VOTES FOR WOMEN

Inscription

VOTES FOR WOMEN
ESTHER H. MORRIS, ADVOCATE OF
VOTES FOR WOMEN IN WYOMING,
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE 1870,
V.P. NAT’L WOMAN SUFFRAGE
ASSN. 1877-1878. LIVED HERE.
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2021

While not officially a state until 1890, in 1869 the Wyoming Territory became one the first places in the United States to grant women the right to vote. A year later, suffragist and New York State native Esther Hobart Morris (1814-1902), became one of the first women in the U.S. to serve as Justice of the Peace in South Pass City, Wyoming.

The February 3, 1871 edition of the Cheyenne Daily Leader, includes an interview with Morris describing her nearly nine month tenure in office:

I have assisted in drawing a grand in petit jury, deposited a ballot, and helped canvas votes after the election, an in performing all these duties I do not know as I have neglected my family any more than in ordinary shopping, and I must admit that I have been better paid for services rendered, than for any I have ever performed. In some thirty civil actions tried before me, there has been, but one appeal taken, and the judgment was affirmed in the court above, and in the criminal cases also, before me there has been np call for a jury.

Following her term in office, Esther continued to promote women’s suffrage. From 1877 to 1878 she served as the vice president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. By 1900, Esther was living at 2114 Warren Ave, with her son in Cheyenne, WY. On April 2, 1902 Esther passed away at the age of 88. Her obituary in the April 18, 1902 edition of The Beemer Times states:

Mrs. Esther Morris who died at Cheyenne, Wyo., recently, aged 88 years, was noted as the “mother” of woman suffrage in Wyoming and as the first woman justice of the peace inaugurated a movement that gave Wyoming women the right to vote.

Through efforts like those of Mrs. Morris and many others, all women in the U.S. ultimately received the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment.