Maria E. DeGeer

Maria Elizabeth DeGeer, born in Ireland in 1829, immigrated with her family to Ontario, Canada, at age 5, taught at the Rice Lake Indian Mission School by age 15, and later married John Button DeGeer. After his death in 1865 from intemperance, she continued as a speaker and author, became known as the first woman to work for The Sons of Temperance in Canada, moved with her daughters to Chicago, began a publishing and writing business and The Coming Woman magazine, and lost much in the Great Chicago Fire, including her presses. In 1874, she was part of a 150-women church delegation from Chicago that carried a petition to the City Council to close saloons on Sunday and was assaulted by a mob of 10,000 men, and that same year she was elected vice president of the National Prison Reform. Committed to temperance legislation and prison reform, she organized Eastern Star chapters, solicited subscriptions for the Mystic Star, lectured before the Kansas House and at temperance meetings, and after Kansas adopted a constitutional amendment outlawing liquor in 1881, moved there in 1882 and earned her certificate to practice law. At age 55, on September 28, 1884, she and her daughter Mrs. Eastman left Garden City with supplies and C.J. “Buffalo” Jones, camped in Scott County, and the next morning each claimed a quarter section cornering on the geographical center of Scott County and dug the four corner foundations of their future claim houses with their own hands. By February 1885 another daughter, Kate Russell, had joined them, their friends from Chicago arrived, DeGeer Corner filled with tents, horses, wagons, and people, and DeGeer worked tirelessly to establish the town while also publishing The Western Times, the first newspaper west of Ness City. In September of that year, she joined Mr. Swan, Mr. Sangster, and Mr. McLain in forming the Scott City Town Company, but after some of the men decided they could not let a woman hold office, she refused any office, sold her shares, and left Scott permanently. She later became the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association, attempted to settle another town in Greely County, started organizations supporting women in professions, business, and education, traveled to California lecturing, remarried, returned to Chicago, and died on December 24, 1906, at age 78 after a life of writing, lecturing, philanthropic work, and advocacy for women and humanity. She was a friend of Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard, spoke on the floor of state houses and senates, argued cases in the Kansas Supreme Court, and was remembered as the only woman to found a town in Kansas.

Scott City, Kansas · United States