Columbus Democrat

A WOMAN HUSBAND.—A few days ago, a respectable female waited upon an attorney in this town, and asked his advice in a case of a very peculiar nature. It seems that her husband, master bricklayer, who had been in the habit of trusting her implicitly in his business, even leaving to her management the book-keeping requisite in his trade, had of late, for some cause or other, refused to allow her the usual weekly sum for housekeeping. Having, also, in other respects treated her, as she conceived, in an unkind manner, she came to take advice as to how she should proceed, under the circumstances, against her husband, whom, to the no small astonishment of the professional gentleman she was then consulting, she declared to be not a man, but a woman. Legal investigation of the affair was made at the police office, which resulted in the separation of the unnatural paired couple. From what could be gleaned of the history of this female husband, it would seem that she assumed the garb and character of a boy at an early age, and that, in that character, she was apprenticed, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, to a master builder, in one of the large towns of Yorkshire. Being of a good exterior, with prepossessing appearance and manners, and of features rather handsome, the supposed young man attracted the attention of many females in the same condition of life; and amongst others was the one who afterwards became the wife. The attentions of the young bricklayer were acceptable and accepted, and the union took place shortly after the expiration of the apprenticeship. Soon afterwards, the couple came to Manchester, we are told about the year 1829, where the husband commenced the business of a builder, and, by considerable skill, ability and attention to business, she was tolerably successful. She was for many years a special constable, in the 13th division of that body, acting where the services of the division were required, as at elections, orange processions and meetings of trades, unions, turn-outs, &c. &c.; so far from absenting herself from what, as in the case of well grounded apprehensions of a riot, must have been, to a woman, a post of some unpleasantness, she is remembered to have been one of the most punctual in attendance, and the most forward volunteer in actual duty in that division,
We understand that she is no longer a special constable, because she did not, on the last annual special session, held for that purpose at the New Bailey, present herself to be re-sworn. She was not discarded or discharged; there was no complaint against her; and probably the extension of her own business was her only motive for not resuming the duties of this office. Altogether, this is by far the most singular case of the kind which has ever reached our knowledge The celebrated Chevalier D'Eon was not married, and James Davis, (so called.) the discovery of whose sex took place only after death, had not been married for so long a period as the woman whose case is now under notice.—There, too, the discovery was made too late to obtain from the party herself any clue to the motives which led her to so unfeminine a course of description; but here both parties to the supposed marriage are alive, and the one who assumed the male sex is still alive to give, if she chooses, the true history of her reasons or fancy for laying aside the garb of her own, and assuming the appearance, and undertaking the toil, of the other sex, which would certainly be a very curious chapter of biography.—Manchester (Eng.) Guardian.