Introduction
Jane Hilton (1829—April 26, 1883) was an American activist. A suffragist, she was one of the first women to serve on a jury with five other women—Eliza Stewart Boyd, Amelia Hatcher Heath, Mary Jane Mackle, Sarah Pease, and Annie Monehan.
Biography
Jane Hilton was born in 1829 in New York. She was married to physician George F. Hilton and had a daughter, Nellie Hilton. In 1868, the family moved to Laramie, Wyoming, where George was also a minister and organized the Methodist church in Laramie. He also ran a drug store in town through 1873.
In March 1870, Hilton was called by Sheriff N. K. Boswell to serve on the grand jury to be convened later that month. It was the first formal jury in the world to seat women. Other five women whose names were drawn from the voters' roll were Eliza Stewart Boyd, Amelia Hatcher Heath, Mary Jane Mackle, Ida Agnes Baker, and Annie Monehan. Baker asked to be excused and was replaced by Sarah Pease.
The women on the jury were selected less than six months after Wyoming's first territorial legislature granted women equal political rights.
Hilton served again on a grand jury in Laramie, Wyoming, in February 1871.
By 1880, the family moved to San Francisco, California, where she died in 1883.
Death
Hilton died in San Francisco, California, on April 26, 1883, at age 54.
Her obituary in Laramie Boomerang newspaper on May 24, 1883, was published under the "news from elsewhere" section. Laramie Sentinel noted that she died in San Francisco, California.