Amazing women of Vineland New Jersey 1868

By snowbritnj on February 24th, 2010

Portia Kellogg Gage (1813-1903), one of the organizers of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association in 1867, was probably one of the first of the early New Jersey suffragists to go to the polls in protest of her disenfranchisement. Her experience was reported in Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper, The Revolution, and inspired women elsewhere to try her tactic.
Mrs Gage, together with her husband & 4 sons lived in Vineland, New Jersey from the mid 1860’s until the end of her life. Throughout her time in Vineland, her family contributed greatly to the development of our city, One of her sons is responsible for inventing the Gage Plane which is on display upstairs in the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society. But it is as electoral reformers that the Gages are best known.
Portia Gage & her husband were no newcomers to the world of reform, having been part of the movement when they lived in Chicago as well. But when they arrived in Vineland they saw an opportunity to try to bring the unfair system to an end.
On 3rd November 1868, Portia Gage led 171 other ladies ‘including 4 colored women’ to the hall on Plum Street to cast their votes in the presidential election. They had their own poling box as they were not on the registered voters list and in the end their votes were not counted as part of Vineland’s return. However a record of their votes does exist.

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