Historical Marker · No. 969
Homesite of Sarah Wallis
Palo Alto, Santa Clara County · California
Erected by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Women's Heritage Museum of Palo Alto and the City of Palo Alto, 1986
Sarah Wallis was wealthy in her own right, yet once she married Joseph Wallis in 1854 the law of married women's property put her holdings in his name, a law she lobbied to change. She acquired these 250 acres in 1856 in settlement of a debt Elisha Oscar Crosby owed her, and the depression of the mid-1870s forced their sale. The house, later known as the Barron mansion, burned in 1936; Sarah Wallis Park marks her second home in Mayfield. A 2009 inquiry could find no newspaper account or other record of the Grant visit the bronze names.
What the plaque says
Homesite of Sarah Wallis Mayfield Farm Sarah Armstrong Wallis (1825-1905) was a pioneer in the campaign for women's voting rights. In 1870 she was elected president of California's first statewide suffrage organization which in 1873 incorporated as the California State Woman Suffrage Education Association. The home she built on this site, Mayfield Farm was a center of suffrage activities attracting state and national leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ulysses S. Grant. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 969 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Women's Heritage Museum of Palo Alto and the City of Palo Alto, October 11, 1986.
Where it stands
37.41640, -122.13030 · Directions