleville, Lockwood, used her determination for brains and not unimportantly the press to break new ground for generations to come.

But first as a lawyer, arguing cases before the Supreme Court, and then as one of the first female candidates for the Office of the United States President in 1884.

Surprise! This is Beckett, I'm by myself today.

Last episode, Susan and I told you the story of Victoria Woodhoell, the first woman to run for president in the United States.

But I'm here today to continue the story of women's march to the White House with another candidate from long ago, Belleville Lockwood, who ran for the Office in 1884 and 1888.

She appeared officially on ballots and was over the age of 35 when she ran, so in some minds, Belleville and not Victoria Woodhoell was the first female candidate for president.

Let's go ahead and get into it.

Belleville and Bennett was born on October 24, 1830 in Royalton, New York, the second child of the five born to Lewis and Hannah Bennett.

Her upbringing reminds me a lot of the sisters of Almanzo Wilder in Farmer Boy, so they're on an upstate New York farm, expected to be quite responsible and self-reliant.

She was sent to the local school, whenever it was in session, and at 14, taking the exam for a teaching certificate and becoming a school mistress, just like Laura Ingalls, if you remember who was 15, at the time she got her teaching certificate.

It was part of a deal with her father, so she'd teach the summer term at the grammar school and used her wages to pay for tuition at a girls high school.

Otherwise, I think she wouldn't have gone.

Belleville wished for college, and there were a few places she could have gone but Pupa Ab absolutely forbid it.

That is enough school for a girl.

So she followed the expected and traditional path for young women, and at 18, she married Eureia McNull, aged 22, who farmed and also operated a sawmill.

And here's what Belleville said about marriage.

Quote, marriage to an ordinary woman is the end of her personality or of her individual thought and action.

Forever after, she's represented by him and becomes a sort of domestic non-entity.

It's not very rosy.

She had a daughter named Laura and kept up her reading and wrote papers for club meetings and little articles for the paper, and that might have been where her story ended.

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