This Day in Olympia History: Woman's Club Founder Abbie Howard Hunt Stuart Was Born Oct. 28, 1840

Abbie Howard Hunt Stuart, who helped found what is generally credited as the first woman's club in Washington, was born 186 years ago today, on Oct. 28, 1840, in Boston.

Stuart settled in Olympia in 1873, when she married Robert Giffin Stuart, a federal land office official. On March 10, 1883, she and five other women, including Emily Olney French and Mary Olney Brown, founded the Woman's Club of Olympia "for study and mutual improvement of its members," according to HistoryLink. She served as its first president.

Stuart supported women's suffrage, but with the encouragement of her friend Abigail Scott Duniway, she kept the club away from politics, according to the Olympia Historical Society. Members discussed literary and other noncontroversial topics. Stuart told Duniway privately she hoped the club would draw "women who oppose the Suffrage Movement (or think they do)" and help them "divest themselves of their prejudices."

The club first met in members' homes and then in the Stuart Block, the building she and her husband owned at what is now Capitol and Legion. Stuart wore her hair short and went by her own first name rather than her husband's, the historical society says.

Stuart died in January 1902 while on a trip to California. The club's current home at 1002 Washington St. SE, finished in 1908, is named in her honor and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.