On Tuesday, the Nell J. Redfield Memorial Hospital unveiled a new sign on its grounds which overviews the historical significance of Dr. Joseph Morgan and his daughter Hattie Morgan, who lived on the land where the hospital currently stands.  The sign is part of a “National Trail” of historic markers celebrating important figures in the country’s long fight for voting equality and franchise.  

The event was introduced by Director of the Oneida County Pioneer Museum Dr. Jean Thomas, and a life sketch of the two was provided by former museum director Fay Cottle.  Cottle, who told the gathered crowd that Hattie would kill her for revealing that she had actually been named Henrietta, shared stories of her experiences with Morgan, who had been an important figure in her life.  Mayor Joan Hawkins discussed the importance of the Morgan family to the history of women’s suffrage in Idaho, especially on the occasion of today’s Election Day.  As the first woman mayor of Malad, Hawkins thanked Hattie and Joseph for helping to make that a reality.  Hospital director John Williams explained the Morgans’ connection to the hospital location, and explained that he specifically wanted the sign to be places next to the flagpole to demonstrate the importance of the suffrage movement to the democratic progress of the nation.

The program began when Jean Thomas was contacted on behalf of the museum by Brandi Burns from the Boise City Department of Arts and History about a grant offered through the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and the Votes for Women National Women’s Suffrage Centennial Historical Marker Grant Program to place historic markers across the county for figures like the Morgan family.  A “National Trail” of such historic markers has been funded through the grant across many states, and this sign will become a part of that national project.  The grant committee ultimately decided that Malad and the Morgans were excellent examples of the kinds of stories the trail project wished to highlight.

In 1871, while representing Oneida County in the Idaho Territorial Legislature, Dr. Morgan proposed a bill to amend Idaho’s election laws to extend the right to vote to women. Wyoming had been the first territory to grant the vote to women, which it did in 1869, followed by Utah in 1870.  Had the bill passed, Idaho would have become the third territory to do so.  During the debate on the bill, Dr. Morgan argued that women “ranked as a person, a citizen, and as such, being affected by the laws of the country, it was in accordance with democratic teachings that she be allowed a voice in the making of those laws. The government derived its validity and just power from the consent of the governed--that is, all who were governed.” 

The vote resulted in an 11 to 11 tie, which was broken when the speaker of the house voted against the bill. As a result, women in Idaho had to wait nearly 27 more years before they gained the right to vote, becoming the fourth territory or state to grant such a right.

In an article written to commemorate the centennial of the passage of the 19th amendment, Sharon Harris recounted a story related by Hattie Morgan, Joseph and Sarah Morgan’s daughter, about her father’s failure to obtain the right to vote for women. 

“Father, of course, was disappointed but still enthusiastic for the cause and at the next general election at Malad he asked mother to accompany him to the polls. Mother took his arm and went with him and when they reached the voting place he gave her the different tickets. She selected one, folded it and handed it to the judge who looked bewildered. A glance at father, however, seemed to reassure him and he took the ballot and dropped it in the box. Thus, mother became the first woman in Idaho to vote,” Hattie said. 

Joseph Morgan was one of the early settlers of Malad City, who had given up his practice in Wales to sail to the United States and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1866.  He met his future wife Sarah Annie Sykes on the voyage over on the ship “Amazon.”  He was crucial to the valley’s initial agricultural irrigation system, and opened the Deep Creek Store.  He served in a number of capacities locally and within the territory, including county physician and school trustee, responsible for the county’s first health laws and schools.

In her nomination letter to National Votes for Women Trail, Jean Thomas confirmed that “Miss Hattie Morgan was the founder of the Oneida Pioneer Museum. As the daughter of prominent physician and Idaho State legislator, Dr. Joseph William Morgan, Hattie always had an interest in the history and politics of Malad Valley.  She was an enterprising woman for that era, especially as she was barely able to walk (and only with crutches) after an accident when she was a teenager. She fell out of a wagon, and the wagon wheels ran over her, breaking her legs and pelvis. As all accounts from the Native Daughters of the Idaho Pioneers relate, in the 1930s, Hattie began gathering artifacts important to the history of Malad Valley and displayed them in a log cabin built by her father.  At the same time, she was instrumental in getting the local chapter of NDIP started in Malad Valley. With the aid of her friends in NDIP, Hattie opened the first pioneer museum in Malad in 1935 in her log cabin. After the log cabin was torn down, the collection of artifacts was scattered and stored in houses and barns throughout Malad Valley. In the 1960s, the NDIP gathered Hattie Morgan’s collection and added to it over the years, and eventually the Oneida Pioneer Museum opened in 1992 in its current location in downtown Malad.”

The sign finally provides a visible marker on the landscape of the incredible importance to both the women’s suffrage movement in the country as well as the community which became the home of the Morgan family.  Information and reporting in this article was taken in part from previous articles written by Sharon Harris and Joan Hawkins.