Day 40: Margaret Queen Adams

The first female deputy sheriff in the United States was from Mason County.

According to local historian Ron Bailey, Margaret Queen Adams was born in Dover on July 26, 1873 to Oliver and Anna Murray Phillips.

Bailey said the Phillips family moved to Los Angeles, Calif. when Adams was only nine years old. Her father was a prominent attorney there.

In 1899, she married Elmer Adams, but they separated in 1912.

“The Dover native, with two children, needed a job to support her and her two children,” Bailey said. “Her brother-in-law, Sheriff William Hammel, who was the sheriff of Los Angeles County twice, and chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, offered her a job.”

Bailey said Adams accepted the job on the condition that she would be deputized. This made her the first female deputy sheriff in the United States.

Adams was sworn into office on Feb. 16, 1912.

“In an ironic twist, she often stated that she could “enforce the law before she could vote on the law,” Bailey said.

Bailey said Adams served in the position for 35 years. She coordinated evidence processed through the courthouse.

“She was efficient in her job as Deputy Sheriff. When she retired in 1947, the LASD hired three deputies to replace her,” Bailey said.

According to Bailey, Adams granddaughter, Margaret I. McDonald, carried on the family’s “pioneering” ways by being the first woman to work on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange in November 1963.

Adams died in Costa Mesa, Calif. on Jan. 7, 1974. She was six months short of her 100th birthday.

She was laid to rest next to her daughter in Inglewood Park Cemetery. She was buried with her Los Angeles County Sheriff’s badge.