Lydia Taft

In 1756, Lydia Taft, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, cast the first known vote by a woman in colonial America. As a widow of Josiah Taft and inheritor of his estate, Uxbridge Town Meeting members encouraged Taft to vote at a town meeting and she agreed, casting the deciding ballot to help fund Massachusetts regiments in the French and Indian War. Most Massachusetts women would have to wait another 160+ years to legally vote in the state.