Clarissa Nichols, Susanna Salter, N.E. Wheeler, Minnie D. Morgan, Mary D. Lowman

“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” – Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold that office.

“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

“Women make the world a better place.” Common sense adage

My daughter thought the election of Kamala Harris as Vice-President a momentous event. She becomes the first woman to hold that office, the first African American woman and first South Asian woman. President-elect Joe Biden has added to that female tally by picking for his cabinet several woman firsts.

Kansas First Women Mayors

Most Kansas History Buffs have heard of Susanna Salter, first female mayor of Argonia, Kansas, from 1887-1888, thereby becoming the first woman elected to serve a political office in the United States. But have you heard the tale of Wilhelmina (Minnie) D. Morgan of Cottonwood Falls? How about Clarina Nichols at the Wyandotte Convention and Mary Lowman of Oskaloosa?

How many woman firsts can you name?

Minnie Morgan’s tale is set forth by Farrell Hoy Jenab, Minnie D. Morgan, Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal (2016). https://newprairiepress.org/sfh/2016/orientation/4.

1859

The story, according to Farrell, begins at the Wyandotte Convention in 1859, which is right and proper. “It began … with a group of women sitting, ‘unelected and uninvited, with their knitting in their hands,’ at the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, hoping to encourage men to omit the word ‘male’ from the phrasing of the franchise clause.” Failing to get the right to suffrage, Kansas women went about their work – raising families, cooking, cleaning, plowing, reaping, bearing children, sometimes burying their children too soon.

[Unlike most of the women, Clarina Nichols, from Linn County, was invited and came as the official representative of the Moneka Woman’s Rights Association. She was then asked to address the delegates on issues relating to woman’s rights. Although she failed to convince the men to grant women suffrage she did succeed in securing equal rights for women to education, to custody of their children, and the right to vote in local school matters. In 1867, she helped to obtain passage of a married women’s property law.]

1889

It was 1889, the Women’s Temperance Union was active across Kansas. Carrie Nation was in Medicine Lodge, Minnie D. Morgan was in Cottonwood Falls.

Chase County Courthouse, built 1873

As Jenab relates, the election on April 4, 1889 in Cottonwood Falls started off as a prank. The town’s “whiskey element” — men mad at women “meddling” to rid the town of saloons, bootlegging, and alcohol, circulated an all-female ticket as a joke. Susanna’s husband begged the now drunk joksters to call it off as it was embarrassing his wife. Surprised at first, Susanna, after short deliberation, embraced the ticket, disregarding the fact that she had four children to care for and one on the way. Elected she was paid the “princessly” sum of $1 a year.

Because, if you want something done, elect a woman. Besides, they had the Chase County Leader newspaper behind them as Minnie was married to the paper’s owner and editor.

Jenab reports:

“Mrs. W.D. Morgan received 105 votes while her male opponent, J.W. McWilliams, received 55 votes. Council members — Alice Hunt, Sadie Grisham, Elizabeth Porter, Barbara Gillett, and Elizabeth Johnson — won by even wider margins. And Police Judge Mrs. D.G. Groundwater defeated her opponent with 112 to 45 votes.”

The Chase County Ledger reported their administration as “practical and business-like.” The new court administering justice with “dignity and discretion.”

More First Women

Minnie Morgan’s victory was preceded by a similar women’s victory in Oskaloosa, Kansas. Mary D. (McGaha) Lowman, a school teacher became mayor along with an all woman city council. When she took office the city coffers were empty. Serving two terms, she replenished the coffers.

Way out west in Syracuse in Hamilton County, Syracuse on April 5, 1887, N. E. Wheeler was elected mayor; Caroline Johnson Barber, Mrs. W. A. Swartwood, Mrs. S. P. Nott, Mrs. Charles Coe, and Mrs. G. C. Riggles were elected members of the council; and J. D. Woodruff was elected police judge.

Add to this list the towns of Baldwin (Lucy Sullivan, mayor), Elk Falls, and Rossville, which in 1889, elected women to run their affairs. More would follow.

Wanting to add to this list, let’s include Joan Finney who served as the 42nd Governor of Kansas and First Female Governor from 1991 to 1995.

Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker first female senator representing the State of Kansas in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997.

Kay McFarland, first female chosen for the Kansas State Supreme Court, 1977, first female Chief Justice, 1995.

More Women in Kansas Elected Offices

Sources

Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal 2016 – Future of the Flint Hills, Minnie D. Morgan Minnie D. Morgan, by Farrell Hoy Jenab, 2016

Early Kansas Women in Politics, https://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1986summer_gehring.pdf

Women in Elected State OfficesKansas, 1919-2019, by staff of the Reference Division, State Library of Kansas, Topeka, Kansas

1889 in Chase County

Cottonwood Falls 1889

Chase County Kansas

Those who came found rolling hills and valleys, hot summers, cold winters, and strong winds that blew either from the south or the north depending on the season.

The rocky soil was thin but thick with lime, the subsoil of a clayish cast. Timber skirted the Cottonwood River and its streams, but the width of the timber belt was less than one half a mile kept close by prairie fires that once swept the plains; the forest, if one could call it that, no more than 5 per cent, consisting of cottonwood, hackberry, sycamore, elm, hickory, and walnut. In the beginning there was buffalo but they were gone by now. Deer and turkey roamed the land along with antelope and coyote. Some land was good for crops, what was left was good for cattle.

And so they came.

The Civil War interrupted the growth of the county, for more than a quarter of the settlers enlisted in the Union cause when war broke out. They fought, some died, those that didn’t returned to carry on their lives. They were staunchly Republican.

Cottonwood Fall was meant to be Chase County’s major city lying peacefully on the Cottonwood River that occasionally flooded. But the Santa Fe Railroad understanding the difficulty of rivers and floods laid its tracks just to the north and so Strong City was born. The two cities became known as the Falls.

Still Cottonwood Falls thrived, home to a beautiful courthouse built of native limestone.

Broadway, as it was known back then was a dirt street. A horse driven trolley car traveled between Cottonwood Falls and Strong City. Telephone wires had newly been strung. The automobile had yet to make its appearance on the streets and roads of Chase County, Kansas.

In April what began as a prank resulted in the election of Wilhelmina (Minnie) D. Morgan as Cottonwood Falls’ first female mayor, and also Mrs. D. G. Groundwater as Cottonwood Falls’ first female police judge, and an all female council to rule over the unruly men.

It was an event of which much more should be said.

Learn more…

The following excerpts were printed in the Chase County Leader.

1889

Feb. 12 – Judge S. P. Young dies, aged 67 years. He came to Chase county in 1871.

Apr. 4 – The city of Cottonwood Falls attracts national attention by electing women to all city offices. It was begun as a piece of good-natured fun at the expense of the “women folk” but by noon the movement took on an earnestness, and try as they might the practical jokers could not stop it. Mrs. W. A. Morgan is elected mayor and Mrs. D. G. Groundwater, police judge. Miss Allie Hunt, Mrs. Sadie Grisham, Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, Mrs. Barbara Gillett and Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson are elected councilwomen. They sweep the ticket.

Apr. 25 – The Bazaar Land and Cattle Co. is chartered.

A destructive fire in the Falls burns four fine horses belonging to the Grey Bros. valued at $8,000.

May 4 – A telephone line is installed between Matfield Green, Bazaar and Cottonwood Falls.

May 27 – The third high school commencement is held at the Falls. Maude Johnson is the only graduate. L. A. Lowther is superintendent.

May 28 — A destructive tornado strikes the western part of Chase county at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Captain Milton Brown is killed and Mrs. Brown and their son, Edward, are badly injured. The J. W. Byram, Wm. Pinkston, Bob Johnson, and B. M. Chappell homes were damaged, while the homes of M. E. Hunt, Dr. Rich and S. Fargard were demolished. The path of the storm was 200 yards wide and where it crossed the Cottonwood just above Clements not a tree was left standing.

Jul. 14 — Francis Bernard is chosen president and Francis Laloge, secretary, of the association of French people, Marion, Chase, Lyon, and Osage counties. The Fall of the Bastille is celebrated.

Wm. Austin, who was canvassing for tombstones in Chase county last year, falls heir to a fortune of $25,000 from an uncle.

Oct. 31 — A double wedding takes place at Strong City; Miss Lizzie Lantry and James C. Farrington, Miss Nellie Lantry and W.H. Cushing.

Nov. 7 – A movement almost an exodus to Oklahoma, takes place in the southern part of Chase County. A number of the Sharpe families leave for the new country.

The entire Republican ticket is elected over a fusion ticket of the Democrats and Union Labor parties.

Nov. 28 — Lantry and Sons have the contract for building the cog road up Pike’s Peak.

Compiled by D. A. Ellsworth from the Chase County Leader

Cottonwood Falls 1890