Freethinkers Meeting Site (park)

Freethinkers Meeting Site (park)

This site, now Lafayette Park between Fourth and Fifth Streets in Watkins Glen, is one of the locations of the 1878 New York Freethinkers Convention. Here meetings were held outdoors whenever weather permitted. Here also D. M. Bennett and two other freethinkers were arrested on charges of obscenity for selling a marriage reform tract.

The Trinity

The Trinity

Arrested at the Watkins outdoor meeting site were (left to right) D. M. Bennett; Josephine Tilton, sister-in-law of sex radical Ezra Heywood, author of the pamphlet the trio had been selling; and Prof. W. S. Bell of Boston. At their arraignment an onlooker sarcastically compared them to the Holy Trinity. The enterprising threesome quickly had this photo taken, which they sold under the title "The Trinity" to defray costs of their legal defense.

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