Lyda Conley

Eliza Burton “Lyda” Conley (c. 1869 – May 28, 1946) was a Wyandot lawyer in Kansas City, Kansas and the first woman admitted to the Kansas bar. In 1909–10 she became the first Native American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, appearing in propria persona in Conley v. Ballinger to stop the sale of the Huron Cemetery (the Wyandot National Burying Ground). She lost the case; she and her sisters Helena and Ida then held the ground physically until Congress repealed the sale authority and, in 1916, Kansas Senator Charles Curtis secured legislation designating the cemetery a federal park. She is buried in the cemetery she defended.¹²

Overview

Born	c. 1869 (sources give a range; Wikipedia uses c. 1869)1
Died	May 28, 1946, Kansas City, Kansas; buried huron-cemetery1
Education	Kansas City School of Law, graduated 1902 (today UMKC School of Law)1
Bar	First woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association1
Case	Conley v. Ballinger, 216 U.S. 84 (1910) — argued in propria persona1
Home in later years	1816 North Third Street, Kansas City, Kansas1

Early life

Conley was the youngest of four daughters of Elizabeth Burton Zane (1838–1879), a multiracial Wyandot, and Andrew Syrenus Conley (c. 1830–1885), a New Canaan, Connecticut–born Yankee of Scots-Irish and English descent. The family farmed 64 acres in present-day Wyandotte County that Elizabeth had received in 1855, at age 17, when Wyandot land was allotted in severalty. The farm later collapsed into the Missouri River; the grown sisters moved into Kansas City and shared a house for the rest of their lives. None married.¹

Elizabeth Zane was a granddaughter of Isaac Zane, captured as a child in Virginia, adopted by the Wyandot, and married to White Crane, daughter of Chief Tarhe. The family came west with the 1843 Wyandot removal from Ohio. Sisters: Sarah “Sallie” (1863–1880), Ida (1865–1948), and Helena “Lena” (1867–1958), a Park College graduate. Lyda graduated from Kansas City School of Law in 1902.¹

The cemetery fight

In 1906 the federally recognized Wyandotte Nation (then in Indian Territory, later Oklahoma) approved sale of the downtown KCK burying ground, and Congress authorized the Secretary of the Interior to convey it. Kansas Wyandot descendants who had taken U.S. citizenship and allotments in 1855 had no legal control of the communal cemetery. Developers wanted the block; a Carnegie library and the Brund Hotel already sat on two corners.¹

The Conley sisters occupied the ground in a 6-by-8-foot shack later remembered as Fort Conley, posted “No trespassing” signs, and took turns standing guard. Lyda told the Kansas City Times (October 25, 1906) that a hundred of their ancestors were buried there and that they had “the right a man has to shoot a burglar who enters his home.”¹

In 1907 she petitioned the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Kansas for an injunction. The court ruled against the sisters. On appeal she argued before the Supreme Court; because she had not been admitted to the Supreme Court bar she appeared in propria persona. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. affirmed the lower courts. Wikipedia, following Kim Dayton’s Yale Journal of Law and Feminism article, treats the case as the first in which a plaintiff argued that Native American burying grounds were entitled to federal protection.¹²

Congress repealed the sale authorization in 1913. In 1916 Senator Charles Curtis (Kaw / Osage / Prairie Potawatomi) passed a bill precluding sale and making the land a federal park. A 1918 federal contract later assigned Kansas City perpetual maintenance, lighting, and police protection.¹

Later life and death

Conley remained a self-appointed guardian of the grounds. In June 1937 she was convicted of disturbing the peace after chasing people from the cemetery and chose a 10-day jail sentence over a $10 fine. She died May 28, 1946, and was buried three days later in the cemetery. A friend, Wilma Kollman, later said Conley had been struck on the head and robbed of about twenty cents the evening before she died; that account is secondhand and is flagged here rather than treated as established fact.¹

The cemetery was listed on the National Register in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in December 2016. In 1998 the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma agreed to keep the ground for religious, cultural, and related purposes.¹

Sources

See also

• huron-cemetery
• wyandot-nation
• kansas-city-kansas
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Lyda Conley.” — asserts: Eliza Burton “Lyda” Conley, c. 1869–May 28 1946, KCK; first woman admitted to the Kansas bar; Kansas City School of Law 1902; first Native American woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court (Conley v. Ballinger, 216 U.S. 84); family and Zane/Tarhe lineage; 64-acre allotment farm later lost to the river; sisters Helena, Ida, Sarah; 1906 sale authorization; Fort Conley occupation; 1906 Kansas City Times quotation; Holmes opinion; 1913 repeal; 1916 Curtis park bill; 1918 city maintenance contract; 1816 N. 3rd St.; 1937 jail sentence; 1946 burial in Huron Cemetery; 1971 NRHP; 1998 inter-nation agreement; 2016 NHL. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

2. Kim Dayton, “‘Trespassers, Beware!’: Lyda Burton Conley and the Battle for Huron Place Cemetery,” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 8 (1996): 1–30 — scholarly account of the litigation and the claim that the case is the first arguing federal protection for Native burying grounds. ↩ ↩²