On March 7, 1870, about fifty women, determined to vote despite the prohibition against woman’s suffrage, gathered in the Everett House, a hotel formerly at this site. The women marched in a group to the Hyde Park town hall and placed their ballots in the ballot box. They were led by Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld, who had previously been active in the abolitionist movement and now turned their attention to women’s rights. The ballots cast that day were recorded but not counted. It was another fifty years before the 19th amendment to the U. S. Constitution declaring the right of women to vote was ratified.
