Esther Hobart Morris

Esther Hobart Morris (born August 8, 1814, near Spencer, New York, U.S.—died April 2, 1902, Cheyenne, Wyoming) was an American suffragist and public official whose major role in gaining voting rights for women in Wyoming was a milestone for the national women’s suffrage movement.

Esther McQuigg was orphaned at age 11. In 1841 she married Artemus Slack, who died three years later. She later married John Morris, with whom she moved to Wyoming Territory in 1869. There Morris apparently exerted her considerable personality on behalf of women’s suffrage. The legislator elected from her district promptly introduced a bill providing for women’s suffrage that was passed in December of that year.

In 1870 Morris was appointed justice of the peace for South Pass City, a job for which, despite the rough character of the gold-mining town, her robust frame and blunt fearlessness well suited her. She was the first woman ever to hold such a position, and in her eight and a half months in the post she tried more than 70 cases expeditiously and without reversal. In 1871 she left her husband and moved to Laramie, where in 1873 she was briefly on the ballot for state representative.

In her later years Morris was increasingly honoured for her role in the attainment of suffrage in Wyoming, the first success of the movement for national women’s suffrage. Her reputation continued to grow in the years after her death, and in 1960 statues of her were placed in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol and before the Wyoming state house in Cheyenne.