Lucy Waters Phelps: First Woman Voter

The daughter of Henry and Julia Waters Phelps, Lucy Waters Phelps was born in 1876 and lived in the house known as the Samuel Waters Tavern located at 650 Central Turnpike in West Sutton, Massachusetts. She was a teacher in the West Sutton School for more than twenty years. Lucy and her brother Charles S. Phelps ran a roadside stand known as “Painehaven Park, the Pride of the Pike”. She was an active member of the American Press Writer’s Association for twenty-five years and a founding member of the West Sutton Community League. In 1879, Massachusetts women won the right to vote in school committee elections. In 1897, Lucy Waters Phelps realized that no Sutton woman had registered to vote, and at age 21 became the first women to vote in Sutton’s history. She then became an ardent suffragist. According to History of Sutton, Volume 2, “Miss Lucy Phelps was, by two years, the first women voter in the town of Sutton, she having registered for the franchise at the age of 21, although she could vote for school committee only.”

Learn more about Lucy Waters Phelps in the Winter 2025 edition of The Cultivator.