"Mr. William A. Whitehead, of Newark, in a paper upon this subject, read by him in 1858 before the New-Jersey Historical Society, states that, in this same year (1797), women voted, at an election in Elizabethtown, for members of the Legislature. 'The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry existed were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what were known, a year or two later, as the "Federal Republican" and "Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and the northern portions of the county, the latter that of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders thought, that, by a bold _coup d'état_, they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of females were brought up, and, under the provisions of the existing laws, allowed to vote. But the manoeuvre was unsuccessful; the majority for Mr. Condit in the county being ninety-three, notwithstanding.' "The 'Newark Sentinel,' about the same time, states that 'no less than seventy-five women were polled at the late election in a neighboring borough.' In the presidential election of 1800, between Adams and Jefferson, 'females voted very generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the case until the passage of the act (1807) excluding them from the polls. At first, the law had been so construed as to admit single women only: but, as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege became broader, and was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single, and even _women of color_; at a contested election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the votes of two or three such actually electing a member of the Legislature. "That women voted at a very early period, we are informed by the venerable Mr. Cyrus Jones, of East Orange, who was born in 1770, and is now ninety-seven years old. He says that 'old maids, widows, and unmarried women very frequently voted, but married women very seldom;' that 'the right was recognized, and very little said or thought about it in any way.' "In the spring of 1807, a special election was held in Essex County, to decide upon the location of a court-house and jail; Newark and its vicinity struggling to retain the county buildings, Elizabethtown and its neighborhood striving to remove them to 'Day's Hill.'