They were a power couple before the term was even invented. Myra Colby Bradwell and her husband, James Bradwell, were some of the top minds of the Chicago legal community in the late 1800s. Not only had James been elected to the Cook County judicial bench in 1861, but he was also elected to the Illinois General Assembly as a representative from 1873 to 1877.
Myra studied law, passed the bar exam in 1869 and applied to practice before the Illinois Supreme Court. She, however, was denied by that body, as well as the United States Supreme Court. She eventually acquired her law license retroactively to her initial application year of 1869. Perhaps, though, her greatest achievement is her initiation of a major publication in the legal world entitled Chicago Legal News. It was published from 1868 until 1925.
In 1875, however, an event occurred in Chicago that was personal for the Bradwells. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and her son, Tad, moved back to Illinois and lived in Chicago. Following the untimely death of Tad in 1871, her behavior became more erratic.
A young Mary Todd Lincoln. Photo credit to Wikipedia
It finally reached a point that her remaining son, Robert Todd Lincoln, an aspiring lawyer in Chicago who hoped to enter politics, instituted legal proceedings to have her institutionalized. On May 20, 1875, a jury found her unfit and committed her to Bellevue Place, an asylum in Batavia, Illinois.
Bellevue Place in Batavia, IL. Photo credit to Shaw Local
After residing there for three months, she approached her friends, Myra and James Bradwell, who she knew from their earlier years in Illinois.
In a reasonable assumption, it is possible Myra and James knew the Lincolns going as far back as the 1850s. While growing up in Schaumburg Township, Myra came into contact with Francis A. Hoffman who was pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Church. Pastor Hoffman left the church in 1851 and moved to Chicago where he became an attorney. This was around the time the Bradwells also began their legal work.
Lieutenant Governor Francis A. Hoffman. Photo credit to Wikipedia
Hoffman helped to found the Republican party in Illinois and was a political supporter and friend of Abraham Lincoln. Undoubtedly, the Bradwells, the Hoffmans and the Lincolns were cohorts in the Illinois legal and political worlds.
More than twenty years later, Mary Todd Lincoln secured the assistance of the Bradwells. Myra made a trip to Batavia to meet with Mary, according to the book, Women In Law by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein. She was denied admittance and “she turned then to the press, where she began publishing articles in, for example, the Bloomington Courier and the Chicago Times about Mary Todd Lincoln’s unfair detention.”
Ms. Epstein states that Mrs. Bradwell ultimately succeeded in visiting Mrs. Lincoln and “wrote to her almost daily, and penned letters to both Robert Todd Lincoln and to the custodian of Bellevue Place.” The Bradwells were eventually denied any contact at all and, once again, “turned to the press to publicize the detention. James Bradwell also gave a newspaper interview to the Chicago Post and Mail, attesting both to the incompetence of the doctor attending Mary Lincoln and to her sanity.” It is probable his seat in the Illinois General Assembly at the time was also of benefit to the cause.
In the publication, Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum: The Civil War At Rosehill, it states, “At first unsuccessful, but unable to bear the disgrace brought to that whom she testified was merely a victim of circumstances, the intelligent, middle aged activist secured the President’s widows’ release from [the] asylum and into a dignified private care.” Women In Law further clarifies that “she [Mary Lincoln] was allowed to live with her sister in Springfield and was subsequently declared sane by the Illinois courts. After some years in France, she died in her sister’s home in 1882.”
Were it not for the early contacts between the Bradwells and the Lincolns that, quite possibly, had a portion of their roots in Schaumburg Township, it is difficult to say whether the outcome would have been as successful for Mrs. Lincoln. The Bradwells remained loyal to their friend from the 1850s and worked every possible avenue to secure her release.
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian Schaumburg Township District Library jrozek@stdl.org
When Johann Sunderlage died on April 25, 1873, he left his estate to his wife, Catherine A. (Greve) Sunderlage. The couple had married in 1838 in Addison, IL and, eventually, moved to Schaumburg Township where they built a farm and home. Today, you can find the Sunderlage House on Vista Lane in Hoffman Estates.
Following Johann’s death, Catherine secured the services of attorney R.S. Williamson of Williamson & Miller in Chicago. As part of the probate proceedings, it was necessary to publish a public notice, alerting potential creditors to the death. One of the places this notice was published was in the Chicago Legal News.
Legal notice of John (Johann) Sunderlage that appeared in the Chicago Legal News
Note the name signed on the legal notice. It is a very bold signature. Myra Bradwell. Note, too, that she is also listed as the president of the Chicago Legal News Company. This early legal publication and its president, in fact, has a Schaumburg Township connection.
Myra was born on February 12, 1831 in Manchester, Vermont to Ebenezer and Abigail (Willey) Colby. She was the youngest of six children: Abigail, Ebenezer Franklin, Lucy Philenda, Rachel Horatia and Marietta Belinda. Her given name was Almira but she was called Myra in most documents.
The family moved to western New York after the children were born and then decamped for Illinois in 1843, the year Myra turned 12. By 1845 the Colbys had purchased their Schaumburg Township land patent and were farming in Section 12, which is in the upper right portion of this 1842 map. According to their land patent, they bought the 80-acre parcel that is the left half of the lower quarter of the section.
Mr. Colby became active in local politics and immersed himself in the various posts of township supervisor, assessor and chairman. Undoubtedly, he was at the 1850 meeting when the name “Schaumburg” was given to the township. He served in the post of township supervisor from 1851 to 1855, simultaneously farming his land.
Myra lived with her parents for a time on the farm in Schaumburg Township. As stated in Illinois History & Lincoln Collections, a blog of the University of Illinois, she attended a finishing school in Kenosha, WI while living with her married sister. The name of the school is unknown.
Another book, Reminiscences of Early Chicago by Edwin Oscar Gale, states that “Myra Colby taught school in Schaumberg [sic] before it was a town. The school officer who examined her and gave her a certificate to teach was Francis A. Hoffman, then a minister of the gospel stationed in Schaumberg.”
Francis A. Hoffman served as the first pastor of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg Township from 1847 to 1851. The time frame certainly fits for Miss Colby. We also know that the church was using their 1848 building as a school for their Lutheran youth during the week. Was she, then, their teacher? Or did he certify her to teach children at a public school? Given it is such an early time in the township, these details are unknown.
Elgin Female Seminary surrounded by a fence. Carlos H. Smith, Photographer. Photo credit to Gail Borden Public Library
In 1851 or 1852, while in her early 20s, Myra made the decision to move to Elgin to attend and/or teach at the Elgin Female Seminary. According to E.C. Alft’s Elgin: An American History, the seminary “was established in the spring of 1851 by the Misses Emily and Ellen Lord.”
Shortly thereafter, she met James Bolesworth Bradwell in Elgin. According to the University of Illinois blog post, he was a law student from Palatine, Illinois. In the book, America’s First Woman Lawyer: The Biography of Myra Bradwell by Jane M. Friedman, she says, “Theirs was not an easy courtship. The entire Colby family, with the exception of Myra and her sister, Abbie, took an immediate and intense dislike to James. The reason for their animosity is not clear, but it was probably related to the fact that James was ‘the penniless son of English immigrants.”
Ms. Friedman follows this up with “Several months after their initial meeting, and pursued by Myra’s brother Frank who was armed with a shotgun, Myra and James escaped from Elgin and eloped. Their marriage took place in Chicago [on May 18, 1852].” They moved to Memphis, TN where, Encyclopedia Britannica states that “they taught and then operated their own private school.”
By 1854, after the birth of their first child, Myra, they came back to Illinois, settling in Chicago where, in 1855, James was admitted to the Illinois bar. Britannica says further, “he enjoyed considerable success, rising to the Cook County bench in 1861 and to the state legislature in 1873.” It was also during this time that, according to the University of Illinois blog, he “formed a law practice with Myra’s brother, Frank Colby.” Clearly the earlier family discord had evaporated by this time.
The couple had three more children: Thomas (1857), Elizabeth (1858) and James (1862). Only Thomas and Elizabeth lived to adulthood.
However, the law ran thick in the Colby and Bradwell families and Myra was not content to stay at home. During the years surrounding the Civil War and the birth of her children, Myra became interested in pursuing her own legal career. Per the University of Illinois blog, “under James’ guidance [Myra] began reading and studying [the law]. She firmly believed that a married couple should work as partners and share in each other’s interests and work.”
In 1868 she founded the Chicago Legal News where the legal notice for Mr. Sunderlage appeared. In this post written by James Martin, Senior Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress and taken from In Custodia Legis, a blog of the Law Librarians of Congress, he says:
The Chicago Legal News has the distinction of being the first legal publication in the United States that was edited by a woman, Myra Bradwell. In 1868, Myra submitted a prospectus for a legal newspaper for Chicago. This paper was launched in the same year and quickly became noted for its authoritative reporting on legal developments and commentary. In 1869, the State of Illinois enacted a law providing that the state’s courts could take judicial notice of the statutes of Illinois and the decisions of the state’s Supreme Court that were published in the paper.
The Law Library has a copy of the first volume of the Chicago Legal News, which was donated by Susan B. Anthony to the Library of Congress.
The year 1869 was a prominent one for Myra. Per Enyclopedia Britannica, “she helped organize Chicago’s first women’s suffrage convention, and she and her husband were active in the founding of the American Woman Suffrage Association in Cleveland.”
In addition, she studied for the Illinois bar examination and passed. In a major disappointment, her application to the Illinois Supreme Court, requesting admission to the state bar, was denied on the grounds that she was a woman.
She pushed back and eventually brought a lawsuit against the State of Illinois. The case climbed its way to the United States Supreme Court in April of 1873 where the Illinois Supreme Court decision of Bradwell vs. The State of Illinois was upheld. Ironically enough, the prior year, Bradwell, Alta Hulett and Ada Kepley “drafted a bill that would prohibit sex as a barrier to any profession. On March 22, 1872, the Illinois legislature passed this bill which became the first anti-sex-discrimination law in the United States.” [Illinois History and Lincoln Collections]
In the great Chicago Fire of 1871, the offices for the Chicago Legal News burned down–as did their home–but the paper continued publication. Per Encyclopedia Britannica, “as editor, Bradwell supported women’s suffrage, railroad regulation, improved court systems, zoning laws, and other reforms… Later she supported her husband’s successful efforts to secure legislation making women eligible to serve in school offices and as notaries public and to be equal guardians of their children.”
In doing her civic duty, she served as a representative of Illinois to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and, as a result, helped bring the World’s Columbia Exposition to Chicago in 1893.
The city of Chicago celebrated her gravitas in the legal and civic world by naming a new elementary school for her in 1890. It is still open today on South Burnham Avenue and is known as the Myra Bradwell School of Excellence.
James Bradwell. Photo credit to wikipedia.com
The year 1890 also saw the Illinois Supreme Court, on a request from her husband, take up her 1869 bar application and admit her to the Illinois State Bar, retroactive to her original application. Two years later, she was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court–the first woman to do so.
Myra died of cancer on February 14, 1894 and is buried in Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum where her husband and all four of their children are also entombed.
Photo credit to E. Smith on findagrave.com
Their daughter, Elizabeth “Bessie” (Bradwell) Helmer, followed in her parents’ footsteps and earned her law degree from Union College of Law (later Northwestern University) in 1882. She eventually took over the helm of Chicago Legal News and ran the paper until 1925 when it ceased publication. She also named her only child, Myra Bradwell Helmer.
In the 1850 United States census, the population of Schaumburg Township was 489 people. It is remarkable to consider that one of those was a young Myra Colby Bradwell, arguably one of the most brilliant female legal minds of the 1800s.
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian Schaumburg Township District Library jrozek@stdl.org
An account of Myra’s parents, Ebenezer and Abigail Colby, published in this blog, can be found here.
Next week the blog will detail the Bradwell’s work on Mary Todd Lincoln’s behalf in securing her release from a mental institution.
History of Schaumburg Township 