I reside in Hancock N.Y. and have for about 22 years[last] past and have been more or less acquainted with Lucy Ann Slater for the past 20 or 25 years. Have met her a good many times and have seen her travelling along the road. The first that I discovered anything about Lucy which led me to believe she was insane was about 20 or 25 years ago when she was in her fathers saw mill sawing or attempting to saw. She was then dressed in mens clothes & particularly attracted my attention [ ] [ ] was with me. We stopped [ ] [ ] and from her appearance and [ ] at that time we both came to the conclusion that she was crazy.
Some years ago I met her at [Mr] David [Kill…] in Wayne Co Pennsylvannia. I was satisfied then that she was crazy. She was dressed in mens clothes and had a gun and pretended to be hunting. After that I saw her in company with another woman travelling along the road. That woman was crazy. They both claimed that they were man and wife and pretended to love each other and that they could not bear to be separated. They then came to my brothers. He said they frequently came there together in that way and wanted to be together and sleep together. I saw her once at Hancock with her husband at [ ] [ ]. She was in the far room [ ] the men singing to her husband. There can be no mistake but that she was then insane. I cannot swear positively that it was her husband with her. Have seen her at other times and think she is insane without doubt and incapable of governing herself or of managing her property.

Harry [Henry] Walsh

Subscribed and sworn to before me June 16 1880
Arthur More [Commission…]
 

Contemporary Sources

History of Meeker County, Minnesota. Chapter: Wild Woman's History--The Slayer of Hundreds of Bears and Wild-Cats, pp. 98 -  111.  AC Smith:  1877.

Lucy Ann migrated to Minnesota from Delaware County, teaching singing school to pay her way.  She spent several years there as a man, including some months guarding a claim with a man who slept under the same blanket with her and never realized her biological identity as a female. In 1858 her female sex was accidentally discovered and she was sent back to Delaware County.

 

A Modern Romance: Strange Life of Unhappy Women. New York Times, April 8, 1877, p. 7

Lucy assumed the name of Joseph Israel  Lobdell and married Marie Wilson. They lived in caves in the woods in Monroe, Co. Pennsylvania, subsisting on berries, roots, and charity.

 

Death of a Modern Diana: the Female Hunter of Long Eddy.  New York Times , October 7, 1879,  p 2.

This obituary was premature.  Lucy Ann Lobdell died in Binghamton, NY in 1912.