Carrie E. Bounton, 1853-1917

Carrie E. Richardson moved with her parents from New Hampshire to the Town of Caroline and later taught at Ithaca’s Central School. In 1882 she married DeWitt Bouton, a lawyer and newspaper owner. They lived at 413 N. Cayuga Street. As Mrs. Carrie Bouton, she headed the 1894 Tompkins County Political Equality League and the Tompkins County Temperance Society, and that year attended a meeting in Ithaca with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other state suffrage leaders in preparation for sending a petition to the New York State Constitutional Convention that would remove the word ‘male’ from the state constitution. That attempt failed. She was committed to social reform, in 1899 leading a campaign against “houses of ill fame” in Ithaca, calling for an end to the practice of shielding men’s identities while jailing women for the crime of prostitution.

The Clinton House also played a significant role in the local Women’s Suffrage movement, serving in 1894 as headquarters of the 26th annual convention of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. (The annual convention of the NYSWSA returned to Ithaca in 1911.)

See pages 46-48 of 'Achieving Beulah Land - The Long Struggle for Suffrage in Tompkins County, New York' by Carol Kammen and Elaine D. Engst - pub. Cornell University Library 2019

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