A series where we take a #lookback at the stories and history of our community, brought to you by Mick Pryor, Financial Advisor with Edward Jones.
Harriet Scott
Was she the first woman to vote for President in the United States?
As a young woman Harriet Scott was an ardent suffragette fighting for women’s voting rights. When she was 26 she even cut her hair short in a man’s style to protest the lack of women’s suffrage. Harriet was born September 28, 1862 in Montpelier, OH. After her mother died her older sister, Phoebe raised the younger siblings, and after their father remarried Harriet went to live with Phoebe and her husband in Beatrice, Nebraska. She found work using her creative talents in a milliner’s store creating fancy women’s hats that were the fashion at the time. According to her daughter, as a result of a bout of scarlet fever when she was a child Harriet was profoundly deaf, but still managed to play the piano surprisingly well.
Harriet married Arthur T. Scott in November of 1882. Scott along with his brother owned a newspaper and was a strong Republican supporter. The couple moved to Strang Nebraska where they opened another newspaper and where their first four children were born. They named their second son Benjamin Harrison Scott after the Republican president.
Perhaps, the suffrage rights women had in Wyoming helped lure the couple to settle in Wyoming in 1890 and perhaps it was also the promise of free land. They homesteaded on 160 acres up Sinks Canyon where they grazed cattle and raised wheat and alfalfa. Their homestead was on the east side of the Big Popo Agie River, but before their cabin was built the family lived on the University of Wyoming Experimental Agricultural Farm where CWC Alpine Science Center is today north of their homestead.
Harriet claimed her whole life she was the first woman to vote in a presidential election in the United States. Women in Wyoming received the right to vote when Wyoming became a territory in 1869, but citizens of the Wyoming Territory could not vote in federal elections until after statehood in 1890. The 1892 federal election was the first federal election women in Wyoming had the legal right to cast a ballot.
In 1892 Harriet’s husband, Arthur Scott was appointed election judge for the Borner Garden precinct which was up Sinks Canyon. The polling place was in the schoolhouse, and that very schoolhouse now sits on the Lander Museum grounds. Arthur Scott said he moved the clock ahead two hours to allow a farmer to vote before going to work, and Harriet and Arthur voted just after him; however, the precinct sign-in paper cannot be found in the county archive or the state archive, so there is no absolute proof of Scott’s claim to be the first woman to vote for president. Not surprisingly, Harriet and her husband voted for Benjamin Harrison who was running for a second term, but Harrison lost that election to Grover Cleveland. The burning issue in the 1892 election was high tariffs. Harrison had raised tariffs which raised prices for imported goods which was unpopular with consumers.
Winters were harsh up Sinks Canyon, so when Harriet inherited a sum of money from her father’s estate in 1903 she used the money to buy a house in Lander on Canyon Street between Third Street and Fourth Street. Arthur took a job working for The Wind River Mountaineer, the Lander newspaper. He worked as a reporter, writer and typesetter.
A doctor recommended a lower elevation would be beneficial to Harriet’s health, so the family sold the homestead in 1913 for $2800 and moved to California, but took fond memories of Wyoming with them. Arthur Scott died in 1937 in Lomita, California and Harriet died in 1956 in Kirkland, Washington. The first woman to vote in any presidential election may well have been Harriet Scott.
Author: Liz Farmer
Next up for the Fremont County Museum
October 16, 6pm at the Riverton Museum, “Fremont Haunts: By Alma Law” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
October 19, 11am at the Dubois Museum, “Kids Corner: Pumpkin Carving” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
October 19, 5:30-7pm at the Riverton Museum, “Downtown Riverton Haunted Adventure Trek” Wind River Visitors Council Adventure Trek Series
October 19, 5-8pm at the Riverton Museum, “Pumpkin Trail”
October 18 & 19 6-9pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Halloween Night at the Museum” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
Call the Dubois Museum 1-307-455-2284, the Pioneer Museum 1-307-332-3339 or the Riverton Museum 1-307-856-2665 for detail regarding their programs.
The Dubois Museum, the Pioneer Museum in Lander and the Riverton Museum need your financial support. In the current economic environment, the museums are more reliant than ever on donations from the private sector to continue to provide the quality programs, collections management, exhibits and services that have become their hallmark over the last four years. Please make your tax deductible contribution to be used specifically for the benefit of the museum of your choosing by sending a check to Fremont County Museums 450 N 2nd Rm 320 or taking it directly to the museum you choose to support.