half woman half man bw line drawing

Not murdered….but turned boy

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Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Mountain Echo
Hyden, KY.
Jan. 18. 1897

NOT MURDERED……BUT TURNED BOY!

young woman dressed as man

The mystery of the disappearance of Miss Polly Feltner has been cleared up. She was found on the head of a creek called Leatherwood in Perry County, forty miles from here.

She became angry at her parents because they refused to send her to Charlie Mutzenburg’s writing school, and resolved to leave home and friends, and on Saturday, January 2d she left home going to the top of the mountain, where she had previously prepared a suit of male attire, and in which she clothed herself, then by following a torturous and unused mountain path she avoided discovery until she had left the immediate neighborhood.

Stopping at a country store several miles from home, she purchased a hat, pants and suspenders and other things necessary to complete her masculine attire, then going to the above named vicinity she found employment under the name of Ray Feltner.

When found by the searching party she was busily engaged in clearing ground and splitting rails. She positively refused to return under any circumstances, preferring to cast her lot among strangers and pass her days acting the man.

She is the daughter of Louis Feltner, a well to do and highly respected citizen of this county, and twenty one years of age, consequently Mr. Feltner will not make any effort to get her to return, but let her try the experiment of being a “farmer’s boy.”

source: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyclay2/newspapers/misc.html

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