Susanna Perkins

Notes:

"Sufanna ye Daughter of Matthew Perkins & his wife Hannah was born January 29: 1752." [Norwich Vital Records, citation details below.]

Family/Spouse: Rev. John Staples. John (son of Deacon Seth Staples and Hannah Standish) was born on 23 Apr 1742; died on 15 Feb 1804. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Lawyer and politician. He was a representative of the town of New Haven in the State Legislature for seven or eight sessions, most of them during the war of 1812. The institution that eventually became Yale Law School began with him training legal apprentices in his law office in New Haven in the first decade of the 19th century.

"After completing his studies at Yale [Seth Perkins Staples] began the study of the law in the office of the Hon. David Daggett in New Haven, Connecticut for two years. During this time Seth hand-copied a set of Tapping Reeve's law notes for his own use, but never attended the Litchfield Law School as a student (a common misconception). Once his understanding of the law was adequate. Seth passed the bar in Litchfield in 1799, and then immediately opened a law office of his own in New Haven and commenced practice. In that same year he married Catharine Wales Staples. During their marriage the couple had six children; three sons and three daughters, one daughter of which later attended the Litchfield Female Academy. The future Yale Law School formed in the New Haven law office of Seth P. Staples. Staples owned an exceptional library (an attraction for students at a time when law books were scarce), and he began training apprentices in the early 1800s. By the 1810s his law office had a full-fledged law school. Samuel Hitchcock, one of Staples’ former students, became a partner at the office and later, the proprietor of the New Haven Law School." [Litchfield Historical Society]

"The [New Haven Law] School began in the New Haven law office of Seth P. Staples in the 1800s, who began training lawyers. By 1810 he was operating a law school. He took on a former student, Samuel J. Hitchcock, as a law partner, and Hitchcock became the proprietor of the New Haven Law School, joined by David Daggett in 1824. (The Yale Law School shield, shown at the upper right of this page, shows staples and a rampant dog, representing Seth Staples and David Daggett.) The school's affiliation with Yale began in the mid-1820s and in 1843, the school's students began receiving Yale degrees." [Wikipedia article on Yale Law School]

Susanna married Roger Sherman on 7 Jan 1801 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut. Roger (son of Roger Sherman and Rebecca Prescott) was born on 16 Jul 1768 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut; died on 5 Mar 1856 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Nordhoff, California was renamed Ojai during World War I.

Elizabeth married Thomas Anthony Thacher on 1 Aug 1860 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut. Thomas (son of Peter Thacher and Ann Parks) was born on 11 Jan 1815 in Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut; died on 7 Apr 1886 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From www.ywcasf-marin.org/marin-womens-hall-fame/honorees/elizabeth-thacher-kent:

Elizabeth Thacher Kent, a matriarch in the founding family of Kentfield, is one of the few Marin County women to be elected posthumously to the Marin Women's Hall of Fame. Kent was a distinguished proponent of women's rights and international peace and was instrumental in securing women's right to vote.

Kent took up permanent residence in Marin in 1907 and immediately became a vocal activist in support of women's' suffrage. When her husband, William, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Kent leveraged her position as a Congressman's wife to support the national suffrage movement. She was a featured speaker at the 1913 and 1914 conventions of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and shortly thereafter assumed leadership of their Congressional Committee. By 1915, she helped form the Congressional Union (later re-named the Women's Party), which picketed the White House in support of suffrage. Kent was arrested twice for her suffrage demonstrating. However, her cause prevailed and in August 1920 the Susan B. Anthony Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed guaranteeing American women the right to vote.

In addition to supporting suffrage, Elizabeth Kent was committed to the cause of world peace. In the 1930's, she provided leadership to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She and her husband were also early supporters of the fledging conservation movement. They donated a large tract of land to the U.S. Government to preserve old-growth redwoods. Their gift, the Muir Woods National Monument, provides a lasting testimony to the Kents' exemplary lives of public service.

Elizabeth married Rep. William Kent on 26 Feb 1890 in Nordhoff, California. Rep. (son of Albert Emmet Kent and Adaline Elizabeth Dutton) was born on 29 Mar 1864 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois; died on 13 Mar 1928 in Kentfield, Marin, California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]