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I am doing a talk for the Cecil County Public Library on Women’s Suffrage soon and as some business took me through Kent County, I visited the Still Pond Historic District for a few minutes. This rural crossroads community has a significant history related to the campaign that gave women access to the ballot box.

One of the locations on the Register of Historic Places is the site of the former Still Pond Town Hall, which burned in 1916. The hall was the location where women first voted in Maryland. The parcel now contains a historic marker and a frame warehouse currently in use as a pottery studio, according to the National Register Report.

The marker was erected at the site in 2003 by the Maryland Historical Trust and the Maryland State Highway Administrations.

it reads as follows: “Maryland’s First women Voters — In the village of Still Pond, twelve years before the 19th amendment established women’s suffrage, Mary Jane Clark Howard, Anna Baker Maxwell, and Lille Deringer Kelly cast their ballots in the municipal election of 1908. That year, an act for incorporation of the town had provided the right to vote to any male or female resident taxpayer over age 21. Fourteen women were registered to vote, two of them African Americans.”

“Local coverage of this unprecedented event reflected mixed attitudes towards this new civil right gained for women. On April 4, 1908, the Kent News reported that women taxpayers in Still Pond were being given the right to vote, noting that “This is the first time the glorious privileged has been conferred on the fair sex in Maryland. Is it the opening wedge?”

” After the vote, the paper’s coverage highlighted that Mary Jane Howard was “one of the best known residents of the town,” and that Annie Maxwell and Eliza Kelley were “wives of physicians and leaders of thought in the community.” The paper pointed out that two of the women voted losing tickets, and also reported that some of the men present had offered to write tickets for these new voters. The women refused the help (Kent News, 9 May 1908).”

“A Baltimore Sun editorial of the time speculated as to why only three of the fourteen registered women voters showed at the polls. The quote below illustrates the attitudes early women voters faced: “One was kept away by the appearance of rain. She had recently procured her spring hat, and she could not assume the risk of getting it wet. Another found that to go to vote would interfere with the preparation of her husband’s supper.”

“But the reason which kept the third on the list from voting about to start for the polls, the rains having ceased, the baby woke and began to cry. That put the idea of voting out of the Mother’s head. The town of Still Pond might be able to get along comfortably without a woman’s vote; but the baby could not get along comfortably while its mother was voting and talking politics at the polls. So, the good lady, like a good mother as she doubtless is, let the election go and took up the baby and comforted it.”

“And that is just the reason why women’s suffrage does not make a better headway. The women – most of them – have something for [sic] more important than politics to occupy their time. Men can attend to the voting, but they cannot attend to the baby and other duties which require the greater ability of women.” (Kent News, 9 May 1908).”

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Notes:

For more on the Cecil County Public Library program on Women’s Suffrage click this link
https://www.facebook.com/cecilcountyhistory/posts/2219073698357545?__xts__[0]=68.ARBCeGIT3kYgMZ8mfWy2soEkJOXrB91otWbFaJUMtRZ0WomyksTf2oDVCsTxaXTOw1OWrdP_yPaHRaYh61EHSeOPkfj_vK3eWME5iRF-s31mUK5s-n2azECjbxrD2WEV6ifWTNOcSiLnlyxPWjsIpp78tONtl3_wVnwthUzcqNlofKRzBJhgi6m9gVQTomW9oYTahRaUMPmQd2ZLrBU6bdH4LSr0GoPr0VE4MzZg90P4M-jH0vt_LLfZojUsp2zAQ9w0xSAObyQJZZLhdDPV2dmbq_1kXOW5u99Kym34rymdhGIaNWZfis_oA6EpOlVPUeq894Wtnr18JOxx1u-IzTgpdW-m&__tn__=-R

The research information is from the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form — Still Pond Historic District
https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/…/NR_PDFs/NR-1486.pdf

Also see In Historic Election in Rising Sun Women Vote for the First Time in Cecil County

Mike Dixon of Elkton, MD has been named to the Board of Trustees for the National Fire Heritage Center.  The National Fire Heritage Center is the nation’s archive for historic documents, and other perishables related to fire protection. 

These perishables include:  art and artifacts, audio, books, charts and graphs, documents, maps, photography, reports, and video

Dixon is a historian, adjunct professor, and writer whose research and teaching focuses on community studies and social history.  He has served as a consultant for public television documentaries, Smithsonian Museum on Main Street Exhibits, and local government commissions.  He has appeared on The Today Show, Maryland Public Television, the National Geographic Channel, and National Public Radio Shows. 

Dixon joined the Singerly Fire Company of Elkton as a teenager in the late 1960s.  Today, he chairs the company’s museum committee and is the editor of the Maryland State Firemen’s Association newsletter, the Volunteer Trumpet.

He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in history and the behavioral science from St. Joseph’s University (Philadelphia), Washington College (Chestertown), and Wilmington University (Delaware). 

“Michael Dixon’s unique combination of being a historical scholar and his combat firefighting experience makes him an ideal member of our Board of Trustees.  He has a built-in appreciation for what we are doing and why we are doing it.” Says NFHC President Bill Killen.

On a Friday afternoon in late July, I was on the Mason-Dixon Line as a severe thunderstorm swept across Washington and Franklin counties. As threatening clouds moved into the area, I paused and captured a few photos at one of the markers along the line. Earlier in the winter, I had explored points along the boundary in Western Maryland as part of my work as a guest curator for an exhibit at Frederick Heritage called “Reading Between the Line: The Mason-Dixon Line that Broders North and South.” Just north of Hagerstown, this location is an unincorporated Franklin County community called Mason and Dixon.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE — I have been studying social late 19th and early 20th-century progressive movements in some of South Jersey’s rural counties, the fieldwork concentrating on temperance, prohibition, prison reform, crime control, and voting rights.

As it concerns women’s suffrage New Jersey has a complicated history since the State’s 1776 Constitution had enfranchised men and women who were worth at least fifty pounds.  But this brief period of inclusivity came to an end in 1807 when the Assembly passed a law limiting suffrage to white male taxpayers.  After the Civil War, activistism in the State grew in harmony with the national movement, and lawmakers in Trenton were pressured to restore the franchise for women.  Across the nation suffragists in nine states had won battles, converting indecivisive politicians by 1913.  In New Jersey, the suffragists managed to get a statewide referendum on the ballot, putting the decision in the hands of men at a special statewide election on Oct. 19, 1915.

New Jersey’s voters decided not to grant women the right to vote by a big majority, so women in the Garden State had to wait for the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For the Salem County Historical Society’s quarterly newsletter, I wrote an article examining this movement and the campaign in the state’s most rural county.  See the Quarterly Newsletter of the Salem County Historical Society, Summer 2018, for the full article.