Secret of Scot who pioneered LGBT rights... 150 years ago
NY hardman who was really a woman to be commemorated this weekend
AMID the dark arts of late 19th century New York politics, there were few ‘fixers’ who stood out quite like Murray H Hall.
But while Hall’s reputation as a harddrinking, cigar-chomping dealmaker with an eye for the ladies was scarcely a novelty, the larger-than-life character harboured a secret life that was only revealed in death.
Senators and senior Democrats reeled with shock to discover that the twice-married ‘man about town’, bon vivant and all-around ‘good fellow’ with whom they had frequently caroused, actually started life many thousands of miles away in Scotland – as a woman.
It was only after the politician’s death, aged 70, in January 1901 that a medical examiner broke the news to a stunned populace that Murray Hall was anatomically female.
While dying of breast cancer, Hall had refused to allow doctors to carry out a physical examination, fearing they might lay bare the charade. Instead, the politician preferred to buy reams of medical books in a doomed effort to treat the condition.
Hall was born Mary Anderson in Glasgow’s Govan in 1840. But she hid her true identity under loosefitting garments and a veneer of masculinity so successfully that she fooled the sharp-witted political elite in the United States for decades.
She was a fixture at the polling booths on election days, taking part in numerous elections at a time when the vote was denied to those of her sex.
Her remarkable story is set to feature in a new heritage trail to be launched this weekend by Glasgow Women’s Library, which highlights the challenge of gender in history.
Glasgow-based writer and archivist Mel Reeve said that there was a ‘huge backlash’ in the media after Hall’s death.
‘People were very angry and felt like they’d been betrayed, but obviously he was just living his life how he wanted to,’ she said.
In the days following her death, the New York Times accused Hall of ‘masquerading’ in male attire and quoted one senator, Barney Martin, who said: ‘He was a modest little fellow but had a peppery temper. He dressed like a man and talked like a very sensible one.
‘The only thing I thought was eccentric about him was his clothing. He wore a coat a size or two too large, but of good material. That was to conceal his form.’
There were few clues in Hall’s behaviour to suspect this was a woman in disguise. One bookseller who befriended the politician recalled Hall’s ‘somewhat effeminate appearance’ and ‘falsetto voice’, yet never suspected his friend’s true nature.
Once, Hall was even jailed overnight after giving a police officer a black eye in a fistfight. Political ally Joseph Young told the Times: ‘He’d take his whisky like any veteran, and didn’t make faces over it, either. If he was a woman he ought to have been born a man, for he lived and looked like one.’
The paper said Hall ‘exercised considerable political influence with Tammany Hall’ – an infamous Democratic political organisation which played a major role in controlling politics in and around New York City.
Researchers in New York believe Hall started dressing as a man in her teens while still living in Scotland but fled to the US when her true gender was disclosed to police. Hall arrived in New York around 1875 with a woman said to be her first wife and opened up an employment agency.
The first wife disappeared abruptly after complaining that Hall was making her life miserable by paying ‘altogether too much attention to other women’.
Some years later, Hall moved to Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village along with second wife Cecilia and the couple’s adopted daughter, Minnie, and worked as a bail bondsman.
Before long, Cecilia also objected to her husband’s roving eye, although she remained with Hall until her death.
It is thought that Hall had suffered from breast cancer for several years but had decided she could not risk seeking medical advice and instead amassed a collection of medical books in an attmpt to treat herself.
By the time that Hall did finally go to consult a doctor, she only had days left to live.
Following her death, Hall’s remains were buried – in women’s clothing – in an unmarked grave at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens, New York.
‘Wore coat too large to conceal his form’