Clarina Howard Nichols

Born in West Townshend 1810, Clarina Howard became an early advocate of womens rights. After a divorce in 1843 she married George Nichols. As editor of the Windham County Democrat she strongly advocated womens property rights, child custody, temperance, and suffrage. In 1852 she became the first woman to address the Vermont Legislature, and lectured throughout New England and the Midwest. Nichols was a staunch abolitionist who seized the opportunity to move with her family to Kansas where her views on slavery and womens rights were widely accepted. During the Civil War, she was director of a home for orphaned black children in Washington, D.C. She died at her sons home in Pomo, California, in 1885.