Kate Pier

A fourth daughter, Mary, died while a student at the German and English Academy in Fond du Lac.

[3] Mother and daughters constituted a law firm practicing first in Fond du Lac and then, in 1888, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

[2][4] In 1871 Pier began business life by assuming the charge of her mother's and her own share of a large estate left by her father.

Pier and her daughter Kate began their legal studies together in the law department of the Wisconsin State University, in 1886.

[1][3][2][4] Pier was the first woman to vote in the Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin; it happened at an election years before women's suffrage in the United States.

She was the president of the Portia Club and Dean of Psi Chapter at Madison of the Kappa Beta Pi legal sorority.

[3] On June 25, 1866, Kate Hamilton married Col Colwert Kendall Pier (died 1895), of Fond du Lac.

[2] He did four years of military service under General Grant and, after fulfilling his term of enlistment, he studied law in Albany, New York.