Woman Fought for Liberty

Woman Fought for Liberty

1900

Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the continental army as Robert Shurtleff, was one of the most dashing and bravest fighters for the cause of liberty. She enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and served three years before it was known that the brave soldier was a woman.

She was taken ill in Philadelphia and the hospital nurse had pronounced her dead, but a slight gurgling attracted the doctor's attention. He placed his hand over her heart, and finding, to his surprise, an inner waistcoat tightly compressing her breast, ripped it open. She was immediately removed to the matron's apartments, where everything was done for her comfort.

The commanding officer, upon learning that his aid was a woman, granted her an honorable discharge and presented her with a letter from Washington commending her services. The humble soldier stood before him with shining eyes filled with tears and thanked him many times, begging him to ask that her fellow soldiers be told and that he ask them to tell him if she had done aught that was unbecoming a woman. This was done and her comrades and officers declared their respect for her was unbounded.

Upon her honorable discharge from the army she returned to her mother's home, striving to escape the calumny which followed her singular career. After Gen. Washington became president he wrote a most cordial letter to Mrs. Gannett (Deborah Sampson — she having married in the meantime), inviting "Robert Shurtleff" to visit him. She accepted and was treated with the greatest honors by the president and residents of Washington. — Ladies' Home Journal.


Too Early In The Day

When Sir Frederick Carrington was in South Africa before with the Bechanaland border police a new recruit wanted to join. He was questioned with martial-like severity, winding up with the question: "Do you drink?" As there was a syphon of soda and something suspiciously like whisky near it, the would-be recruit conceived the idea that he had been invited to partake. Nevertheless he answered the colonel's question with a modest, "No, thank you, sir; It's rather too early in the day for me."

Fake Beard Lands Gary Man in Cell

March 1920

Merchant-Sleuth Finally Released by Detroit Cops

DETROIT, Michigan — Wearing a false goatee and mustache, Isidor Vila, a well-to-do business man of Gary, Indiana, was arrested here.

Vila conducts a grocery store in Gary. During the strike there last summer a large number of the strikers opened charge accounts at his store. Many of them disappeared without paying their bills, some of them coming to Detroit. Vila decided to go on a collecting trip. He provided himself with false scenery, as he figured he would have a better opportunity of locating his debtors.

Detroit was the first city he visited, and five minutes after he left his hotel adorned with the camouflage he was spotted and arrested, despite his strenuous objections. The Gary authorities wired the Detroit police that Vila was a law abiding citizen and he was then released.


Weds Girl To Whom He Restored Beauty

PEORIA, Illinois — Two years ago Miss Ruth Wheeler, a Peoria school teacher, went to the offices here of Dr. Raymond C. Willett, orthodonist. An otherwise beautiful face was slightly marred by teeth which had grown crooked. She appealed to Dr. Willett to perform an operation to straighten them. Recently, in Chicago, the couple married. Miss Wheeler is the daughter of one of Peoria's prominent families. Dr. Willett is one of the best known practitioners in Peoria.

Rich Girl Sued for $150,000 — Stole Woman's Astrologer Husband

1909

RICH GIRL SUED FOR $150,000

Wife of Astrologer Says His Love Was Stolen.

FORGAVE HUSBAND ONCE.

Mrs. Marshall Clark Tells Graphic Story of Seeing Rival Run Out of Mr. Clark's Private Office and of Her Visit Later to Miss Gazzam, Who, She Says, Declared the Man Was Her "Affinity in Spirit, Soul and Body."

New York, Oct. 4.— Mrs. Marshall Clark of Chicago, a handsome brunette of thirty-five years, who has brought suit for $150,000 damages against Miss Antoinette Elizabeth Gazzam, possessor of a fortune of $3,500,000 and a palatial home at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, charging the young woman with alienating the affections of her husband, an astrologer known as "Professor Niblo," has come to New York to prosecute her claim against the heiress.

"I met Dr. Clark in Chicago," Mrs. Clark said. "We were married in New York on March 24, 1903, by the Rev. Dr. Anderson, a Methodist Episcopal minister. At that time Mr. Clark was conducting a real estate business in this city.

"We had an ideal married life until Miss Gazzam and her millions appeared. We traveled much. I was my husband's business partner and confidential adviser as well as his wife.

Consulted Him on Astrology.

"We were living in Los Angeles in April last when Miss Gazzam arrived in that city. She evidently had read Mr. Clark's advertisements about astrology, and she consulted him. They very soon were having frequent meetings. Indeed, Miss Gazzam engaged the rose parlor at the fashionable Lankershim hotel, in Los Angeles, in which to entertain him.

"On April 29 I called at my husband's office, and, not hearing any sound in his inner office, I opened the door and entered. As I did so I was amazed to see Miss Gazzam spring past me and run out of the office.

"I began screaming, and my husband ran to his desk and took from the drawer a revolver, which he pointed at me, threatening to shoot me if I did not stop making a noise.

She Forgave Him That Time.

"Although I forgave my husband for the presence of the woman and for his attack on me, I soon found out that this mysterious new friend was calling upon him every day and he upon her. She called upon him five times one day and telephoned him twenty times. I sought the advice of counsel and was told to see if I could have a personal conversation with Miss Gazzam. So on May 24 last I went to her apartments, then in the Zelda hotel She met me at the door.

" 'Do you know that Marshall Clark is my husband?' I asked.

" 'Yes, I know all about you,' she said.

"Then I asked her why she was acting in this manner. She replied:

" 'Because Mr. Clark is my affinity in spirit, soul and body.'

"I began to cry and told her I was talking to her in heart to heart fashion. I said: 'Don't you know these tears are tears of blood? My heart is breaking.'

Told to Get Out of Their Way.

" 'I don't care for your tears of blood or your breaking heart,' she retorted. 'There is only one thing for you to do, and that is to get out of our way. I have always had what I wanted, and I want this man and am going to have him, no matter what it costs you or anyone else.'

"I tried to continue the interview, but she gave me a violent push that nearly knocked me out of the window, which was on the fourth floor.

"Turning upon her, I screamed: 'Are you trying to take my life? You have already taken my husband and ruined my home!'

"At this she grabbed my lace coat and almost tore it from my back. When I came to myself I was out in a hallway of the hotel, my hair down my back, my silk coat torn to shreds and blood streaming down my face.

"I got out a warrant charging her with assault and battery, but before it was served she had disappeared. I learned later that she had moved to the Hotel Pepper, where she registered as Mrs. S. W. Moore. At the time she also registered at the Westlake hotel as Miss Mazzag of Pennsylvania.

"I learned then that my husband visited her every evening. He posed as a physician. When he called upon her he worse a false mustache."

—Orange County Times-Press, Middletown, NY, Oct. 5, 1909, p. 9.

The Insane Fighting Farmer Taken Through Disguise

Harlan, Iowa, 1903

The Fighting Farmer Taken

Sheriff Stewart and Aids Garbed As Farmers, Capture Arthur Sherlock Near Harlan

Harlan, March 14. — Sheriff Stewart, Ed Parker and Stod Wick went out to Polk township and nabbed the fighting insane man, Arthur Sherlock. He did not know Parker and Wick, who dressed as farmers and made him a proposition to purchase his cattle. Watching their chance the young men overpowered the insane man and put irons on him. He struggled so hard that he broke the first ones put on him. A revolver was found on his person. After the man was taken he laughed about the matter, saying that he had suspected the boys, but that his suspicions were a little too late. Sherlock has been at large on his place for some time, heavily armed and anxious to put cold lead into the sheriff and his deputy, whom he knew. He was taken to the state hospital at Clarinda.