A Most Strange Chapter, Burlington Weekly Free Press (Article, 1868)
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A MOST STRANGE CHAPTER.--A correspondent writes us from Waterloo, Iowa, asking if we know of one Edgar Burhnam, and of his history.
We do. And as it is a strange, true one, known to hundreds, we give it in the Democrat. Eight years since, when we were engaged as city editor of a Milwaukee paper, there lived in this State an editor named Powell, now connected with a Chicago paper, we think. He is, unless he has quit it lately.
In 1862 Powell was married to a Miss Ellen Burnham, of Broadhead Wisconsin, after a courtship of some months. Miss Burnham's parents were old residents of Broadhead, and of high respectability. The daughter taught music, had a large number of pupils, and was very attractive. Powell lived with her as a husband two years, when about twenty-one years of age, Mrs. Powell's voice changed, she grew light whiskers, and gradually changed her sex, developing into a man in all respects.
The husband and wife separated when the wife became a man, and Mrs. Ellen Powell took the name of Edgar Burnham, donned male attire, sought and obtained employment as a clerk in Chicago, and lived a single young man for one year.
During this time he fell in love with a niece of Senator Morgan, of New York, but did not marry her, for reasons not pertinent to this article. But about the end of the year he did marry a young lady of Broadhead, Wis., a Miss Gerta Everett, who was a music pupil of his when he was a Miss Ellen Burnham, over three years previous to the marriage. This second marriage was about two years ago. Soon after this marriage "Edgar" Burnham and wife removed to Waterloo, Iowa, where they now reside, or did not long since.
The former girl is now a man, the former wife is now a husband, the former mother is now the father, the former young lady teacher of a young lady is now that young lady's husband! Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and the above simple statement of facts borders so upon the marvelous we could not believe it did not we personally know nearly all the parties.
Any one can be convinced, by writing to the parties in either of the places we have named, of the full and entire truth of this most wonderful transformation, which puzzled not only the medical but the entire scientific world, and which fact appears now for the first time in print, though the particulars have long been known to us and to many other newspaper men and prominent citizens of this State, as to nearly all the citizens of Broadhead, where the parties so long resided.--La Crosse Democrat.
The above strange story is endorsed by a correspondent of the Woodstock Standard, as follows:
SOUTH WOODSTOCK, VT. Jan. 25, 1868
Mr. Editor:-- There is more truth than fiction in the statement concerning Edgar Burnham of Waterloo, Iowa, formerly Ellen Burnhamm, of Broadhead, Wis., annd afterward Mrs. Powell. I can vouch for the truth of it, also his second marriage, as Miss Gerta Everett was a pupil of mine three years ago this winter and was married to the said Edgar Burnham the following May, before I left Wisconsin. A few months after Mr. Powell's marriage he enlisted in the army and after a time Mrs. Powell did as other wives had done in Wisconsin, started to go to see her husband. She arrived at Chicago and was about to take the cars to go South, when she was taken (owing to her masculine appearance) as a spy. She told them she certainly had a husband in the army, but they would not believe her. She telegraphed to her father (Dr. Burnham) who immediately came to her assistance, the distance from Broadhead to Chicago being only 110 miles. The result was in time a separation. I never heard she presented her husband with a child while she was Mrs. Powell and I think that statement incorrect. Miss Ellen Burnhamn and Miss Gerta Everett were [strong] friends when girls together in Broadhead, and when she came to change her wardrobe, her best clothes she gave to Miss Everett. After that, it appears (she) he thought best to take her for a wife. Further than this, and which makes it still more exciting, Edgar's parents were once residents of Woodstock, Vt., some 28 years ago, perhaps a little more, Mr. Burnham came from Burlington (I think) and attended the medical lectures in your village, became acquainted with Miss Ellen Blish, daughter of Mr. Blish, who was a tinman there, (since deceased) and in course of time they were married and went West. Dr. Burnham is a druggist in Broadhead, Wis., where he has resided many years, a respected citizen
