Remarkable Career of a Crazy Woman, Semi-Weekly Miner (Article, 1885)
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WONDERFUL WANDERLUST[?]
The Remarkable Career of a Crazy Woman
MARRIED A WOMAN.
Peculiar Affection of the Two Females for Each Other--Their Separation.
Stroudsburg (Pa.) Dispatch in New York Sun.
Lucy Ann Slater died in a New York State insane asylum recently. She was 50 years old, and a few years ago was famous all through the Delaware river counties as the female hunter of Long Eddy. She was born at Long, Delaware county, N.Y. Her father was a lumberman. At the age of 10 years she was noted for her skill with the rifle. She killed a panther, after following it ten miles through the woods, when she was 12 years old. At the age of 17 she was a handsome and intelligent girl. She was an excellent violinist and a good singer. Her maiden name was Lobdell. She was married to a raftsman named George Slater when she was 18. He deserted her and her two-month-old baby a year afterwards, leaving her in destitute circumstances. Her parents were unable to give her a home. She left her baby in their charge and went away. She went to Bethany, Pa., disguised as a man, and, under the name of Joseph I. Lobdell, opened a singing school. She carried out her assumed character so well that, in the fall of 1845, she became engaged to be married to one of her pupils, the daughter of a leading citizen of Bethany.
A MIGHTY HUNTER.
A few days before the day set for the wedding arrived, Lobdell's identity was discovered by a young man who had been a rival of the music teacher for the hand of the young woman. He planned for others to seize the music teacher, tar and feather her and drive her out of town. The young woman who was to have married the singing master was let into the secret, and she warned Lucy Ann of her danger, and she escaped. Returning to Long Eddy, she resumed the apparel of her own sex, and remained in the vicinity for some months. Desiring to find employment she cast aside women's clothing, and, donning a hunting suit, entered the woods. For eight years she led a wild life in the upper Delaware valley wilderness, coming into the settlements only when she desired to exchange her furs or game for ammunition and necessary supplies. Her eight years in the woods were a constant struggle with hardships, privations and danger. She had many narrow escapes from wild animals, and, as she recorded it, she "killed one hundred and sixty-three deer, seventy-three bears, one panther and numberless quantities of small game of the glade and fur bearers of the stream and lake." When she returned to Long Eddy she put on woman's clothing again. She had grown prematurely old and was but a wreck of the former dashing backwoods favorite. Her parents were dead and her child was in the poorhouse. After wandering about the valley some time the female hunter entered the poorhouse also. Soon afterwards the child, Mary Slater, was adopte by a rich former in Damascus township, Wayne county, this State. The mother remained in the poorhouse, an became yearly more miserable an wretched.
ON THEIR TRACK.
In the winter of 1868 Marie Louise Perry, the nineteen-year-ol daughter of a well-to-do Massachusetts family, and graduate of a Boston school, ran away from her native place with a man named James Wilson. The couple went to Jersey City, where they were married. In the spring of the same year Wilson eloped with the daughter of the landlady where he an his wife were boarding. His wife traced the runaways along the Erie railway, and at Lordville, Delaware county, was taken sick with fever. She was placed in the county house, where she soon recovered. As she made no move towards returning home after regaining her strength, the poorhouse authorities finally notified her father of her whereabouts and condition. In the meantime the young woman had formed the acquaintance of Lucy Ann Slater, and inexplicable as it seems, the two formed a mutual affection so strong that they refused to be separated, and when the girl's father arrived at Delhi to take her back to Massachusetts, she and Lucy Ann Slater had left the poorhouse, and no trace of them could be found. It was subsequently learned that Lucy Ann had again assumed the character of a man, and under the name of Joseph Israel Lobdell had been married by a Wayne county Justice of the Peace to Marie Louise Perry a few days after they ran away from the poorhouse.
In the summer of 1869 a couple calling themselves the Rev. Joseph Israel Lobdell and wife appeared in the mountain villages in the western part of this (Monroe) county. For two years they roamed about in the region, living in caves in the woods and subsisting on berries and roots, such game as the long rifle which the man carried might provide, and the charity of the people. In 1871 they became such a nuisance that they were arrested on the charge of vagrancy and lodged in the Stroudsburg jail- Nothing was known of their history and nothing could be obtained from the couple that would throw any light on their antecedents.
THE ABDUCTION.
On the very night that the mysterious couple were placed in jail here Mary Slater, Lucy Ann Lobdell's daughter, who had grown to be a beautiful young woman, was seized by two men near her foster-father's house in Damascus, and who was gagged, and bound and thrown into a wagon; which was driven rapidly away towards the Delaware river. In the voice of one of the men the girl recognized that of George Kent, a young man whose attentions she had refused a few days before. Miss Slater was so maltreated by the men that she became unconscious. She [was] aroused by the sound of rushing waters. The men lifted her from the wagon, and carrying her to the river bank, threw her into the stream. She remembered nothing more. At daylight the next morning she regained consciousness again. She was lying on a small island in the river. She was discovered by a man who lived near, who took her off the island in the boat. Before she could give any account of who she was or how she came on the island she lost her reason, and was permitted to wander away. She was found three days later in the Sullivan county mountains, a raving maniac. It was several days before she could give an account of her mysterious disappearance. Kent was arrested, but escaped from custody and was never recaptured.
DECLARED INSANE
The story of the abduction, outrage and attempted murder of Mary Slater was printed in the local papers and one day it was read in Stroudsburg jail by "Joseph Israel Lobdell," and from his ravings over the outrage it was learned the "he" was the woman, Lucy Ann Slater, and the mother of the girl. The result was that the two singular outcasts were returned to Delaware county. But they soon returned to their wild life and for five years lived in the mountains of Wayne county. One day in 1876 they appeared in Honesdale, where "Joseph" was taken into custody as a lunatic. His companion, who insisted that he was her husband in name and fact, prepared a remarkably able petition, which she presented to the court, asking for the custody of her husband. In this petition she made the startling affirmation that the prisoner was not only a mother, but a father as well, the petitioner declared solemnly that she had herself born a child of which the prisoner was the father. The court ordered the lunatic to be delivered o her companion, and the two returned to Damascus township. They lived there until 1880 when the authorities interfered and sent Lucy Ann to the insane asylum. The grief of her companion at the separation was pitiful and after a few months she went away, returning, it is supposed, to her parents in Massachusetts.
