William J. Dally, 1856

“A Woman Disguised in Man’s Clothing.” Pittsburgh Dispatch [Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]; reprinted in Newark Daily Advertiser [Newark, New Jersey] 25 June 1856; p. 2.

We notice in the papers mention of a young woman having recently been detected in the garb of a man among the workm[e]n employed in Smith’s whip factory in Westfield, Mass., and, now that it can do no injury to express her secret, we shall throw a little light upon her previous history, at least during her three year’s residence in this vicinity.

The young woman first made her appearance in the West in 1851, when she sought and obtained employment as a workman in the whip factory of Mr. Underwood, then engaged in the business in our city. After working some three months for him, she complained of ill health, and thought a more active life would suit her better—and engaged as a cabin boy, running a whole season on our rivers in that capacity, without the sligh[t]est suspicion that she was other than a smart but rather delicate lad. In the summer of 1852 she appear[e]d in her river garb, in the wareoom of Mr. John W. Tim, the well known whip manufacturer on Wood street, and asked work as finisher in his shop, which she obtained, filling the situation creditably for two years, and endearing herself to all her fellow-workmen by her amiable and obliging disposition—none of whom suspected, when joking with her for her penchant for female society, and gallanting the girls, that they were conversing with one of the fair sex.

In the summer of 1854 she worked less steadily, devoting several days in the week to buying peaches, which she sold again in the market; this led to dissatisfaction on the part of her employer, and she left the shop, engaging for a few months in the fruit business, in a little shop she opened on Penn street, in the Fifth Ward. This was finally closed, and she left the city a year or eighteen months ago to turn up again in the Westfield Whip Factory. All we can learn of her history is that she hailed from Rochester, New York, and during her residence in this city was several times visited by a man named D—, who was represented by her as an uncle. She had with her a little girl, some six or eight years—probably her daughter—but passed as her deceased brother’s orphan child. She boarded on Boyd’s Hill, behaved herself commendably[,] had no vices but segar smoking, joined a Methodist church, and never was spoken evil of—except in regard to her intimacy with a young Irish widow, an acquaintance she made after leaving the ship factory, and with whom she finally left our city; but this charge did not affect her much, as she assured her old acquaintances that she had married the mother. During her residence of nearly three years in Pittsburgh, the only one who suspected her sex was the woman who kept the boarding house, and who had better opportunities of observation than others—but she said, nothing of her suspicions until the girl had left town. Her employer reposed every confidence in her, and during a portion of her stay with him employed her in the out-door business of the establishment. After leaving Pittsburg[h], her acquaintances here heard nothing of her for sometime—not, indeed, until some accident revealed her sex, at Westfield, Mass., when Mr. Tim received a letter of inquiry from a manufacturer in that place; and a brother in the church another, from the Methodist minister at Westfield, enquiring as to her conduct and reputation here—of which they could give no other than a favorable report.

The most charitable construction we can put upon her adventures i[s] that she is a widow; who, having ascertained that men command a much higher compensation than her own sex, for the same amount of work, had determined to assume the male garb, to earn a living for herself and child. It may be, however, that for one fault, society has expelled, and friends abandoned her—and that, with more than the usual energy of her sex, instead of falling still lower, a victim to man’s passions, she betook herself to the coat and pantaloons as a protection against the scorn of one sex and the wiles of the other. Whatever is the solution of her strange conduct, she deserves credit for her energy and determination, and we regret that her secret has become known, affording as it did a safe asylum.

Since the above was written we learn that the lady was married some twelve years ago in Rochester, where she and her husband opened a small confectionary, and not succeeding very well in business, they abandoned it and engaged as waiters in a hotel. After being in the hotel some time, her husband became jealous of the attentions of another man, and had her arrested and confined in jail about three months. She is Irish, or of Irish parentage; her real name is Connelly, but she passed in this city by the name of Wm. J. Dally. She came to work for Mr. Tim in June, 1852, with whom she remained until August, 1853.