Marilla M. Ricker

Marilla Marks Ricker (née Young; March 18, 1840 – November 12, 1920) was an American suffragist, philanthropist, lawyer, and freethinker. She was the first female lawyer from New Hampshire, United States, and she paved the way for women to be accepted into the bar in New Hampshire. She was also the first woman to run for governor in that state, and the first woman to apply for a federal foreign ambassadorship post. She made significant and lasting contributions to the issues of women's rights and irreligion through her actions and her writings.

Early life

Marilla Marks Young was born on March 18, 1840, in New Durham, New Hampshire. Her mother, Hannah D. (Stevens) Young, was a devoted Free Will Baptist, and her father, Jonathan Young, was a freethinker. Jonathan taught her to think independently and to be curious, taking her to town meetings and courtrooms. She was educated at Colby Academy in New London, New Hampshire.

During Sundays in the summer, Marilla would accompany her father to the family farm to perform practical activities. This demonstrated an explicit rejection of the values of her mother's church concerning the Sabbath. At the age of ten, she later wrote, Marilla attended a "fiery" Baptist sermon about hell, after which she averred she would never attend such a church again: "Do you wonder that I, a child of ten years, said to my father, who was a freethinker, infidel, atheist, or whatever else you please to call him: 'I hate my mother's church. I will not go there again.'"

During the Civil War, Marilla offered her services as a nurse for the Union Army, but she was turned down due to her lack of medical training. Her only brother's death during the fighting, she later recalled, was her "first real sorrow". Indeed, "it did more towards checking her exuberant spirit than all else, in fact she says the world has always seemed a little different ever since." As she could not tend to the wounded soldiers, Ricker devoted as much time and money as she could to sending clothes and other goods to aid the war effort.