Politics the Damnedest: Bourbon County People, Events & Movements 1780-1980

Mary Jane Clay became active in the woman suffrage movement after an acrimonious divorce from her husband, Cassius M. Clay. Although the divorce deprived her of financial assets she produced through her good management skills, she was financially secure through family inheritance. She used her own financial resources to further the woman suffrage cause in Kentucky and encouraged her daughters to get involved.

Mary Barr Clay

Eldest daughter of Cassius and Mary Jane Clay, Mary Barr Clay married Frank Herrick in October 1866 and had three sons between 1869 and 1871. They divorced in 1872 and she reclaimed her maiden name, also insisting that two of her sons take her surname.
Mary Barr Clay wrote to Lucy Stone’s Woman’s Journal in 1875, announcing that she was a “soldier of the cause, enlisted for the war.” She was a delegate for the NWSA convention in St. Louis in the spring of 1879 where she recruited Susan B. Anthony for a Kentucky lecture tour that October. She also served as vice president and president of AWSA in 1881 and 1883. In an 1884 speech to NAWSA, she said: “In talking to a Kentuckian on the subject of women’s rights, you have to batter down his self-conceit that he is just and generous and chivalric toward women.”

Laura Clay and Marching Group

The second youngest daughter of Cassius M. and Mary Jane Warfield Clay, Laura Clay devoted her life to woman suffrage and other women’s rights on both national and state levels. She served in several capacities in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and was founder and president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association. Citing the primacy of states in determining whether women should be able to vote, she rejected the federal amendment approach in favor of individual state amendments in the final years before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. Despite her states rights argument, her position effectively restricted or prevented black woman suffrage in the southern states. Her racial bias distanced her from her old suffrage colleagues and tainted her legacy within the movement.

Helen Hutchcraft FERA Member Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

Helen Hutchcraft was the only member of her family to join Fayette County Equal Rights Association, but her mother Dorcas and her sister Mary were also activists. Dorcas introduced Madeline McDowell Breckinridge on February 4, 1910 when she gave a lecture supporting a school suffrage bill in Paris. Helen joined FERA when she was just shy of 18 years old. She was a Wellesley graduate, worked for the Young Women’s Christian Association and was active in the local women’s clubs. Mary Hutchcraft Dawes joined Madeline Breckinridge in 1913 in giving a presentation on woman suffrage to teachers in Cynthiana. Ironically, Helen and Mary’s brother, Reuben Hutchcraft, Jr. voted against a woman suffrage bill while he was serving in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1913.

Carolyn Roseberry FERA Membership Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

Like Helen Hutchcraft, Carolyn K. Roseberry was a teenager, just 17 years old, when she joined FERA. A graduate of Hamilton College and having attended school in the East, she married James Garrison Metcalfe and moved to Louisville. Her suffrage activities are unknown but she may have attended the lectures offered in 1920 ahead of the presidential election.

William J. Cain FERA Membership Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

William J. Cain had a fourth grade education and worked as a general laborer or a laborer for the county. He was married and had three daughters. His support of the woman suffrage movement seems at odds with his background.

William Myall FERA Membership Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

William Myall was a native of Millersburg who worked as a lawyer and later a banker. His card included a notation concerning his association with the Bourbon Bank which may be related to his membership in FERA. His wife, Lizzie, was also a suffrage supporter. In 1888, she replied to Henrietta Chenault who asked if the local temperance chapter would host Zerelda Wallace during her woman suffrage lecture tour. She declined the request writing, “There is so little interest manifested on the part of our people in this subject…” In 1909, she hosted a meeting of twenty women during a recruitment drive for KERA membership.

Mrs. Varden Shipp FERA Member Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

Annadel was a young bride of 19 when she married George Varden Shipp in 1896. The couple lived in Clintonville where George ran a grocery store, farmed and served as postmaster. Annadel seems to have always been a homemaker and nothing is known of her suffrage activities. She was, however, active in local women’s clubs.

Fannie Templin FERA Membership Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

Fannie Templin was married to Thomas Terah Templin who was sixteen years her senior. He worked as a lumber merchant in Paris. After rearing two daughters and four sons, Fannie was managing a paint store in 1920 when the Anthony amendment was ratified.

Nell Whaley FERA Membership Card [Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky Special Collections]

Nell Whaley was born February 6, 1885 to H. Clay and Matilda Brockway Whaley. Never married, she was well educated and spent her life in service as a teacher and social worker. Miss Whaley graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1906 with a bachelor's and master's degree, and taught Latin at several schools including Transylvania University, Hamilton College, and Collegiate Institute in Mt. Sterling. She probably joined FERA in 1913 at age 28. By 1920, she was working for the American Red Cross and traveled extensively in the Southern United States. Later she worked for the Department of Welfare in social work. She was working for the Unemployment Compensation Commission on November 21, 1946, when she died of a stroke at her desk. She was 61 years old.

Hopewell Museum

Hopewell Museum

Politics the Damnedest: Bourbon County People, Events & Movements 1780-1980