A Wild Woman's History

A Wild Woman's History
Story of Lucy Ann Lobdell Slater

Bainbridge Republican, August 19, 1876

 

"There," said Sheriff Mallory Spencer, as he pushed open the ponderous door of one of the cells of the county jail in Honesdale Pa., to a Sun reporter.  "There is a woman with a history."

 

On a low chair in a cell sat a most singular looking person.  A round, wrinkled, sunburned face; small head crowned with thick, shaggy gray hair, that fell down over and almost concealed the blackest and sharpest of eyes; a slender body, clothed in a scant and shabby female garb, and lower limbs encased in tattered trousers--this was the occupant of the cell--Lucy Ann Lobdell Slater, better known as "The Female Hunter of Long Eddy."

 

About forty-five years ago a family named Lobdell lived in Delaware county, N.Y., at what is now the village of Long Eddy on the Delaware river and the Erie railway.  The locality was very sparsely settled then.  Lumbering was the calling of the people of the vicinity.  The Lobdells dwelt in a cabin in the woods, where a daughter, to whom they gave the name of Lucy Ann was born.  From the time this child was old enough to walk she was a great favorite among the hardy woodchoppers and raftsmen. They often took her off to the logging camp and kept her days at a time and she early became inured to the hardships and privations of this life.  The lumbermen in those days were all good hunters, and always carried their rifles with them. Before Lucy Ann was eight years old they had taught her the use of the rifle and she soon became as good a shot as there was in the settlement.  At the age of twelve she could outshoot any of the men, and handled the ax with the dexterity of an old chopper.  Before she had reached the age of sixteen she had killed several deer, and for her to go away into the forest alone and remain over night was not an uncommon thing.  She once slew a panther on one of her hunting exploits, and the skin of the animal is still in the possession of a former sheriff of Wayne county, Pennsylvania.

 

In spite of her masculine tastes, Lucy Ann Lobdell's name as a girl and woman was free from reproach, and she could have had her choice of a husband from the best young men in that or the adjoining settlements.  But she had no inclination to marry, and she rejected all offers.

 

A raftsman named Henry Slater came about the year 1850, to work at the Basket, as the settlement was called.  he formed the acquaintance of Lucy Ann, and to the surprise of everybody they were married.  Slater had proposed to the girl, and she told him that they would shoot at a mark with a rifle.  If he beat her shots, she would marry  him; if not, she would remain with her parents.  The trial of skill took place, and the raftsman was victorious.  Slater proved a worthless husband, and neglected and abused his wife.  A year after they were married Mrs. Slater gave birth to a daughter.  Before it was two weeks old Slater deserted the child and its mother, leaving them in destitute circumstances.  He never returned, and no one knows what became of him.

 

The unhappy young woman went back to her parents, and to work.  After she had for two years tried to get along by doing woman's labor with poor success, she laid aside the apparel of her sex, donned men's clothing and taking her rifle, went into the woods to earn a living for herself and child.  For eight years she roamed the forests of Sullivan and Delaware counties New York State, and Wayne and Pike, in Pennsylvania.  She had cabins in various places, and would return home not more than once a years, and only appeared in the settlements and villages to sell her game and skins and to procure ammunition.  On one of her visits to her child when it was about six years old, her parents complained of having its care on their hands.  She took it away and had it placed in the almshouse at Delhi, and returned to the woods.  During her long career as a hunter she was exposed to fearful hardships and perils.  In the severe winter of 1867 when the snow was over four feet deep on the level in the woods and lasted four months, she never saw a human face, nor heard any voice but  her own.  She was snowbound in one of her cabins in the depth of a Sullivan county wilderness, where she had fortunately stored the proceeds of a few weeks successful hunt.

 

In 1860, shattered physically and mentally, she appeared at the Basket and resumed woman's clothing.  She at times would recount her experiences in the forest, and asserted that in the eight years she had killed 150 deer, eleven bears, numerous wild cats and foxes, besides trapping hundreds of mink and other fur bearing animals.  She had hand-to-hand contests with both wounded deer and bear as ugly scars upon her body amply testified.  For two or three years after her return she led a mendicant sort of life through the valley, and finally entered the poorhouse at Delhi to which she had sent her child several years previously.  This child, however had sometime before been taken out of the institution by a farmer of Damascus township, Wayne county, Pa. named David Fortman, and given a home at his house.

 

In 1865 Lucy Ann Slater was still an inmate of the almshouse, and a singular attachment sprang up between her and a new comer, Mrs. Wilson.  The following year both of them left the county house, and nothing was heard of either of them for two years.  In the summer of 1868 a party of fishermen discovered two strange persons living in a cave in Barrett township, Monroe county, Pa.  They were a man and a woman.  Soon thereafter there appeared in one of the villages a tall, gaunt man, carrying a rifle and leading a half grown bear cub by a string tied about is neck.  The man was bare headed and his clothing was torn and dirty.  Accompanying him was a woman about twenty-five years old. shabbily dressed, but giving evidence of more intelligence than the man, who called himself the Rev. Joseph Lobdell, and said that the woman was his wife.  As they walked about, the man delivered noisy and meaningless "sermons" declaring that he was a prophet of the new dispensation, and that the bear had been sent him by the Lord to guard him in the wilderness.  For two years these vagrants wandered about that part of the county, living in caves and subsisting on roots, berries, and game killed by the man.  At last they were arrested and lodged in jail at Stroudsburg, where they were kept several weeks.  While in jail the discovery was made that they were both women.  Subsequently the authorities learned that they belonged to Delaware county, N.Y. and thither they were sent.  This pretended man and wife were Lucy Anne Slater and Mrs. Wilson, who had been leading this vagabond life four years. 

 

In the meantime Mary Ann Slater the daughter of lacy Ann, who had been taken from the Delhi almshouse in 1859 or 1860, had found an excellent home, and had grown up to be an intelligent and attractive young woman.  A young man named Stone lived near by with his widowed mother, whom he supported.  he loved Mary Ann, and being a worthy and promising youth, the foster father of the girl saw no reason to oppose a match between her and the widow's son. The widow, however was so strongly set against her son's marrying the young lady that the whole neighborhood wondered.  At length, when their marriage seemed certain, Mrs. Stone revealed a state of affairs which fully accounted for her opposition.  She told her son that she was not a widow, and that Henry Slater was his father as well as the father of Mary Ann. 

 

Lucy Ann Slater and Mrs. Wilson again left the Delhi poorhouse, and have ever since been living in caves and cabins in the woods.  The former is at times entirely deranged.  All last winter they lived in a cave ten miles from Honesdale, but they divide their time between Monroe county and this.  Lucy Ann wandered into this county the other day and was arrested.