The Wild West of Yester-Year
Esther Morris, Justice of the Peace
By Rachel Kovaciny
Who was the first woman to get appointed a Justice of the
Peace in the United States? Esther Morris, that’s who. When
and where did Esther Morris sit on the bench? In the Wyoming
Territory in 1870, a handful of years after the American
Civil War. Esther Morris took an unusual road to judgeship
because she did not attend law school. She never took the
bar or practiced law. Instead, she spent her years before
that as a wife and mother.
Born Esther Hobart McQuigg in New York state in 1812, she grew up in a large family. Esther’s mother died when Esther was in her early teens, so Esther helped care for the family until she left home at age twenty-one to start her own millinery business. She was quick to speak out against slavery and joined several abolitionist organizations, most of them organized and led by women. When Esther was almost thirty, she married a railroad engineer named Artemus Slack. After only a couple of years, Slack died, leaving Esther widowed, with one son to support. Slack also left behind a property in Illinois, so Esther moved there to settle his estate. But the law did not allow women to inherit property and her late husband’s affairs became hopelessly snarled, providing Esther with nothing.
In 1842, Esther remarried. Her second husband, John Morris,
moved the little family to Peru, Illinois, where Esther gave
birth to another son, who died as a toddler, then to twin
sons. In 1868, John Morris and Esther’s son from her first
marriage moved to Wyoming Territory, where they opened a
successful saloon in the gold mining town of South Pass
City. They also purchased shares in several mines. Esther
and the twins joined them there the next year. At the end of
1869, the Wyoming Territorial Legislature passed a law
giving women the right to vote. When Governor John Campbell
signed it in December, Wyoming Territory became the first
place in the United States to offer women this equal right.
A few months later, Governor Campbell went one step farther
and decided to appoint a woman to be a Justice of the Peace.
He needed to replace a Justice who had resigned in protest
over the Territory granting women the right to vote, and who
better to appoint than a woman?
At the time, a person needed no legal training to preside as
a Justice of the Peace. Justices rarely presided over
serious criminal cases, but judged misdemeanors and other
petty crimes. It’s unclear why he selected Esther Morris for
the position, but since she had been an outspoken supporter
of women’s suffrage, perhaps she seemed like a logical
choice. Or maybe he knew her to be sensible and fair-minded.
Esther Morris served as Justice of the Peace for nine
months, filling out her predecessor’s term. She reportedly
held court in the sitting room of her own home at first,
which must have been awkward since her husband not only did
not support his wife in her new position, but actively
opposed it. In fact, he made such a fuss about her new role
that Esther Morris had him jailed for causing a disturbance.
Justice Morris ruled on twenty-six cases during her tenure,
of which nine were criminal cases. Despite her lack of legal
training, none of her rulings were ever overturned, though
several were appealed. Her time as a Justice of the Peace
paved the way for more opportunities for women to serve in
the public arena. Less than a year after she presided over a
courtroom, women were sitting on juries in Wyoming Territory
for the first time.
Despite her short time in the position, Esther Morris’s
contributions to the cause of women’s rights and to the
upholding of peace and justice were valued highly in
Wyoming. In 1890, she was chosen to present the new Wyoming
state flag to Governor Francis Warren on behalf of all
Wyoming women during the official celebration of Wyoming’s
statehood. Esther Morris died in 1902 at the age of 87 in
Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she lived with one of her sons.
Hailed as a “mother of women’s suffrage,” they have honored
her with two important statues, one in the National Statuary
Hall Collection in Washington, DC, and another at the
Wyoming State Capitol. Although she spent less than a year
dispensing justice and keeping the peace, her leadership is
still remembered.