01/12/2020
January 9th
ON THIS DAY in North Carolina history…
1878:
She is born in June of 1854 in Guilford County, the daughter of a Methodist minister. Tabitha Anne Holton's early life is hidden from history, but she was well educated and spoke four languages fluently.
She had three brothers, all of whom were attorneys. She evidently befriended, through her brothers, many members of the Greensboro Bar who lent her books on the law and tutored her themselves, as she had "no regular preceptor." ("Preceptor" is a 19th-century word for teacher or instructor.) She learns enough to tutor her brothers for the bar, and then, in January of 1878, she travels with her brother Samuel to Raleigh to take the Bar exam for herself at the State Supreme Court. It is a first, no woman in North Carolina history has ever taken the exam, and the outcry is immediate.
The first consideration is the question of whether the Supreme Court even has the power to admit a woman. She is ordered to appear on January 9th, with an attorney, to present her case. The opposition is led by former state Supreme Court Justice and UNC professor William H. Battle. Battle made the argument that a southern lady should not be "permitted to sully her sweetness by breathing the pestiferous air of the courtroom."
However, Albion W. Tourgée appeared as counsel on her behalf. Tourgée is a long-time opponent of Battle's, and he relishes this chance to argue with Battle on the state's most significant jurisprudence stage. His long argument (which was reported at length in the Raleigh Observer of January 10th) proves convincing, despite the stiff resistance. The Court takes only a 10 minutes recess before allowing Tabitha to take the State Bar Exam.
She is escorted from the National Hotel by her brother Samuel, who had taken the bar examination at the regularly scheduled time the preceding day. Though the questioning was done in private, it was reported that Tabitha Anne Holton passed without missing a single question. Her license is dated January 8th, the day on which the men had taken the examination.
And so it is ON THIS DAY, Tabitha Anne Holton becomes North Carolina's first female licensed, practicing attorney at law.
~Kevin E. Spencer, Author, North Carolina Expatriates
Pictured:
- Tabitha Anne Holton
