ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Va. — Seraph Young Ford was the first American woman to vote under the women’s equal suffrage law that made voting rights for men and women equal.
She voted in the February 14, 1870 municipal election in Salt Lake City making her the first woman to cast a vote in the Utah Territory and the nation.
Ford was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery -- not because of her vote -- but because her husband, Seth Ford, was a Civil War veteran.
As was customary at the time, her name was placed on the back of her husband’s gravestone.
However, her name was misspelled as “Serath.”
Better Days 2020, a nonprofit that promotes Utah’s suffrage history, contacted the White House about getting the name spelled correctly.
The White House agreed to help and the event was planned for March but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tuesday morning, Governor Gary Herbert, Senator Deidre Henderson and several other dignitaries and descendants of Seraph Young Ford were at the cemetery to dedicate the new headstone with the corrected spelling of her name and for a wreath laying.
