Women's Suffrage

The decades-long struggle for Women’s right to vote did not pass Havre de Grace by. Centrally located on the East Coast, Havre de Grace was a prime stopping point for many prominent suffragists. Two important Women’s Suffrage marches, one national and one local, stopped in the City.

 

The Army of the Hudson, led by General Rosalie Jones, marched from New York to Washington, D.C. in order to attend the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade. On February 22, 1913, the Wilson Social Club and the Bayside Brass Band, led by cornetist Grace Thompson, met the marchers in Perryville and escorted them across the Susquehanna Bridge to Havre de Grace City Hall. They were greeted by Mayor Walter Weber who presented them with the key to the City and declared himself to be a “half-way suffragette.” The marchers stayed overnight in town, most staying at the Harford House Hotel. Journalist and marcher Phoebe Hawn declared that “The accommodations…were fair and the meals fine- real home cooking…” The next day, the Army was escorted out of town by a “band of high school boys who carried a multitude of signs in their hands and a volley of cheers in their throats. Accompanying them was Arthur Deppish, who was one of the last to say good-bye to General Jones. He secured her promise that she would write to his wife, “who is a prominent suffragette of Havre de Grace.” General Jones later declared “Havre de Grace is one of the very nicest places we have met yet.”

 

In 1915, the Maryland Just Government League’s Praire Schooner made a stop in Havre de Grace during its Harford County Campaign. The events, directed by Harford County JGL Vice President Elizabeth Forbes and hosted by Havre de Grace’s May Harlow, took place at the newly constructed grandstand at what is now known as Tydings Park. Mayor Michael Fahey brought greetings from the city and declared himself “almost a believer” in the suffrage cause.

 

Fahey’s words may have cost him the 1921 election.

 

When America’s women finally won the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, many Havre de de Grace women immediately registered to vote. More than 250 new voters, mostly women registered to vote in advance of the spring 1921 Mayoral election. The election proved to be a contentious one and formerMayor Michael Fahey lost by 7 votes to William Vasey. Disappointed by his loss, Fahey blamed the loss on women and took his case to court, claiming that Havre de Grace law did not allow women the right to vote. Harford County Judge William Harlan disagreed with Fahey, stating the 19th Amendment was the law of the land and superseded that of Havre de Grace.

 

In 2021, the City installed a Pomeroy Historical Marker in Tydings Park to commemorate the 1915 Prairie Schooner Campaign stop in Havre de Grace.