"Caroline Hall and her Predecessors" (1901)

Transcription:

Miss Caroline Hall, whose masquer-ade as a man was ended by death on an Atlantic steamer, as stated in our tele-graphic news Tuesday, spent her time smoking and playing cards, while her "wife" chatted with the ladies. The fact that her death was due in part to alcoholism hints that these ruder mascu-line ways were not new to her.

This was not singular. Miss Hall's female predecessors in man's garb have often distinguished themselves as sol-diers, duellists* and in other ways indi-cating a bold spirit. the late Murray Hall of this city, who wore men's garb many tears, was versed in the ways of the ward politician and like her later namesake was "married." Several women served as soldiers in the civil war--one, Mrs William Lindley, fight-ing by her husband's side. That this is not a freak of the "new woman" mere-ly is shown by the valor of Deborah Sampson, who fought as was wounded in the Continental uniform in the Revo-lution. Mary Anne Taylor at about the same period was for 26 years a drum-mer boy, cabin boy on a privateer and finally a sailor fighting bravely at sea. Dr. James Barry, though a woman, was a cool duellist and rose to be British surgeon-general. The Count (Countess) Sandor (Sarolta) Vay of Austria, was also a duellist in recent days and disso-lute to the point of irresponsibility.

"Jack" Jorgensen, an Australian woman after a wild life as a bushranger, served on the Mounted Rifles. Another Aus-tralian celebrity, De Lacy Evans, work-ed for years as a man in the mines and was three times married. The remark-able career of Ellis Glenn, arrested for yielding to a confused sense of owner-ship of property while in boy's clothes, is well remembered. The element of pathos, lacking in most of these cases, appears strongly in that of Mrs Julia Forrest, who, shrinking and feminine at heart, donned the clothes of her crippled husband to do the roughest work in a Pennsylvania coal mine.

*This is the correct spelling for the era. Presently, we spell this word as "duelists".

This newspaper clipping is courtesy of the Digital Transgender Archive. All rights belong to the original author. No copyright infringement is intended. The Trans Guy Archive shares this resource on our website for the purposes of education, research, and historical empowerment.

Language: English

Resource type: Newspaper clipping, article

Original Publisher: The Semi-Weekly Windham County Reformer (Battleboro, Vermont. Also possible New York City.)

Format: Image

Date published: October 8th, 1901

Uploaded to TGA: June 20th, 2026

Last updated: June 20th, 2026