Mary Ann Walker Claflin – Notable Door County Female Founder

Karin Kopischke, Patti Podgers and Paul Burton researched and depicted notable Door County women in history in Garments of our Foundation. Read about Mary Ann Walker Claflin’s story below.

Read more about Garments of Our Foundation here.

Mary Ann Walker Claflin

1801-1873, Gibraltar

Mary Ann Walker Claflin was the first white woman in Door County. She came with Increase Claflin, her second husband. Mary Ann’s mother had her out of wedlock, so she was raised by her aunt and sold into marriage at 14.

Increase was a fur trapper, so the couple moved farther and farther into the wilderness so he could trade pelts. He is credited as the first pioneer to settle in the county, and her son is credited as the first child born here.

Kopischke and Podgers found little information on Mary Ann.

“When I wrote her story, I was writing the story of every woman between 1801 to 1873,” Podgers said. “She was not only Mary Ann Walker Claflin, she was every pioneer woman who followed her man across the United States, across the frontier.”

“What could I possibly have known of men and marriage when I was only 14 years of age? I married the man who was selected for me. It was not mean-spirited, to be matched, it was just the way things were done.”

Portrait by Kopischke. Narrative by Podgers.