Ellen Martin

* Lawyer

* First woman to vote in Illinois

This home is named for two people.  A carpenter named Teets built this house in 1870.  Later, a widowed woman named CarrieTowne owned the house and rented rooms to young women. One of the women who roomed there was Ellen Martin, 
who is famous for being the first woman to vote in Illinois. 

Ellen Martin  was a lawyer.  There were not many women lawyers at that time.  In 1891, she found out that the village rules said all "citizens" could vote.  This
meant she as a woman could vote. 

On April 6, 1891, Ellen Martin led a group of women to the voting place at the general store. She demanded that the three male election judges allow the women to vote. The judges were so surprised that one of them had a "spasm," one leaned
against the wall for support, and the other fell backwards into a barrel of flour! 

They did not want to let the women vote, so a county judge was asked to decide. He said that the women were right. Ellen Martin then became the first woman in Illinois to vote. In 1916 Illinois women could vote in national elections. The 19th Amendment (the Women's Suffrage Amendment) was passed in 1920.