Kaysville Suffragists

​Kaysville Suffragists
Ida B. Wells said, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Kaysville women (and men) shone a light on the importance of women having a voice in the public sphere.
Kaysville women played an important role and held prominent positions in the suffragist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many women wanted the right to vote to continue legally practicing polygamy, but their crusade continued through the end of polygamy in 1890, and beyond. Kaysville suffragists were a small part of the larger state, national, and even international movement of women working together to win the right to vote to have an equal say in the governance of their communities.
Kaysville suffragists held public and private meetings, balls, concerts, and some attended the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 to gather support and demonstrate the importance of equal suffrage. They also wrote articles, lead and were members of the Columbian Club, Woman Suffrage Association, and other civic organizations.
2020 is a yearlong celebration of the 150th anniversary of Utah women receiving the right to vote making them the first women to vote in the United States. 2020 is also the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act which protects the voting rights of all United States citizens regardless of race or gender.
 
This year, the Kaysville – Fruit Heights Museum of History and Art is honoring the sacrifices made by suffragists. We are indebted to them for their foresight and labor in our behalf.
 
Kaysville has grown substantially since 1870, 1920, and 1965. Some descendants of Kaysville suffragists still live in our community and are now joined by many neighbors and friends from near and far. We look to these women of the past with gratitude for securing voting rights for women, and we recognize our responsibility to continue to exercise that right.

Mother-Daughter Suffrage Duo #1: Sarah Ellen Barnes Layton and Sarah E. Layton Taylor Coombs
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​Sarah Ellen Barnes Layton
In 1866, the year Christopher Layton and William Jennings built the grist mill on north Main Street, Christopher had five wives and their children to provide for. Sarah Ellen Barnes Layton known as Sarah B. was the most senior wife; she had been married fourteen years and had six children by Christopher. The cost to build the mill was significant, but so was the need to bring in income as Christopher had 23 dependent children living in the homes of five wives in Kaysville. That year Sarah B was living on the farm where she also cared for two of Christopher’s older children. At the time the grist mill was built, Christopher was a member of the territorial legislature. Sarah, however, could not vote; women did not receive the vote in Utah until 1870. Despite that, it was one of the first states or territories to grant that right. When the Relief Society was organized in Kaysville two years earlier, Sarah became of the counselors of that organization and later served as the president for 42 years. It was the Relief Society that proved to be a major player in the fight for woman’s suffrage in the territory. From their earliest days in Kaysville and throughout her tenure as president, Sarah worked “very hard,” in her words as a dressmaker. She mended clothing while raising her children, mostly alone. She learned seamstress skills from an exceedingly early age, having been employed by the head seamstress for Queen Victoria.
During their marriage, Sarah had gone with Christopher to Nevada, but had stayed in Kaysville when he went to Idaho and later Arizona to help in settlements. By the 1880s, the issue of polygamy, always unpopular back east, came to “a head” as federal legislators outlawed the practice and began arresting and jailing men who practiced it. By 1884, Christopher had moved to Arizona, called by Brigham Young to ..., but undoubtedly, to evade arrest. Sarah and most of the wives stayed in the Kaysville-Layton area. In 1887, the Edmunds-Tucker act abolished women’s suffrage. Left without political recourse, three years later the 1890 Manifest ended the practice of polygamy and no longer recognized the marriages of the wives. Having lived through extremely precarious lives economically and legally, it is easy to see why Sarah began a proponent of suffrage. Only with the right to vote could laws be passed that would be advantageous to women.
In her autobiography published in the Woman’s Exponent, Sarah states that with Christopher and a younger wife in Arizona, Sarah was without financial support except what she could provide for herself. It was during that time and after his death in 1898 that Sarah became active in the suffrage movement. She was a correspondent for the Exponent, served as an honorary vice president for the Davis County Women’s Suffrage Association (W.S.A.) and on the Executive Committee. During her leadership of the Relief Society, she helped raise silkworms which aided her and other women to provide a means of financial support. Her works as a seamstress had assured her of the commercial success of such an enterprise if the culture of the worms could be managed. She made beautiful, elaborate dresses for the ladies of Kaysville and Salt Lake. A year or so after her death in 1906 the Woman’s Exponent published a Resolution of Respect made by the Kaysville Relief Society in her honor. 

Her youngest daughter Sarah E. Layton (Taylor) (Coombs) was also an active member, serving on the W.S.A. Executive Committee in 1894. It was not, however, until 1896 that Utah achieved statehood and women regained voting rights with the state constitution.
Sarah was born in Kaysville in the fall of 1865. She married Levi Taylor, Jr., December 21, 1882; her father-in-law was well-known in the community, one of the early water masters, a city councilman in two different terms, a city marshal. Sarah was involved in many organizations including, but not limited to the Woman’s Temperance Union, the Republican party as a delegate, and the Mother’s Club which was a suffrage education arm. In 1904 she petitioned Washington be appointed the town postmistress.  [1][

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Mother-Daughter Suffrage Duo #2: Ada Mazilla Evans Williams and Minnie Williams Jarman
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Ada Mazilla Evans Williams (1838-1923) emigrated from Wales in 1853 and traveled on to Kay’s Ward the following spring with her family and returning missionary, Ebenezer A. Williams. She became Williams’ wife in 1856 and by whom she had five boys and five girls. After living a few years in town, they became some of the first settlers on the Mountain Road where they build a house of adobe brick and an expanded farm; the property had belonged to Ada’s grandmother. Later she moved her family back into town. She became a skilled milliner, both bonnets and “fancy hats,” selling her hats in the Williams Merchantile establishment. “Ada is credited with opening the first millinery shop in Kaysville. She first sold her hats out of her home by order and then when her husband opened his hardware business.  Ada's hats were displayed and sold from a space in one corner of the store. …(Sanders)” The second floor of this building became known as the Williams Hall where people of Kaysville held dances, balls, political meetings, parties, classes and other entertainments. Ada often hosted meetings and was “instrumental in keeping the space a popular meeting place.
She was a teacher in the Kaysville Relief Society when that was first organized in 1871 and later, she served as counselor in said Society for about fifteen years. She was the first president of the Y.L.M.I.A. of Kaysville, and for a few years acted also as president of the Suffrage Association of Kaysville. She has been president of the Columbian Club and vice president of the Suffrage Association in Davis County, becoming friendly with Eliza R. Snow, general president of the Relief Society. (LDS Biographical Encyclopedia) She was a financial contributor to the building of the Ladies Aid Society Hall. Her good friends in charitable work was Sarah Barnes Layton, Ann Barnes Smith and Mary Ann Hyde. She along with friends took up the call to make Utah self-sufficient. Louisa Egbert, Jane Blood, Elizabeth Graham, Jane Bodily, Sarah B Layton, and Josephine Rose planted a mulberry tree and raised silkworms. Some of the silk thread grown in Kaysville was sent to Farmington to be woven by Joseph Hadfield.

​Erminie Minnie Williams Jarman
 “Minnie” Williams Jarman (1867 – 1958) was the daughter of suffragist Ada Evans Williams and Ebenezer Williams. Minnie as she was nicknamed followed on the path blazed by her mother in working in for the Columbian Club and Woman’s Suffrage Association. In 1891 she performed on the program of a debate regarding woman’s vote. That may have been the initial salvo into civic involvement, but it did not end there. She participated on two committees for the Grand Leap Year Ball, the 1992 Leap Year Ball, and the Grand Calico Dress Ball, events held to benefit the Ladies’ Columbian Club, a group organized to promote the women of Utah to the nation.
Minnie married Joseph Bright Jarman in 1894 and continued her political activity. In December of that year at a meeting in Farmington, she was elected first vice president of the Davis County W.S.A. to work with her mother who was selected to fill the position of second vice president. A year later she was appointed to the executive committee of the same organization. After the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1920, she continued to maintain a visible presence and was elected as an alternate delegate to the Davis County Democratic Convention. [1893 Convention]

Mother-Daughter Suffrage Duo #3: Sarah Harriet Blamires Sheffield and Mary Kershaw Blamires Boyton
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​ Sarah Harriet Blamires Sheffield
​ Sarah Blamires arrived in Utah in the fall of 1869 with her mother and siblings. They left the train in Ogden having traveled on of the early transcontinental trains and proceeded on to Kaysville. Although expecting their father to follow, he never did. Sarah married Heber John Sheffield on Christmas day 1874. At the time she arrived, the women enjoyed the voting franchise, but that right had allowed her for only a little more than a decade. In 1887, the franchise was banned by the federal legislature. Life was busy enough without political activity, Sarah and John opened a small store 1889 on midway between Center Street and 1st North which specialized in fancy and green groceries. First, they utilized a former carpentry shop, but later a large building was erected.
Besides raising three sons who helped their father operate the larger mercantile shop, Sarah served as president of the Mutual Improvement Association, a church group for youth, between 1883 and 1890. A charter member of the Ladies’ Retrenchment Society of Kaysville, she served for twenty years as the Kaysville Relief Society president from 1907 to 1927. The Relief Society succeeded the Retrenchment Society in directing the mostly Mormon ladies of the community, an especially big job because of the territory Kaysville covered. She was called Mrs. Relief Society by many in the area (Ross). Sarah also served as president of the Young Ladies’Mutual Improvement Association [  ]. As an officer in the Columbian Club, a Relief Society driven and suffrage supporting organization, she clearly was in possession of organizational skills. Kaysville women contributed to the Davis County exhibit shown in the Utah portion of the Women’s building in the Columbian Exhibition, known as the Chicago World’s Fair. In order to fund the exhibit, balls and dinners were held in town. [insert time frame]
Those leadership skills were also used as she and Heber were said to often give “food to the poor out of their store.” As a leader in the charitable organization of Relief Society, it was her duty to set an example of giving. She was said to stay up late at night making quilts and rag rugs for people in need of help. The motto of the Sheffield store was, “We never turn away anyone in need. (Ross)”

​Mary Kershaw (Blamires) (Boynton)
Undoubtedly, her character was modeled at least in part from her mother, Mary Kershaw Blamires (later Boynton) who also actively participated in suffrage causes such as officer in the Columbian Club. Both mother and daughter knew from firsthand experience that independence was important for a woman and that regaining the vote was the first step.  Mary, married Thomas Boynton after the death of her husband in England. She was a member of Relief Society and an agent for the Woman’s Exponent which probably meant that she sold subscriptions. She was industrious, drying fruit, knitting stockings and participating in the society’s silk raising experiment.

Sister Suffragists: Elizabeth “Lizzie” Wadley Smith and Harriet “Hattie” Emily Smith (Smith) 
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​ Lizzie Smith (1844-1919) was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, to John Sivel Smith and Jane Wadley Smith. As a single woman, she lived her life in the house of her parents and functioned as hostess for her father, a prominent man in the community and church. John S. Smith was a stockholder in both Barnes Bank and the Kaysville Co-op. At the death of her father, she continued to manage the farm and entertain as she was able. A victim of the Spanish Flu Pandemic, she died January of 1919 due to pneumonia complications. She is buried in Kaysville Cemetery. 
“Miss Lizzie Smith” who newspapers of the day named in many positions in both religious and civic capacities. She was the Kaysville Woman’s Suffrage Association president, Davis County W. S. A Convention vice president, and territorial W.S.A. Convention delegate. An 1892 article in the Woman’s Exponent titled “A Delightful Reception” detailed her attendance at a party in honor of the territorial delegates. She was among 50 women who were served delicious refreshments in a “Spacious dining hall … profusely decorated with beautiful autumn colors, the suffrage yellow predominating.” She was listed as on the committees for the Grand Leap Year Ball and the Leap Year Ball of 1892. A close look at her portrait shows a woman who dared to cut her hair short in a time when a woman’s locks were praised her glory – perhaps a statement of independence not surprising for a committed suffragist.

​Hattie Smith (1856-1938) was sister to Lizzie and the two shared a dedication to furthering the progress of women.
She was a Columbian Club officer in the Kaysville organization. This group supported the goals of the suffragists by creating components of the Davis County Columbian Club exhibit that would be placed in the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. There the skills and abilities of Kaysville women would combine to present a positive view of the populous in the territory. This public relations effort was specifically to showcase Utah for statehood status. 

Ellen Ann Beazer (Barton)
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​Ellen Ann Beazer Barton was the daughter of prosperous parents who had a home of culture and refinement as had their parents in England. When the family joined a new American church and made plans to emigrate, the relatives “were indignant to think they would leave their surroundings and advantages to go to the wild west and live among ‘heathens’ …” Ellen Ann was just a toddler when crossing the plains. In Kaysville, her father was a successful farmer, sheep man and businessman with an interest in the Weinel Mill and the Kaysville Co-op*. Ellen married Peter Barton the day before Christmas 1870, the same year that her father left for a mission to England.
As the wife of a prominent citizen and bishop, Peter Barton, Ellen is known to have participated in the Davis County Convention of the Woman’s Suffrage Association in October of 1893. Her credentials were printed in the Woman’s Exponent. It was also recorded that an “Ella” Barton had performed an organ solo during one of the meetings. She was active in the Kaysville Relief Society, participating in a surprise party for President Sarah B. Layton in February of 1900. In 1899 she traveled with Bishop Barton, Franklin D. Richards, and Emmeline B. Wells with others to organize the Relief Society in Omaha.

Jane Wilkie Hooper (Blood)
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​Early pioneers Jane Wilkie Hooper Blood and her husband William Blood were the parents of John Hooper Blood whose home was located on Locust or Center Street. Jane was a Kaysville suffragist whose participation helped to gain the vote for women in 1920, but sadly after her death in 1898. She was born in 1845 in Southhampton, Hampshire, England, and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was about nine years old.
After Jane’s family settled in Kaysville, arriving in 1855, they settled into a dug out just in time for an extreme and devastating winter. Given a few years of hardship and pioneering activities she grew and married William in 1861. Her family had subsequently moved to Ogden, but Jane and William moved to Kaysville on a farm on the lake shore west of town. There they lived until 1867 when they moved into an adobe home which now stands across Locust/Center Street south of the tabernacle.
While raising a family, Jane was involved in humanitarian and civic causes. In various leadership roles and membership capacities, she served in the Relief Society for women, the Primary for children throughout her life. She was an officer in the Columbian Club which was created under the direction of Salt Lake directors in the cause of promoting women and gaining suffrage and statehood. (DJW) In her diary she records voting in an 1880 election just seven years before Utah women lost the vote when the federal government disenfranchised the territory females. 

Adora “Dora” Taylor (Wessels) (Strumquist)
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​Dora was born January 17, 1856 in Kaysville, Utah to Levi Taylor and Emeline Owen. She was a descendant of “the famous Taylor family of Kentucky whose most honored name was President Zachary Taylor.” Dora’s first husband was Sylvester M. Wessels and she later remarried Niles J. Strumquist.
Dora was an entrepreneur and was involved in the construction of building at 69 East 100 North which became a store filled with dress goods, trimmings, and millinery. “The company did a large business in the dressmaking department under the supervision of Mrs. Wessels and was patronized by fashionable people from Logan to Salt Lake City.”
Dora served as vice president of the local Woman’s Suffrage Association and was seated in the Davis County Women Suffrage Association Convention in 1893.

Sarah Barton (Dailey) 
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​ Sarah’s parents emigrated in 1863 and immediately upon arriving in Missouri by cattle car bought a wagon to begin the trip to Utah. The story was told in her family with the additional fact that infant Sarah, her mother and young sister were very ill, sick from a measles outbreak. When the family arrived in Utah, they were taken to Kaysville to home of a cousin. Sarah’s father had been a coal miner in England but farmed a rented farm while she grew up. They struggled economically, a fact that could have left her yearning for more control over her life and subsequent participation in women’s rights.
Sarah married Bartholomew W Dailey originally of Massachusetts in the spring of 1887. As a married woman with three children, she served in the Woman’s Suffrage Association of Kaysville in the Executive Committee. She was a committee member for the Grand Concert and Ball held at the William’s building and as such must have been a member of the Columbian Club which sponsored the event. As a member of the W.S.A., she served on the Executive Committee at the county level.

Sarah Ann Jarman Staker
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​ Sarah emigrated with her parents and two younger sisters in 1882 and traveled directly to Kay’s Ward. Her father died when she was young, making it necessary for her to make her “own living and help care for” her mother. Soon after a sister was married, she moved to Salt Lake City to board with her. This ended the suffrage work that Sarah had begun in Kaysville. She later married William M Staker and continued to reside in the city.
While a teenager she served for a short time as secretary of the Kaysville Woman’s Suffrage organization. She worked with other officers Ada Williams and Dora Wessels. About the same time as her interest in the W.S.A. her brother, Joseph, began to court Minnie Williams, another youthful suffragist.

Rachel May Mansell
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​ Rachel emigrated from England in the spring of 1862 with no other family accompanying her, but with other members of her church. She was married to Henry S. J. Mansell on board ship. After what was described as a “tedious journey,” they settled in Kaysville. Like many others they first lived in a dugout, went without proper food and clothing. While she cared for the home and gleaned wheat in the fields, her husband worked for the railroad as a foreman, participating in the building of the lines down Weber Canyon. She opened a hotel on Main Street and named it the Mansell House.
The mother of five, she was also a secretary and counselor to Sarah B. Layton in the Relief Society organization. Time was also found to participate in the civic life of the community. An 1893 newspaper lists her among the women credentialled and seated at the county Woman’s Suffrage Convention.