How an Unassuming Woman Accidentally Made History

Susanna Madora Kinsey Salter

Susanna Madora Kinsey was born March 2, 1860, in Belmont County, Ohio, to descendants of Quaker colonists from England. When Susanna was twelve, her family moved to an 80-acre Kansas farm near Silver Lake. Eight years later, while attending the Kansas State Agricultural College, she met Lewis Salter, an aspiring attorney. The couple married and moved to Argonia, Kansas. In 1883, Susanna gave birth to the first baby born in Argonia. She and Lewis eventually had a total of nine children, although one died in infancy. While caring for her young children, Susanna became active in the local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party organization. She even got the chance to meet temperance activist, Carrie Nation.

Susanna and Lewis

On April 4, 1887, Susanna was surprised to learn that she had been nominated as a candidate for mayor on the Prohibition Party ticket. Because candidates did not have to be made public before election day, she didn’t know she was a candidate until the polls opened. It turns out that several Argonia men decided to pull a prank and nominated her as a joke, hoping her loss in the election would humiliate the town’s women and discourage them from running in the future. On election day, when the Women’s Christian Temperance Union learned she was a candidate, every one of them abandoned their preferred candidate and voted for Susanna.

The prank backfired when Susanna Salter received two-thirds of the votes and was elected mayor, just weeks after Kansas women had gained the right to vote in city elections. The twenty-seven-year-old woman knew more about politics than her opponents realized. She was the daughter of the town's first mayor, and her father-in-law was Melville J. Salter, a former Kansas lieutenant governor.

Susanna’s year as mayor was uneventful, except for the precedence it set. Press from all over the country debated women in office, sparking objections to “petticoat rule” to a “wait-and-see” attitude. As compensation for her year of service, Susanna was paid one dollar. At the end of the year, she did not seek re-election.

Susanna Salter's home in Argonia, Kansas

The Salter family lived in Kansas until 1893, when Lewis raced in the Cherokee Strip land run and won a plot of land in Alva in Oklahoma Territory. Ten years later, they moved to Augusta, also in Oklahoma Territory, where Lewis practiced law and established the Headlight newspaper. After Lewis’s death in 1916, Susanna moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where her youngest child attended the University of Oklahoma. For the rest of her life, Susanna remained interested in religious and political matters, but she never sought an elected office. 

Susanna Medora Salter died in Norman, two weeks after her 101st birthday. She was buried next to her husband in Argonia. In 1933, a commemorative bronze plaque was placed in Argonia’s public square honoring her as the first woman mayor in the United States. The house she lived in during her tenure as mayor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Although her term as mayor was uneventful, Susanna made history as the first woman mayor in the United States.

Coming in May--Julia. 

The War Between the States may have ended, but prejudice is still strong among the families journeying together on a wagon

train headed down the Santa Fe Trail.

Julia Scott is traveling to New Mexico with her father and younger brother. Her pa fought for the North in the war where her two older brothers lost their lives. Pa is looking for a fresh start in a new place, but Julia just wants him to be happy again.

Taylor Marshall, a Southerner who fought for the Confederates, is on his way to Colorado to raise horses. He’s attracted to Julia, but her father adamantly forbids them to talk to one another.

Circumstances continually throw Julia and Taylor together, and their attraction grows. Will a forbidden romance bloom? Or will they go their separate ways when the trail splits?

Pre-order now: https://www.amazon.com/Julia-Prairies-Collection-Vickie-McDonough-ebook/dp/B07NYTVY2M

Vickie McDonough is the best-selling author of 50 books and novellas. Vickie grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead, she married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie’s books have won numerous awards including the Booksellers Best and the Inspirational Choice awards. When she’s not writing, Vickie enjoys reading, doing stained-glass projects, gardening watching movies, and traveling. To learn more about Vickie’s books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit her website: www.vickiemcdonough.com

HHH Book Day

Avice Touchet has always dreamed of marrying for love and that love would be her best friend, Philip Greslet. She’s waited five years for him to see her as the woman she’s become but when a visiting lord arrives with secrets that could put her father in prison, Avice must consider a sacrificial marriage.

Philip Greslet has worked his whole life for one thing—to be a castellan—and now it is finally in his grasp. But when Avice rebuffs his new lord’s attentions, Philip must convince his best friend to marry the lord against his heart’s inclination to have her as his own.

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The War Between the States may have ended, but prejudice is still strong among the families journeying together on a wagon train headed down the Santa Fe Trail.

Julia Scott is traveling to New Mexico with her father and younger brother. Her pa fought for the North in the war where her two older brothers lost their lives. Pa is looking for a fresh start in a new place, but Julia just wants him to be happy again.
Taylor Marshall, a Southerner who fought for the Confederates, is on his way to Colorado to raise horses. He’s attracted to Julia, but her father adamantly forbids them to talk to one another.

Circumstances continually throw Julia and Taylor together, and their attraction grows. Will a forbidden romance bloom? Or will they go their separate ways when the trail splits?

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A feisty army laundress takes up her father’s calling when a proud artillery captain finds his heart and hope shattered. 

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In a desperate bid to redeem her reputation and independence, abandoned-bride Betsy Parker returns home to face her toughest critics—the people she grew up with, a rugged lawman who threatens to steal her heart, and the one person unwilling to forgive her.

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A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.
Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future? Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother. Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?

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Six generations build a legacy of faith on the Oklahoma prairie

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Adella Rose Ellis knows her father has plans for her future, but she longs for the freedom to forge her own destiny. When the son of Luther Ellis's longtime friend arrives on the plantation to work as the new overseer, Adella can't help but fall for his charm and captivating hazel eyes. But a surprise betrothal to an older man, followed by a devastating revelation, forces Adella to choose the path that will either save her family's future or endanger the lives of the people most dear to her heart. 

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War Forces a Choice Between Love and Country A trip home from England to Maryland in 1812 finds Emeline Baratt a captive on a British warship and forced to declare her allegiance between the British and Americans. Remaining somewhat politically neutral on a ship where her nursing skills are desperately needed is fairly easy—until she starts to have feelings for the first lieutenant who becomes her protector. However, when the captain sends her and Lieutenant Owen Masters on land to spy, she must choose between her love for him and her love for her country.

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It is 1777. A grieving woman with patriotic loyalties, a wounded British soldier who has given up on the war, and a life-threatening injury that draws them together. Secrets and schemes threaten them all. Is awakening love worth the cost? Road to Deer Run, is the first book in the Deer Run Saga. 

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Dr. Sadie Hoppner is no stranger to adversity. She’s fought to be taken seriously since childhood, when her father began training her in the healing arts. Finding acceptance and respect proves especially difficult at Fort Lyon, where she’s come to practice medicine under her brother’s watchful eye.

Cheyenne brave Five Kills wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize the peace treaty recently negotiated between his people and the Army. But a chance encounter with the female doctor ignites memories of his upbringing among the whites. Too intrigued to stay away, tension erupts with the soldiers, and Five Kills is injured.

As he recuperates under the tender care of the pretty healer, an unlikely bond forms. However, their fledgling love is put to the test when each realizes that a much greater danger awaits—a danger they are wholly unable to stop, and one which neither may survive.

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When Abby’s friend, Ellie’s pearl earrings and necklace come up missing, Abby and Ben find themselves off on another sleuthing escapade with Harry, their retired detective friend. This time the whole population of Springhill Terrace is under suspicion, including all the employees. When the police arrest Maria, one of the assistants in the assisted living wing, Ben and Abby jump to her defense, positive she isn’t the thief. After proving her innocence, they set several traps to catch the thief, but each one fails. After Abby remembers another incident involving nursing home thefts, she comes up with a theory that leads the trio to a most unlikely and surprising answer.

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Refiner's Fire, Book 6 of the acclaimed American Patriot Series, releases June 2019!

While the Continental Army endures a desperate winter at Valley Forge, French Admiral le comte de Caledonne secretly sweeps Elizabeth away to France out of reach of British assassins. Meanwhile General Jonathan Carleton, the Shawnee war chief White Eagle, returns to his people as General George Washington’s emissary, doubting that he will ever return to the white world. But as the war between America and Britain shifts into the fragile republic’s heartland at Monmouth Court House, sinister schemes draw Jonathan and Elizabeth into their own separate maelstroms. Will the Refiner’s Fire tear them from each other’s arms forever?

From the flames of war exploding across land and sea to the dangerous intrigues of the French court and the Shawnee’s bitter resistance to the Long Knives, Refiner’s Fire continues the breathtaking saga of America’s founding in a gripping story of heartbreak, redemption, and the unyielding constancy of love.

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A Prostitute Seeks Her Revenge--In 1942, Miyako Matsuura cradled her little brother as he died on the sidewalk, a victim of the first U.S. bombing raid on Japan. By 1948, the war has reduced her to a street-hardened prostitute consumed by her shame.
A WWII Hero Finds His True Mission--Dave Delham makes military aviation history piloting a B-25 in the audacious Doolittle Raid. Forced to bail out over occupied China, he and his crew are captured by the Japanese and survive a harrowing P.O.W. ordeal. In 1948, he returns to Japan as a Christian missionary, determined to showcase Christ's forgiveness.
Convinced that Delham was responsible for the bomb that snuffed out her brother's life, Miyako resolves to restore her honor by avenging him--even if it costs her own life. But the huntress soon becomes hunted in Osaka's treacherous underworld. Miyako must outmaneuver a ruthless brothel owner, outwit gangs with competing plans to profit by her, and overcome betrayal by family and friends--only to confront a decision that will change everything.

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Sophie Biddle is an heiress on the run with a child in tow. Wary and self-reliant, Sophie is caught off guard when meeting a kind, but meddling and handsome minister at the local mercantile. Believing he has failed God and his former flock, the Reverend Ian McCormick is determined to start anew in Stone Creek, Michigan. While Sophie seeks acceptance for her child and a measure of respect for herself, the rumors swirl about her sordid past. Should Ian show concern for Sophie's plight? If he does, he'll risk losing everything — including his new position as pastor of Stone Creek. Will the scandals of their pasts bind them together, or drive both deeper into a spiral of shame?

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Pressing On: Perseverance, Separatists and Canals

Have you seen books or articles about asking God to help you find the perfect word for the new year? This past year my words found me through the research and Bible verses I used for the theme of my latest historical novella, Pressing On, published by Barbour Publishing in The Erie Canal Brides Collection.

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:14 (KJV)
"But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance." Romans 8:25 (NKJV) 

People of the early nineteenth century certainly had to “press on” and persevere!

A couple of years ago I read an interesting article in a secular magazine about building the canal system in the American Midwest, so I suggested a book about romance along the canals to Rebecca Germany of Barbour. She liked the idea and asked me to get together with my agent, Tamela Hancock Murray, to form a group of writers to set seven stories along the Erie Canal and parts of Ohio. She also mentioned she would love one of the stories to be set near Zoar, Ohio, where the Separatists settled. So I decided to anchor my story there.

At the wash house in Zoar, where my heroine Amanda spent lots of time!

If you went to school in the 1950s and 1960s like I did, you may remember the song lyrics “I’ve got a mule, and her name is Sal…Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.” This was what most canal boat captains could cover in a day on the water. Canals were built in many locations across the United States as a cheaper, faster means of moving goods from one place to another. The Erie Canal was built near Lake Erie in the state of New York. The building of this canal “from Albany to Buffalo” began in 1817 and finished in 1825, which was very fast considering it covered 363 miles and took literally tons of back-breaking labor, much of it by hand.

Today I want to tell you about a group of people I had never heard of before starting my research for this collection. The German Separatists who settled in Zoar, Ohio, fled the kingdom of Württemberg in southwestern Germany due to religious persecution. Their core beliefs included dedication to a life of moderation and fervent expectation of our Lord’s soon return. They disagreed with the state church over issues such as sacraments and holidays, and they faced imprisonment and the seizure of their property for refusing military service.

The Quakers in America heard about their plight and offered to pay their ship passage from the Old World to the New, and even loaned them money to buy the land in Ohio. They named their new settlement after the Biblical city of Zoar, where Lot landed after he fled Sodom.

When the Separatists came over from Germany, their leaders proposed having everything in common, and the people agreed. In some ways they remind me of the Shakers.

In order to pay off their loan from the Quakers, the Zoar Seperatists contracted to build the canal through their land. They went through a period of years while the canals were being built where the men and women lived in separate housing and were forbidden to marry so the women could labor alongside the men to speed the process. Some of the women developed bald patches on their heads from carrying dirt in heavy baskets.

When they were again allowed to marry within the group, they still had everything in common and still were controlled by the trustees. For their work, they were given food and shelter, although many had to share homes.

The group formed in 1819 and disbanded in 1898 so the movement lasted less than eighty years. The original Separatists emphasized kindness and giving, but they also had strict rules and had to follow the trustees. As they went through the Civil War and as the town built a hotel, people saw how others lived with more freedom and in charge of their own money. The younger people voted to sell the property and divide up the money and land.

An 1829 hotel and tavern built by the Society of Separatists to serve canal travelers

My husband and I traveled to Zoar last year so I could see it for myself and do more research. Descendants of the Separatists still live in Zoar, and we met several of them on our trip. Like their predecessors, they struck me as kind and giving people.

On a side note, a few years ago, a friend asked me to go to Amish country in Ohio with her, and we rode on a canal boat pulled by a horse. We think this was near Coshocton, Ohio. I remember it as a ride that was peaceful and quiet, similar to Zoar. There is also the village of Roscoe nearby, off Highway 83, which is also quaint and quiet.


Pressing On, by Rose McCauley 


As a child, Amanda Mack loved her life in Zoar, Ohio, where she was born to Separatists who had helped build the canal. Now an adult (1857), she starts to chafe at its many restrictions. After meeting riverboat captain Daniel Jeremiah, they both must make decisions about their futures. Would she give up the way of life she grew up loving?


Pressing On is included in:

The Erie Canal Brides Collection

Seven romance stories take you back to the building of the Erie Canal and the opening of the Midwest to greater development.


Completed in 1825, the Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Hudson River, and soon other states like Ohio created canals linking Lake Erie to the Ohio River. Suddenly the Midwest was open to migration, the harvesting of resources, and even tourism. Join seven couples who live through the rise of the canals and the problems the waterways brought to each community, including land grabs, disease, tourists, racism, and competition. Can these couples hang on to their faith and develop love during times of intense change?

Rose Allen McCauley has been writing since she retired from teaching school and joined American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). She is thrilled for this to be her third collection with Barbour and her seventh published work. She and her spouse just celebrated their golden anniversary with their three children and spouses and now six grandchildren! She loves to hear from her readers. Please connect with Rose at:
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