This is a transcription of the Miss Ella L. Knowles biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 115.
Ella Louise Knowles
MISS ELLA LOUISE KNOWLES, the noted lawyer of Montana, was born at Northwood in 1860. Her parents were David and Louisa (Bigelow) Knowles. Her father is still living at the old homestead on land occupied by the family for one hundred and twenty years. Miss Knowles was educated at the district school and by her mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman, who died when her daughter was fourteen. At fifteen she graduated from Northwood Seminary, and at sixteen from the N. H. State Normal School. She fitted for college while teaching country schools, and in 1884 was graduated from Bates college with high honors. She paid for her entire education by teaching and other work. In 1884 she began reading law with Burnham & Brown of Manchester, but her health being poor she was advised to go West. In the territorial legislature of 1888—’89 she introduced a bill to permit women to practice law in Montana, which was passed after strong opposition. On Dec. 28, 1889, she was admitted to practice before the supreme court of Montana. In April, 1890, she was admitted to practice before the U. S. District and Circuit Courts. June 15, 1892, she was nominated for attorney-general of Montana by the Populist party. She made a strong canvass, but was defeated by the Republican candidate, Hon. H. J. Haskell, who in February, 1893, appointed her assistant attorney-general. She appears in most of the state cases, but continues her extensive private practice. She has been employed in mining cases where millions of dollars were involved, and in October, 1893, she appeared before the Department of the Interior at Washington as state attorney in a case involving Montana school lands valued at over $200,000 which she won. She has a large and lucrative civil and criminal practice. She is the only woman lawyer in Montana, but by her ability and dignity of character she has won an enviable position, not only in the state, but the country.