Margaret Wood, a sailor, 1832
To a landlubber, it is just amazing how many “female sailors” appear in 19th-century newspapers. Elsewhere, too: a play titled “The Female Sailor” was performed in antebellum America, and the trope of the deserted woman shows up in songs and stories so often that it may have given sailors arrested for wearing “unsuitable” clothing an explanation for their actions that observers found reasonable. Some such took the job in order to travel across the ocean; some may have begun that way, but found that that life was more natural to them than the life they would have lived as a woman.
Margaret Wood appears to have been one of the latter. An immigrant from Scotland, Wood found no job in New York, but was successful as a cabin boy on one ship and as a sailor on another. (One wonders how bad conditions on the Plato were, given that the captain resorted to taking hostage the sailors’ belongings, so they wouldn’t desert.) Life as a female servant didn’t appeal to Wood, who apparently was back in men’s clothing once the ship was in New York.
Did Wood identify as a woman or as a man? The female clothing in Wood’s trunk hints at “woman.” But Wood’s reluctance to wear that clothing in public seems to hint otherwise. The two stories about Wood follow some of the traditional patterns of these stories as reported in 19th-century American newspapers: a description of the individual—usually emphasizing attractiveness—and the attempts by authorities to force that individual into clothing that would uphold the status quo.
On Friday last. Georgian [Savannah, Georgia] 4 June 1832; p. 2.
On Friday last a Scotch lass, of favorable appearance, 16 or 18 years of age, was discovered on board of the ship Emperor, working with, and in the same garb, as the sailors. Her story has excited considerable attention, and we have learnt it thus: Being unable to obtain employment in New York, where she landed from Scotland, she procured a seaman’s dress, and shipped on board of the ship Plato as Cabin Boy. During the passage to this port the mate beat some of the seamen, and the cabin boy also twice, when the captain on arriving here, fearing they would desert, locked the chests in the cabin, and the cabin boy’s being found filled with women’s gear, instead of seaman’s duds, the owner was compelled to confess the imposition, and was turned adrift on shore. She afterwards (still in male attire) agreed on board the Emperor to work her passage to New York, and she was actually engaged in the arduous labor of discharging ballast, when the number of persons whom a rumor of the mal-appropos discovery on board the Plato, kept curiously gazing around the Emperor, attracted Capt. Fay’s notice, and the cheat was again discovered and confessed with tears and manifest distress. Capt. F. however humanely kept her on board, had her properly apparreled, and means to convey her to his family as a domestic. The President of the St. Andrew’s Society, and other gentlemen of character, have tendered any assistance to the girl that she may want.
The Morning Courier got literary, including a variation of lines in a ballad popular in the 19th century. Titled “Revengeful Lover” in a chapbook printed in 1820, it tells the story of a young woman whose betrothed is “pressed … and sent to sea.” She disguises herself as a man and follows him. Learning that he is planning to marry another, she calls “for sword and pistol ready” and shoots both Willie and his intended bride as they walk on the seashore on the Isle of Man. In so doing, “[b]y young and old she was commended,” and she ends by marrying the captain of her ship and “now in splendour she does ride.” (Five Songs. England: np, nd; pp. 7-8; at google books) That the clothing Wood appropriated is coyly referred to as “inexpressibles” may hint that they are underclothes, since trousers and pantaloons are mentioned in stories in other 19th-century newspapers.
“A Female Sailor.” Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer [New York, New York] 4 June 1832; p. 2.
It will be recollected by most of our readers, that a female was discovered a short time since in Savannah, where she had arrived in a vessel from New York, disguised as a sailor boy. It appears that she has again returned to our port, and in the same attire, having performed the ordinary duty of cabin-boy on the voyage. She appears to be about 18 years of age, and has a countenance far from disagreeable; her figure strong set, but not “dumpy;” and her whole appearance is rather pleasing than otherwise. On seeing her at the Police Office yesterday, many were the conjectures relative to her choice of dress, and her appearance in this public office. One whispered, that perhaps she, like a late Liverpool heroine, was in search of some “truelove sailor,” and appeared before the magistrates to solicit their aid in her search for him; whilst others imagined she had acted towards some perfidious lover after the manner of the lady who
”Shot young Willy Taylor,
All as he walked on the sea shore.”
But alas! for all the romance of the story!—the truth came out: she was there for stealing a pair of inexpressibles, and some other articles, from the house in which she boarded, before her voyage to Savannah. It appears the complainant saw her on Tuesday evening, and recognized her as the same person who had left him sans culottes, and he immediately had her carried to the Watch-House, from whence she was committed to Bridewell yesterday to answer the charge.
Her trunk was brought to the Police Office, and found to contain a quantity of female apparel, but it was with the greatest difficulty she could be forced to doff her boy’s dress for one more suitable to her sex. She gives her name as Margaret Wood, but refuses to answer any other question.
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