Esther Hobart was born in Tioga County, New York in August of 1814. One day, she would be the subject of one of the statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection representing Wyoming, a state quite a distance from her birthplace.
Esther became the first female Justice of the Peace in the United States of America in 1870 in the Wyoming Territory. The Territory had recently granted women the right to vote for Territorial offices in 1869.
Some say giving females the right to vote started out as a bit of a joke by the Wyoming legislators. In part, their reasoning was that giving women the right to vote would bring more women to the Territory, which was, let’s say not teeming with females 🙂
Esther did not have a formal education, but qualifications to be Justice of the Peace were not onerous out in the wilds of Wyoming. Esther was orphaned as a young girl, and had apprenticed as a seamstress and ran a millinery business from her grandparents’ home.
In 1841, at the age of 27, Esther married her first husband Artemus Slack, a civil engineer. By the age of 30, Esther was a widow with an infant son. Her late husband owned land in Peru, Illinois and Esther moved there and proceeded to gain legal ownership of the property, however in those days it was not always legal for women to own or inherit property!
Esther married a local merchant named John Morris in 1850, and they had twin sons. In 1868, John Morris and Esther’s son from her earlier marriage moved to the Wyoming Territory to open a saloon in gold rush country. The next year Esther and the twins joined them, travelling first onboard a train to a location on the newly completed transcontinental railroad, then by stage coach over some rough terrain to the Mining District.
Life wasn’t easy there. Winters were extreme and John Morris was a heavy drinker. The gold mining was promising at first, but then came the bust. Many left, and the population dwindled. That in part may explain the effort by the legislature to bring more people to the Territory by giving women the right to vote.
There are several hypothesis about what led to the appointment of Esther Hobart Morris to her position as Justice of the Peace. The one that seems most likely is that a friend of the Morrises convinced Esther to submit her application for the position. It’s ironic that Esther replaced Judge J.W. Stillman, who was so angry that women were given the right to vote that he resigned. His anger level did not reside when he was replaced with a woman, Esther Hobart Morris!
Judge Esther faced some ridicule and jabs at her lack of training as a justice, but she did a fine job. She only served nine months and was not reappointed. Many thought that was a mistake.
One of Esther’s sons published a local newspaper, and she unsurprisingly received good press. Esther left Wyoming and her husband. She moved to Albany, New York and later Springfield, Illinois. Esther visited Wyoming and her sons and their families during summers. She was involved in the National Suffrage Movement.
Esther Hobart Morris, died in Cheyenne, Wyoming on April 3, 1902. In 1960 a statue was sculpted of her and placed on the grounds of the Wyoming State Capitol Building.
The inscription reads:
Esther Hobart Morris, proponent of the legislative act which in 1869 gave distinction to the territory of Wyoming as the first government of the world to grant women equal rights. A grateful people honors this stalwart pioneer who also became the first woman Justice of the Peace.
In 1960, an exact replica of this statue was installed in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)
Amazing how many people with status in statuary hall many of us have never heard of.
Great story! Thanks.