Cyrus S. Haskell was a mariner.
Here Come the Suffragists: The Role of the Mercer Girls in the Washington Woman Suffrage Movement
by Shanna Stevenson, Coordinator of the Washington Women�s History ConsortiumSome Mercerites came from families noted for reform ideas. One of these was Mehitable Haskell Elder whose aunt, Hitty Haskell, was a renowned Massachusetts suffragist, speaker and abolitionist. She was a friend of Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Lydia Maria Child and William Lloyd Garrison. These women, immersed in equal rights in the east, would have strong views about womens rights and found fertile ground for their ideas in the west.
Mehitable Elder
Perhaps some of the most interesting members of the 1866 Mercer party were Mehitable Haskell Lord and her extended family. Mehitable Lord came with her daughter Clara and son James with Mercer from Massachusetts where, as noted previously, she had a famous abolitionist and womens rights aunt, Hitty Haskell for whom she was named. Pioneer historian Thomas Prosch stated that Mehitable Lord was a dressmaker when she came to Olympia and married a widower, A. R. Elder in 1868.
Elder was a minister and Indian agent who had come to Olympia in the early 1860s. The Elders lived near Daniel and Ann Elizabeth Bigelow, fellow suffragists, on the eastside of Olympia. Mehitable Elder was one of the primary organizers of the 1871 WTWSA convention, serving with A. E. Bigelow on the Executive Committee for both the convention and the WTWSA. Mehitable Elder also took on the fundraising duties after the convention to raise funds to raise funds for a delegate to the National Woman Suffrage Association Convention representing Washington Territory a sum of $100 to support the chosen delegate, Susan B. Anthony. Clara Lord Littlejohn, Elders daughter was also an active participant in the 1871 convention and one of the signers of the notice to convene the meeting. Likewise Priscilla Elder, Mrs. Elders stepdaughterinlaw was listed as one of the conveners of the 1871 meeting as P.E. Elder.
Mehitable Elder was later one of the founding members of theWomans Club of Olympia in 1883, one of the oldest womens clubs on the West Coast. Other founding members of the club were strong advocates for womens right to vote including Abbie Howard Hunt Stuart, Ella Stork, Pamela Case Hale, Clara Pottle Sylvester, Phoebe Moore and other Olympia suffragists. The club, according to Abigail Scott Duniway was established to advance the cause of suffrage, The Womans Club Movement in Olympia as a necessary step in the progress of the cause.
Mehitable Elder was one of the women whom Abigail Scott Duniway called out for special mention as part of the 1883 Washington suffrage victory, saying, Among the residents of Olympia who have been Woman Suffragists for many years and deserve special mention are . . . Mrs. Haskell Elder, niece of the renowned Eastern worker, Aunt Hitty Haskell, who has long rested from her labors, though "her works do follow her.
Elder lived a long life to the age of 96 and became known as a prominent poet. One of her poems featured in 1909 on the occasion of the 20 year statehood commemoration pointedly stated, To make her sons and daughters one, in liberties and rights.
She moved to Tacoma with her daughter and registered to vote there in 1911 after permanent woman suffrage in the state. She died the following year, known as an accomplished poet and pioneer.