Women’s History — Voting in Still Pond, 1908
Peter Heck • March 30, 2021
A state historical marker stands at Maryland Route 292 and Old Still Pond Road in the village of Still Pond, Kent County. The sign commemorates a significant event in this sleepy little town more than a century ago.
The marker reads: “In the village of Still Pond, twelve years before the 19th Amendment established women’s suffrage, Mary Jane Clark Howard, Anne Baker Maxwell, and Lillie Deringer Kelley cast their ballots in the municipal election of 1908. That year, an act for incorporation of the town had provided the right to vote to any male or female resident taxpayer over age 21. Fourteen women were registered to vote, two of them African American.”
Seventy-two men also cast ballots in that municipal election, according to the Ballot & Beyond website.
While these three Still Pond residents were the first women to vote in Maryland, the push for woman suffrage — as it was called then — began long before that. In fact, it can be traced back to Colonial times, according to the Maryland State Archives. As early as 1648, Margaret Brent appeared before the governor and General Assembly, asking to be admitted with two votes — one as a landowner, the other as an attorney for Lord Baltimore. Her actions make her the first recorded suffragist in America, a distinction she undoubtedly would have considered inadequate compensation for the Assembly’s denial of her request.
It wasn’t just women who were denied the vote in the colonies’ early days. Only white men who owned property could vote in Maryland until 1802, and it took a special act of the Assembly in 1825 to extend the franchise to Jews. Only after Congress passed the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution in the late 1860s were African-American men given the right to vote – although in too many jurisdictions, it took many more years before other barriers to their doing so began to come down. Meanwhile, half the population — women — continued to be denied the right to vote, although there were more and more who asked, “Why?”
Organizations promoting women’s rights spread and grew, especially in the 1840s, notably at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, where a formal resolution demanding suffrage for women was passed. The quest for women’s suffrage really took off after the Civil War. It was supported by a number of organizations, both state and national, including the influential Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In 1875, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s right to vote was not included in the Constitution, at which point women’s efforts turned to obtaining an amendment to establish the right.
Not all states were rigidly opposed to giving women the vote. Wyoming extended them the franchise in 1869, and Utah followed in 1870. But the all-male Maryland legislature continued to oppose the call for equal rights. The Republicans, then as now the minority party in the state, supported giving women the vote — after all, the new voters might show their appreciation by voting for the party responsible for extending them the franchise.
That didn’t stop some local jurisdictions from making their own decisions. In 1896, the town of Loch Lynn Heights in Garrett County passed a charter granting universal suffrage; however, there is no evidence that any women took advantage of the right. And in 1900, women property owners in Annapolis were allowed to vote in a municipal bond election, a right they continued to have although they were not given a vote in other matters. And then there was Still Pond in 1908, which granted women the right to vote in all municipal elections.
Still Pond soon changed its charter to retract the women’s right to vote. It was only with the passage of the 19th Amendment that women won the right to vote in all jurisdictions and in all elections. And still, the Maryland General Assembly dragged its feet. It voted against ratification of the amendment in 1920, and only a Supreme Court decision in 1922 finally slapped down the anti-suffrage activists who attempted to keep women in their place. Even then, it took until 1941 for the General Assembly to ratify the amendment, although women had been legally voting in the state for two decades by that point.
But it’s timely and appropriate to take a moment to recognize Maryland voting pioneers Mary Jane Clark Howard, Anne Baker Maxwell, and Lillie Deringer Kelley for stepping forward to cast their votes in Still Pond all those years ago. They made history on the Eastern Shore — and paved the way to an era when women can not only vote, but can aspire to the highest offices in the land.
Peter Heck is a Chestertown-based writer and editor, who spent 10 years at the Kent County News and three more with the Chestertown Spy. He is the author of 10 novels and co-author of four plays, a book reviewer for Asimov’s and Kirkus Reviews, and an incorrigible guitarist.
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
Right now, Congress is working on a fast-track bill that would make historic cuts to basic needs programs in order to finance another round of tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations.
The House Agriculture Committee recently voted, along party lines, to advance legislation that would cut as much as $300 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP is the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, helping more than 41 million people in the U.S. pay for food. With potential cuts this large, it helps to know who benefits from this program in Maryland, and who would lose this assistance. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities compiled data on SNAP beneficiaries by congressional district, cited below, and produced the Maryland state datasheet , shown below. In Maryland, in 2023-24, 1 in 9 people lived in a household with SNAP benefits. In Maryland’s First Congressional District, in 2023-24: Almost 34,000 households used SNAP benefits. Of those households, 43% had at least one senior (over age 60). 29% of SNAP recipients were people of color. 15% were Black, non-Hispanic, higher than 11.8% nationally. 6% were Hispanic (19.4% nationally). There were 24,700 total veterans (ages 18-64). Of those, 2,200 lived in households that used SNAP benefits (9%). The CBPP SNAP datasheet for Maryland is below. See data from all the states and download factsheets here.
Apparently, some people think that the GOP’s “big beautiful bill” is a foregone conclusion, and that the struggle over the budget and Trump’s agenda is over and done. Not true. On Sunday night, the bill — given the alternate name “Big Bad Bullsh*t Bill” by the Democratic Women’s Caucus — was voted out of the House Budget Committee. The GOP plan is to pass this legislation in the House before Memorial Day. But that’s not the end of it. As Jessica Craven explained in her Chop Wood Carry Water column: “Remember, we have at least six weeks left in this process. The bill has to: Pass the House, Then head to the Senate where it will likely be rewritten almost completely, Then be passed there, Then be brought back to the House for reconciliation, And then, if the House changes that version at all, Go back to the Senate for another vote.” She adds, “Every step of that process is a place for us to kill it.” The bill is over a thousand pages long, and the American people will not get a chance to read it until it has passed the House. But, thanks to 5Calls , we know it includes:
Let's talk about our Eastern Shore Delegation, the representatives who are supposed to fight for our nine Shore counties in Annapolis, and what they actually got up to this session.
For the first time in recent memory, Virginia Democrats have candidates running in all 100 House of Delegates districts — a milestone party leaders and grassroots organizers say reflects rising momentum as President Donald Trump’s second term continues to galvanize opposition.
The 447th legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly adjourned on April 8. This End of Session Report highlights the work Shore Progress has done to fight for working families and bring real results home to the Shore. Over the 90-day session, lawmakers debated 1,901 bills and passed 878 into law. Shore Progress and members supported legislation that delivers for the Eastern Shore, protecting our environment, expanding access to housing and healthcare, strengthening workers’ rights, and more. Shore Progress Supported Legislation By The Numbers: Over 60 pieces of our backed legislation were passed. Another 15 passed in one Chamber but not the other. Legislation details are below, past the budget section. The 2026 Maryland State Budget How We Got Here: Maryland’s budget problems didn’t start overnight. They began under Governor Larry Hogan. Governor Hogan expanded the state budget yearly but blocked the legislature from moving money around or making common-sense changes. Instead of fixing the structural issues, Hogan used federal covid relief funds to hide the cracks and drained our state’s savings from $5.5 billion to $2.3 billion to boost his image before leaving office. How Trump/Musk Made It Worse: Maryland is facing a new fiscal crisis driven by the Trump–Musk administration, whose trade wars, tariff policies, and deep federal cuts have hit us harder than most, costing the state over 30,000 jobs, shuttering offices, and erasing promised investments. A University of Maryland study estimates Trump’s tariffs alone could cost us $2 billion, and those federal cuts have already added $300 million to our budget deficit. Covid aid gave us a short-term boost and even created a fake surplus under Hogan, but that money is gone, while housing, healthcare, and college prices keep rising. The Trump–Musk White House is only making things worse by slashing funding, gutting services, and eliminating research that Marylanders rely on. How The State Budget Fixes These Issues: This year, Maryland faced a $3 billion budget gap, and the General Assembly fixed it with a smart mix of cuts and fair new revenue, while protecting working families, schools, and health care. The 2025 Budget cuts $1.9 billion ($400 million less than last year) without gutting services people rely on. The General Assembly raised $1.2 billion in fair new revenue, mostly from the wealthiest Marylanders. The Budget ended with a $350 million surplus, plus $2.4 billion saved in the Rainy Day Fund (more than 9% of general fund revenue), which came in $7 million above what the Spending Affordability Committee called for. The budget protects funding for our schools, health care, transit, and public workers. The budget delivers real wins: $800 million more annually for transit and infrastructure, plus $500 million for long-term transportation needs. It invests $9.7 billion in public schools and boosts local education aid by $572.5 million, a 7% increase. If current revenue trends hold, no new taxes will be needed next session. Even better, 94% of Marylanders will see a tax cut or no change, while only the wealthiest 5% will finally pay their fair share. The tax system is smarter now. We’re: Taxing IT and data services like Texas and D.C. do; Raising taxes on cannabis and sports betting, not groceries or medicine; and Letting counties adjust income taxes. The budget also restores critical funding: $122 million for teacher planning $15 million for cancer research $11 million for crime victims $7 million for local business zones, and Continued support for public TV, the arts, and BCCC The budget invests in People with disabilities, with $181 million in services Growing private-sector jobs with $139 million in funding, including $27.5 million for quantum tech, $16 million for the Sunny Day Fund, and $10 million for infrastructure loans. Health care is protected for 1.5 million Marylanders, with $15.6 billion for Medicaid and higher provider pay. Public safety is getting a boost too, with $60 million for victim services, $5.5 million for juvenile services, and $5 million for parole and probation staffing. This budget also tackles climate change with $100 million for clean energy and solar projects, and $200 million in potential ratepayer relief. Public workers get a well-deserved raise, with $200 million in salary increases, including a 1% COLA and ~2.5% raises for union workers. The ultra-wealthy will finally chip in to pay for it: People earning over $750,000 will pay more, Millionaires will pay 6.5%, and Capital gains over $350,000 get a 2% surcharge. Deductions are capped for high earners, but working families can still deduct student loans, medical debt, and donations. This budget is bold, fair, and built to last. That’s why Shore Progress proudly supports it. Click on the arrows below for details in each section.
