Connecticut western news., 1873-02-21
Women as Sailors.

Cannot women be sailors as we'll as soldiers? They have made the attempt, at all events. Early in 'the regin of George III. Hannah Whitney, an Irish woman, served five years in the royal nayy,s and did not reveal the secret un- til she re-entered what may be called private life. A few years after this a young Yorkshire woman came up if rom Hull to London in search of her lover. He had enlisted on the man-of-war OK ford, at Chatham, and she did the same, putting on sailors clothes and ass1im- ing the name of Charles Waddell. Her faithless swain deserted and she at tempted to desert likewise. This brought on detection, and the officers kindly gave the poor girl little none and dismissed her. The newspapers, in 1782, told of one Mrs. Cole, of Poplar, who served on board man-of-war as sailsr, and then, having bit of proper ty left her, resumed her feminine posi- tion and took a public house. Earlyi in the present century country girl, aged fifteen, left her home, put on boys clothes and offered for service on g South Sea whaler. Being refuse she apprenticed herself to @ waterman and piled her vocatie n deftly. IL was not until she had been upset and nearly drowned in rowing out to the Sir Hyde Parker, West Indiaman, that she ceased to be "jolly young waterman" and became domestic servant in proper femininity of apparel. There was @ girl named Rebecca Ann Johnstone, who knew what it was to have cruel father or uncle, it was not clear which. He dressed her as boy when she was thirteen and apprenticed her to acollier ship. She served four years and then ended her sea life, after receiuieg a sewers beating from the mate for not getting up sufficiently early. Another girl, aged fourteen, named Elizabeth Bowden being left an orphan, came from village in Cornwall, in 1907, to Truro, in search of employment. Des- titute and unsuccessful, she went to Falmouth, put on boys clothes, enlist ed as boy on board Her Majesty's ship.Hazard, and did good service aloft as well as below,for several weeks, after which the poor young thing, by the kindness of the chief officers, was en- abled to resume her proper attire and avocations. One more instance: In 1915, when Her Majesty, ship Queen Charlotte, 100 guns, was paid off, an African woman was found among the crew who had served eleven years under the name of William Brown. She had become an able seaman, and captain of the foretop she had all the traits of a sailor, and no one had suspected her secret, which turned out to be cruel husband, to escape from whom she had taken to this hard and unfeminine mode of life.
 Thus it is that in most cases where women have become soldiers or sailors, husbands or lovers generally had some thing to do in supplying motive. Special circumstances have guided the matter in other instances. Why she did it is not narrated; kut the gossip ing chronicles which tell about the cen tenarians speak of one Mary Hall, who was sexton of Bishops Hill, York, and who lived to the age of 1O5. There was pedler, in 1793, who was taken i'll at the ale house in Worcester, and shortly before dying told (her) story. She had been concerned in the Gordon riots, in 1786, and fearing capture and punish ment had put on mans dress and travelled the country as pedler for thirteen years