Judith Ellen Foster

Judith Ellen Horton Foster (November 3, 1840 – August 11, 1910) was an American lecturer, temperance worker, suffragist, and lawyer. She is thought to be the first woman in Iowa who was actually engaged in practice and the fourth woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Iowa. In her time she was known as "The Iowa Lawyer".

Early life Judith Ellen Horton was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1840. Her father was Rev. Jotham Horton (1798–1853), a Methodist preacher and abolitionist, and her mother was Judith Delano (1799–1847). Judith Delano descended from the De Lannoy family; the Fortune ship which replaced another ship, the Speedwell, arrived from England and sailed to Plymouth Colony in early July 1621, arriving on November 9, 1621, with Philippe De Lannoy among its passengers.

A radical abolitionist in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Jotham Horton withdrew and entered the antislavery Wesleyan Church. His eldest son, Jotham W. Horton, was killed by a mob on August 5, 1866, after the New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866. At the time, he was pastor of the Coloseum Place Church.

Judith Horton was educated in public school and then at the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, Lima, New York.

For many years Foster was the president of the Women's Republican Association and an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Young Women's Christian Association. The marriage with Avery ended in divorce.

While in Chicago doing mission work, Horton met Elijah Caleb Foster (1844–1906), a lawyer.

In 1880, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where E. C. Foster was appointed to the Department of the Treasury.