A driver from Vermont, 1817
Gender has complexities beyond the physical definition. This was as true in early 19th-century America as it is now. As, for example, in the case of Eliza Bennet.
Bennet was a driver in 1817 New York, plying a trade between Lansingburgh (now a part of Troy), New York, and Albany. Arrested for stealing from another driver, Bennet was found by the court to be a woman living as a man.
It is, of course, impossible from a paragraph to know if Bennet identified as female or male. The letter to Bennet’s mother appears to have been read as informing the mother that Bennet is wearing male clothing, but it could simply have been introduced because the Vermont address shows how far from home the prisoner has traveled and that Bennet has no plans to stay in New York.
A number of women living as men in early 19th-century America did so because economic opportunities for men were better than those for women. The letter implies that this may have been Bennet’s reason. Other women found it was a safer way to travel; Bennet may have found it so.
I haven’t been able to find more information about Eliza Bennet. I hope things went well, even after a trial for larceny.
“A Fair Thief.” The Albany Argus [Albany, New York] 22 August 1817; p. 3.
A person was brought before the police yesterday, on a charge of larceny, whose case has excited considerable interest. The prisoner has been for some time a hack driver between this city and Lansingburgh. A brother hack man, lodging in the room with the prisoner, missed a small sum of money, and, as no one else slept in the room, he charged the theft upon his room mate, and arraigned the supposed culprit before the police. On examining the prisoner for the stolen money, the reader may conceive the astonishment of the court, when they discovered the prisoner to be a female in the habilaments of a man! From a letter found upon her, addressed to her mother in Vermont, it appears that she has travelled 1200 miles in this disguise, and proposed soon to return to the paternal roof with the fruits of her industry. Her name is Eliza Bennet; and, we lament to add, that the proofs were so strong against her as to justify her commitment for trial.
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