Eliza DeWolfe: Scandalous Love & Suffrage

0:01 Welcome to the Rainy Day rabbit Holes podcast, your escape from the mundane. Dive into the rich history of the Pacific Northwest with us, and let your mind wander down the rabbit hole, because in the Northwest it's always raining. Something weird. I'm Shay and I'm Jodie. Let's fall down the rabbit hole. Caitlin, Yeah, that's you. When I say the words free love? What comes to mind for you? Oh? Definitely, hippies, peace signs, yeah, like Paisley right, flower power? Yeah, the nineteen sixties, yeah, yeah, walking it Charles Manson maybe, Oh well, I mean, Charlie's never far from our minds as true crime girls, right, He's always with us.

0:49 Yeah, yeah, Well, I might just blow your mind a little bit today with a tale of free love, feminism and strong women in the sixties. But here's the twist. It's the eighteen sixties. Oh shit, that's the time that Jody and I love to hang out in. The best is the eighteen hundreds in the Pacific Northwest. It was wild. What's wild here? It's so good? Well, rabbit holders, you might have already noticed something different today. You can finally tell the host's voices apart there. That's because today we have a very special guest. It's only Caitlin from the PNW Haunts and Homicides podcast. Welcome Caitlyn, thank you, thank you so much for joining me today. So Caitlin and Cassie are the dynamic duo who hosts PNW Haunts and Homicides.

1:40 It's a Pacific Northwest paranormal and true crime podcast and they are part of our Umbrella podcast collective. Yes we are. Wow. Can you can you come and do like our intro on our show? Sure? Anytime? Right, So tell my listeners a little bit about your show and where they can find you. Oh my gosh, I mean can I really top that? Can I add anything to that? We're on all of the things where we're on all of the socials and basically all of the major streaming platforms for podcasts that I can think of. We always tell people if there's one.

2:21 That you know of that we're not on, let us know, I guess something really obscure. That is your preferred. Tin Can podcast player. Yeah, basically, I mean it would have to be. But they can always go to your website to find links to everything, right, It's true. Yeah, we have a link tree and a website. And it's PNW Huntsonhomicides dot com. Right it is. Yeah, we snagged her. Well and if you ever can't remember that, guys, you can always go to our website, randydayrabbit holes dot com, forward slash umbrella and that's where you can find links to all of the podcasts under our umbrella, like PNW Hunts and Homicides. So definitely give them a listen. All right, So Kalin today is kind of a side quest. I got sucked down this particular rabbit hole while researching last week's episode about Henry Yesler. So, Henry and his wife Sarah had an unconventional relationship. Not only did they abstain from the traditional Christian religion, they were spiritualists, which actually had some interesting ties in with Christianity. Like a lot of Christians were spiritualists in the day. Wasn't considered to be like the devil worshiping side of.

3:32 Things, right, not counterintuitive to religion, right? Yeah, but they also practiced and get ready to clutch your pearls. Free love. Oh are we scandalized yet? Oh? I'm so excited. So for most people, free love brings up visions of flower crown wearing hippies getting freaky in the back of a VW bus. Right, definitely. But what was extremely so prizing is that the roots of this movement can be traced all the way back to the second century whoa with an obscure sect of early Christians called the Adamites. So these free thinking dudes and dudets from North Africa claim to have regained Adam and Eve's original innocence. So I'm assuming before they ate the right fruit from the tree, and yeah, figured out that for some reason naked was being bad.

4:28 I don't know, is naked is bad? Don't do that. Don't need apples, it's a thing. Don't eat apples off of random trees because there's probably worms in them. I don't know if you've ever been like you're like, hey, there's an apple on this tree and take a bite and then you can see like the hole that the worm had gone through, and you're like, that's why I can think of that. I know, I'm I'm like, that's horrifying. But also, have you guys ever heard of like street drugs, because it gets worse? What like street drugs? You know, like right, you know, hard drugs. I was like, yes, I mean yeah, like an apple with a worm in it is bad, but like you know, I think it's worse.

5:13 Right, true podcaster? Okay, Okay, I heard where you're going. I was like, are they putting drugs in the apples nowadays? What are the kids doing these days? I mean I have made a bowl out of an apple back in my day, but I can put together with the apple and the street drugs. Okay. I was not going where you were leading. I know you need bread string. Okay, it's part of I'm told it's part of my charm. I don't know. You went straight from from Adam and Eve eating apples to street drugs. Yeah, I'm clubbing. So the Adamites practiced their rituals in the nude and naked thyme was generally widely accepted, and they rejected the concept of marriage, saying it would never having but for sin.

6:01 So they also thought that no actions could be held as either good nor bad. So what do you think people thought of them? They were, of course labeled as devil worshipers. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think that's going to go over well. No, and practices similar to the Adamites have sprung up through the centuries, from the Brethren of the Free Spirit in the thirteenth century to the Taborites in Bohemia in the fifteenth century. Free love played a powerful part in radical thinking during the English Revolution in the mid sixteen hundreds. And so you might be wondering, then, what exactly is free love how we're talking about it today?

6:42 Yeah, I want to know what you found out that it is. Well, it's a philosophy that challenges many of what we would think of as ingrained societal norms. So it seeks freedom from state regulation and church interference in personal relafe relationships. So basically the core is the free union of adults, that adults of legal consenting age can enter into relationships without legal or religious recognition or regulation, and that they can come and go as they please in those relationships. That's very important to it. It's basically like, you can freely be in this relationship for as long or as short as you want, and freely leave it whenever you want, and that there's no legal or religious repercussions for that.

7:31 And it really came into sharp focus in the mid eighteen hundreds as feminism began to grow into the modern suffrage movement. So the free union term has been used since then to describe a relationship into which all parties enter, remain, and leave freely. Makes sense, and marriage is often viewed as a form of slavery and human ownership, especially for women and children. I mean, yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Actually, back before there were any sort of legal protections for people, you know, for people in marriages or the children, you know, yeah, you were your husband or father's property property, Yeah, to do with as he wishes.

8:15 So beating your wife for a long time not illegal. Raping your wife right, not illegal? You know. Yeah, that one stayed l legal for a lot longer than we'd like, I think, a lot longer than beating. I think the last state to make marital rape I legal was in like the nineteen eighties or the nineteen nineties, Like it took that long. That sounds yeah, yeah, that sounds accurate. Yeah yeah. So let's bring it back to the Pacific Northwest and Henry and Sarah Yesler. So for the Yeslers, a little love on the side weren't no big thing. Oh, when Sarah Yessler finally moved to Seattle to be with her husband after seven years. And if you guys want to hear more, you got to listen to my Henry Yesler episode from last week. Just say Yesler, Yes, just say Yesler to the Dressler. No, that was dumb. Sorry, yours is much better.

9:19 No, I like it. Sometimes, you know, they can't they can't all land No, that's the thing. They can't all be gyms. Yeah, and I've got quite a few flops. If we went through on my river Side account, you would see, like some of the faces that Cassie has made. It me like when Sarah Yesler finally moved to Seattle to be with her husband after seven years, she was nonplus to find that Henry had conceived a child with his living Native American housekeeper slash Indian wife. That's what they call them back in Oh boy. Yeah, but it's totally cool. Yeah, she was fine. A lot of records state that she embraced the child as her own, even though they did send the kid off to live with a foster family pretty quickly. Oh so that's embracing. So she wasn't mad.

10:10 But there was also a little evidence that Sarah might have been having a little fun on the side as well, I mean. That's the whole that's fair whole arrangement, you know. But yeah, for the late eighteen hundred, so this is early Seattle. I'm sure it was scandalous. Yeah. So. In a letter from Sarah's good friend Eliza Woodard to Sarah Yessler, dated October seventh, eighteen sixty, Eliza congratulated Sarah on her success with a mister meigs. Hmmm, why, I am perfectly astonished. That's my accent for her. I don't know where she's from. I dig it. I'm with it.

10:52 Why, I am perfectly astonished and delighted at your daring boldness walk right into the affections of a man. I hope it isn't anything bad for I want to share in the spoils. And you know I wouldn't da r e if it wasn't modest. Old, Well, Sarah, I'll talk rational. You are the most bewitching little muggins I know of. If only I had hold of you, I would squeeze you for half an hour. Yeah, you know, I'm starting to pick up on the spicy. Yeah you were mentioning. I mean, yeah, it sounds a little scumble.

11:33 Yeah, it was like, oh yeah, No, honestly, I was just gonna say, like, do I smell a thrubble? I don't know. I mean, it gets spicier. But who is this mysterious mister Meigs? Good question. Well, luckily I have a subscription to newspapers dot com and we have historylink dot org. Thank you for your work historylink dot org. So George Anson Meegs was another Pacific Northwest titan of industry. He owned Blake Island, He built a large sawmill at Port Madison on Bainbridge Island, and he also built the very first foundry in Seattle. So it makes sense that Sarah might have been rubbing elbows with this man, given her own husband's prominence in Seattle.

12:20 But who's to say what his relationship with Sarah really was. We can only speculate, and I like to speculate. Let's speculate. So, oh, by the way, Blake Island, after ga Meagus stripped it of all of its profitable timber, he stopped paying his property taxes to King County, and so they had to forgive him two thousand dollars worth of back property taxes, which was around seventy six thousand dollars today. So that they didn't have to repossess it, but then the bank that held mortgages had to foreclose on him and take possess to know the island, So you know, good job, dude.

13:03 Wow, So he's a real dick. Yeah, you know, I'm like kind of finding that the early founders of Seattle had something in common, and that's that they did not like to pay their debts. Yeah, I mean that makes sense. I guess, like who wants to pay their bills, but like the rest of us do. So I'm just saying. The rich ones didn't, right, That's he's man. He walked so the elon could run, right, you know, bezos literally also from Seattle. All right, So the most spicy, juicy and scandalous evidence of Sarah's possible secret love life comes from two earlier letters that same year from Eliza. So Sarah would often sail down to San Francisco to take a water cue, which was just hydrotherapy. It was very, very big in the eighteen hundreds, and it was offered by Eliza's husband and oh, we will get to him later. So these letters appear to be shortly after one of Sarah's San Francisco trips and hint at a deeper and more personal relationship between the two ladies. In one letter, Eliza exclaims, oh, Sarah, I wish to stay so much and could not say anything.

14:27 I want to sleep with you again. Wow, that's the real Samford. Yeah, co Tree, good one. Damn Yeah. It just keeps getting spicier. Yes, and here's one more. At the close of another letter about a month later, Eliza writes, I would like to step into your bathing room tonight and take an abolution, and you might shower me too, and I would not squeal so bad. I would like to tell you how I spanked the captain last night, but have time now. Sorry, I don't think that that's actually like an then you window listen.

15:09 That was spicy for the time though. She would talk about this this Captain and a lot of the letters, and she did refer to spanking people a lot, like for some reason the eighteen hundreds, people really like to spank their friends. I don't know, but did they or did she? When in this context, when you say I would like to tell you how I spanked the captain last night, but having time now, it does sound rather filthy. It does that's what. I'm gonna call it from now on, right. I'm gonna go spank the captain, if you know what I mean. Fill a little tense. I need to spank the captain.

15:54 Oh my god, I call him Blackbeard the Captain. Oh okay, Okay, Joni's gonna be so upset that she missed this. She loves that sort of stuff. Okay. Now, this is all open to interpretation. Some authors and historians have taken these letters in their close relationship as a possible sexual one like me, Yeah, but just because I want to h Yeah, I mean shipping ragged. But others are of the opinion that we might not be taking differences in how friends spoke to each other back in the day.

16:43 I do think that was more common with female friends in particular. Yeah, and it was common for female friends to share beds at the time. And because Eliza and her husband operated a water cure therapy clinic, it's very possible and not out of the question that Eliza and Sarah would have bathed together, and not even in a sexual way. Yeah, yeah, I like the to imagine the spicy version though. Listen, I'm just working with the information that I have presented, and I'm. Saying a raise of the eyebrow to you, good sir, exactly. Yeah. Now, we've talked a bit about the free love movement and a few characters in that story here in the Pacific Northwest. But how does this tie into the early feminist movement? But that's why we've brought miss Eliza and Woodard Heard into our story. She was breaking hearts, breaking rules, and maybe breaking a few corset laces. And while we catch our breath, let's hear from our sponsors.

17:48 I love it, so welcome back. If you want to add free episodes, bonus content, free March, and Flawless Skin. Because supporting us moisturizes your soul and your face, please consider subscribing to us either on Patreon or via the Spreaker Supporters Club. You can head to randydayrabbit holes dot com, forward slash support for links and more information. Excellent. Well, I am here with Caitlin from the PNW Haunts and Homicides podcast and we were about to talk about how free love, feminism, and the Pacific Northwest are intertwined.

18:30 Ah a beautiful baby. So Eliza Ann woodard Heard migrated to the Pacific northwest via the Oregon Trail with her family in the summer of eighteen fifty two, when Eliza was just eighteen years old. I mean, actually I say just but at that point eighteen years old, like you are. She's practically an old maid, right. Yeah, And by early eighteen fifty three they had settled in Olympia, Washington. She married Jane Heard in eighteen fifty five, a respected market owner in Olympia who had one of the largest meat packing businesses in the area. Well, hello, and that's not an innuindo to anything else. They just packed me unfortunately. I mean I was really hoping we could go somewhere with that one.

19:17 Hey, we can take this wherever we That's right. I'm sure there was some meatpacking bag in those days. Right. He's like an old timey mister big. He had meatpackers working for him as far away as eastern Washington. He also employed someone you might have heard of, Nisqually Chief Leshi. Okay, well, I'm not sure if I can totally place it, but it sounds very, very familiar. Well, Leshie is a community in Seattle named after this chief. He was pretty well known in the early founding of Seattle, and he was accused of murder in eighteen fifty seven. And James heard testified in Leshie's defense during this murder trial.

20:00 And that's all I'll say about Leshi. I'll save that for another episode, Okay. So, unfortunately, James was attacked by a wild ox and killed in eighteen fifty seven, leaving it behind his wife an infant child. God damn. Yeah. The heartbroken Eliza turned to spiritualism to cope with her grief. She believed that she was able to contact her husband's spirit and took comfort from it. In a letter to Sarah, she writes, he lives. I know it because I feel it permeate my entire being. And if he lives, he still loves me and is cognizant of my thoughts, aspirations and whereabouts. Ah, peaceful thought, What comfort it brings to my yearning soul. Oh yeah, I know, I'm like a little cheery. She was a beautiful writer.

20:46 After her husband died, she wrote this full page poem about her grief to Sarah that like, I would not be able to read on this podcast because I would just ball like a little baby. You just cry. Yeah. So she actually was a beautiful writer. In eighteen fifty one, while visiting family in Santa Cruz, California, she developed connections in the spiritualist community. From then on, she regularly communicated with the spirit world, took water cures, and adhered to a vegetarian diet, which was big with that community back then. Yeah, and you know what, they had me and then they lost me. And well I thought at first she said they had meat and then they lost meat, and I was like, oh, well, that's a weird way to refer to her husband.

21:31 Oh no, oh god, yeah, that works in multiple ways. Oh no. Her circle of spiritualist friends became very important to her, and she would often travel from Olympia to San Francisco to visit. In the same letter to Sarah, she writes, we will indeed try to be harmonious and happy, thereby be enabled to communicate with the unseen world. I fear my advantages for being developed as a medium will be very limited my friends here in the abc of the beautiful philosophy of spiritualism. So it sounds like she was maybe wanting to be a medium. She did speak several times about doing sciences where there was table tapping and some clairvoyance sleep. I'm not sure what that.

22:19 Is, neither am I to be honest. So she was, Yeah, she was definitely involved in the spiritualist community, which, interestingly enough, the spiritualist community had a lot of women's suffrage in it because it was something and that was what I was going to get into further and here before I ran out of time. Yeah, so I'll just touch briefly on it here. So spiritualism was important in the women's suffrage movement because a lot of women were mediums and would work in giving sciences and that sort of thing, and so it gave women a way to have some income and some power, right, And so that was one of the big reasons why a lot of suffrages would do that. Now, unfortunately, a lot of women were still being taken advantage of by men in that by and I'm saying by oh, fathers and husbands basically like spiritualists pimping out their wives and children to do this. Like Victoria Woodhall, that's how she started.

23:26 Her dad was forcing her and I'm not forcing they like to do it, but he would starve them so that they would look more wafy and have them go hold seances and fully helped them grift people through this. Wow, you'd have to starve me for me to look wafy. Yeah, my wafe days are far behind me, like forty years behind me. Wafy. I never knew her. So Early in eighteen sixty, a man by the name of Charles Henry D. Wolfe was a popular lecture in San Francisco, holding forth about the wonders of phrenology and accompanying sciences. If you're not familiar, phrenology is the pseudoscience that involves measuring the skulls bumps to predict a person's mental traits and personality. Very popular in the nineteenth century, and it was also quite racist.

24:23 Yes, I was gonna say, oh that old. Jem Yes, yes, And Charles Henry fancied himself a doctor of this science. Oh excellent. Now, of course, back in those days it was pretty easy to call yourself a doctor without any credentials. I was gonna say, you know what, I've always felt like, you know, I should just self nominate. You know, well, people can check on things nowadays. Yeah, they didn't have Google back then to look up your credentials. And also, you know, given that phrenology isn't actually a science. You can feel free to make up whatever crap you want about it and call yourself a doctor of it, and people will as long as you got confidence, man, you can do it.

25:11 I mean, it's that charis exactly. It's classic cult leader stuff. Here. Why I say I could always be a cult leader? Oh maybe I could doctor too of some made up your leader. It kind of sounds like, you know, when you're a kid and you're like, I want to be Like actually, I was listening to another show where they were talking about he wanted to be a lawyer slash wrestler, so he would be a daytime wrestler, a nighttime lawyer, so always seeking justice. It sounds like it sounds like that, kind of like a superhero by day. You know. Yeah, I don't think this guy was superhero in anyway.

25:54 No, No, only if it was you, oh it was me. You know, I would be a doctor of essential because I used to. I went through a real crunchy phase when I was in my thirties where I was like, everything's bad for you except for essential ills, and you should just put them on everything. And I got over that. I gave myself ezema because I, oh no, I was putting it raw on my face, like undiluted, and I got this huge abscess on the side of my cheek that was literally weeping, and I would not I was like refusing to do anything except for book more essential oil ont and I finally was like, what am I doing and gave up on that as special oils smell nice, and I think that's about all they really do. But I do know a lot about what people say they do, so I could be a doctor of essential oils and I could actually sound like I know what I'm talking about.

26:50 People would believe me. And you know what, thanks to Dotera, that really is like still doctor Colt, right, Doctor Colt. The pseudoscience is strong with these ones. Yes, Oh my gosh, it's wild. I love essential oils too. There's a lot of stuff that I'm like, hey, listen, though there's not science. Yeah, you know, and when people say that it can cure like real diseases, and then people don't seek treatment for their cancer because somebody has told them that they just need to, like I don't know, put coffee up there butt and then use essential oils and then they die.

27:31 And I think that that's right, criminal it for sure. Yes, yeah, I think essential oil I have. I use essential oils all the time. We have a diffuser in our studio. They smell amazing. I put them in my laundry because they smell great, and I feel like essential oil smells don't give me headaches like fake smells do, and putting it in like my laundry doesn't irritate my skin like you know, like all the chemical stuff does. But they also still are chemicals, people like, don't fool yourself. Chemicals are just the makeup of life. Everything is a chemical. Water is a chemical. Yes, yeah, I mean chemical has gotten a real bad rap as it.

28:11 But you can't live chemical free because you wouldn't be living. I mean you literally can't, just because it's already it's in the water. You are chemicals. Yeah anyway, Okay, I could go on and on, I could rant over. Oh okay. So Charles Henry had lived in Old Town, Maine in the eighteen forties and fifties, and he considered himself a preacher, among other things, but more of a do what I say, not what I do kind of spiritual leader. Because he was eventually chased out of town after a scandalous tryst with an unmarried young woman. Fantastic, So yeah, good job, preacher.

28:56 So he began publishing, lecturing, and organizing for reform groups across the country. Now it didn't mention what kind, but then there was a mention that he was traveling with a free love enclave by this time, so I think it was freelove reform groups, or maybe marriage reform or something like that. And in eighteen sixty his sixteen year old daughter had grown really fond of San Francisco and refused to leave, so he settled in. To make a name for himself, so he traveled throughout northern California, Oregon, and Washington giving lectures, although many towns rebuked his presence. There was a two page article in a newspaper and I'm gonna. Just cliff notes, I'm just gonna.

29:38 Read like my favorite little part about the in this. It was in a newspaper in Salem, Oregon, stating beware of the fell Destroyer. This he wolf in sheep's clothing, whose only object is to seek out victims on whom to satiate the brutal lusts of his corrupted and extremely violated carcass whoa tell us tell you he really feel, Sailor Morgan, seriously, don't hold back. Doctor C. H. De wolf is an inflated montebank. Whatever that is sounds bad, wow, a thorough going rotten heart and hypocrite, a miserable, low bred self abandoned and letitious, profligate, and an internet libertine.

30:21 I'm very scandalized, too unfit to run at large amount his own kind, and utterly unworthy the appellation of a man. I didn't understand most of that, but it sounds bad. I mean, listen, through context, I am able to establish that he is not only bad, but he is not good. No, no, And it goes on further, calling him more names, speaking of his demeanor and actions, especially with some of the ladies in town. But you get the point. I mean, I think, so I'm interested, so I'll need the leak. But yeah, I know, we're like, I want to know more about him.

31:03 So. Eliza first mentions doctor de Wolfe in eighteen sixty one in a letter to Sarah, saying that she had received a letter from him announcing that he had arrived in Portland and would be in Olympia within five weeks. It is most likely that she met him on one of her trips to Santa Cruz or San Francisco. In May of eighteen sixty two, doctor de Wolfe arrived in Olympia, where he presented a public lecture on the vegetarian diet. And like we said, vegetarianism was also connected with social reform movements such as temperance and individualism. So vegetarianism was also called a plane diet. And oh interesting it was meant to I think, like doctor Kellogg had a whole thing about a plane diet.

31:49 I was gonna say, it sounds yeah, port yeah, in that same vein, just like, don't eat anything that could be exciting. Yes, literally the word I was looking for exciting. I mean I would argue appetizing. Right, it might caust you to masturbate after all, right. Yeah, I mean you can't have too much excitement. You might start touching yourself. I'm like, that's my favorite part about corn flakes is that it was made to keep people from touching themselves. Yeah, oh is this one a bad touch? Is that elbow? Okay?

32:30 I don't know. Some people are into that. You're too saucy. We're gonna get kicked off the radio with the elbow touching the radio. Yeah, this is the way. We are not swearing on this podcast because we are on the radio. Oh, I wish you'd told me that earlier. You haven't said anything as far as I remember. Well, that's a nice job. Nice job's being temperateure. You must be a vegetarian. How dare you. Now? We don't have much to tell us the early story of Eliza's relationship with Charles Henry. It's possible that sparks flew upon their initial meeting and their fondness for each other grew through letters. But within a few weeks of him arriving in Olympia, the conjugal alliance and matrimonial co partnership of doctor C. Hdwolf and Eliza A. Hurd was announced in the Washington Standard.

33:26 Jesus Christ, What did they have to do? Take out a half page ad just for the title? Practically this started a chain of events that shocked and scandalized the Olympia community. Excellent. The couple were joined in their non traditional ceremony on Tuesday, May thirteenth. The announcement read, we the Undersigned hereby announced to the world that we have contracted a conjugal alliance and entered into a matrimonial co partnership, believing in the divine right of souls to dictate their own forms, and the inspiration of Mother Nature and Father God as being above custom. That was all in caps. That's why I said that way. And priestly ceremony, however long dignified by legal enactment and Christian dictation, those are all capitals.

34:15 My goodness. Honestly, I don't know what any of that meant, but but you know what sounds good. It's not important. What is important is that it's not going on right now, because that is probably a could I would join. Right the following Saturday evening, Eliza was get this seeing riding a horse through town. Get ready to clutch your pearls again. Bloomers, bloomers, I can't even so scandal. Clearly not sights at all, No as. No skirt, bloomers pants, pants on a woman?

34:55 Was that? Do you know? Was that illegal at that point? Because I mean, yeah, it was illegal to dress. It was illegal to cross stressed in many places. Wow. So now that was not only to keep women from dressing in men's clothing, but it was also to keep down the gay community. Well sure and yeah. Now, then on Monday morning, so this was Saturday evening that Eliza was seen riding a horse. They got married on Tuesday, and then Saturday she was riding a horse and Beato merse. And then on Monday morning the couple prepared to board a steamboat to Victoria and they were arrested. The couple appeared in front of Justice Bigelow on a charge of having attempted to unite I'm I'm.

35:43 Sorry, you said, Justice Bigelow. Bigelow like the keea like males. Oh sure, let's call him that. The couple appeared in front of Justice Jigglow on a charge I'm not a very good historian though, just does Bigelow, on a charge of having attempted to unite parties in the bond of matrimony without the authority of law. I didn't know that was a thing. So they pleaded not guilty. And in his own defense, Charles Henry claimed to be, along with a minister of the Gospel and a judge, a justice of the peace, and therefore qualified to marry himself everything.

36:28 Okay, man, it must be nice to just be a white man in eighteen hundreds, who can. Just make up whatever stuff you want. Honestly, it reminds me of that scene in the office where he's like. I declare by crops, right. Like, oh, so you think you just say it and then it becomes the truth. Right, Okay. So he then went on to breate the court, calling them sneaking, lying, pedaling, begging, lyrical sons of ahab oh, sickburn dude yeah, and drunken justices besotted judges. But their charges were sustained and the couple was released on bond by Eliza's father.

37:14 Oh okay, Daddy's got you. Yep, Daddy's got you. The next day, Charles was arrested again on Charles of fornication. Oh boy. Again he berated the court, stating that he would never, never, never be married by the law, that he would bow to no fawning, hypocritical, thieving priest, no drunken mercenary justice, nor corrupt judge for the senseless words I pronounced you, man and wife. My goodness, The judge had had enough and was too clever to be swayed by the pompous, in vain man in front of him, before he rendered his decision, Justice McGill said that he would like to ask the defendants a question that would influence his final decision.

38:00 He turned to Charles Henry and asked, do you consent to take this woman as your wedded wife, to which Charles replied I do. The judge then turned to Eliza. Do you consent to take this man as your lawful husband? She replied yes. Then the judge replied icily, by the power invested to me and in the presence of these witnesses, I pronounce you man and wife. You just got married. The cheeky judge had tricked the couple into getting married legally, thus ending the case, much to Charles Henry's rage. Oh my god. But what of Eliza's boldness and daring to traps about town and wearing only bloomers, Well not only bloomers. She was fully dressed, but no skirt over her bloomers. The Washington Standard posted an editorial chiding her for her boldness.

38:51 The good people of our town were not a little shocked on Saturday evening last to witness a woman dressed in men's apparel. Further in the exhibition referred to, she showed that she was but a weak, silly woman. Determination is sometimes mistaken for strong mindedness. Okay, rude, Yeah. However, Eliza's chosen apparel of pants was considered a protest, inspired by women like Amelia Bloomer, an early women's rights advocate. She also advocated for dress reform, stating, let men be compelled to wear our dress for a while, and we should soon hear them advocating for a change.

39:32 Oh my god, a woman after my own heart. Honestly so. Eliza and her new husband moved to Victoria established a bathhouse and water cure clinic. The couple continued to make waves and bring criticism down on their heads. In June of eighteen sixty three, the comedian John Wood passed away under the care of the erstwhile doctor, apparently from an overdose of lobelia, a poisonous plant that was sometimes used nineteenth century cures, but had been pretty much discontinued in the medical establishment at this point. And I think we know why. Yeah. De Wolf had many professional claims without the bonafides to back them up. He was unable to provide a diploma for the jury, and other physicians testify that his treatment was unusual and improper. De wolf was true to form, sarcastic and belligerent. During his trial, he claimed that mister Wood was responsible for his own death as he was not honest with how much alcohol he regularly consumed, so it was his fault.

40:34 Wow, I'm feeling very attacked right now. I'm gonna go ahead and just take a little sippy sip, you know, helps some medicine go down. I need a little liquid courage. So at this point it seemed prudent for the couple to get out of Dodge. They relocated to the Bay Area. In eighteen sixty five. Doctor de Wolfe was still lecturing now along with phrenology, dress reform, marriage and divorce, and his wife and daughter, Ella began to assist him in these lectures. Eliza became more and more involved in the growing woman's suffrage movement. In eighteen sixty three, San Francisco outlawed cross dressing. Eliza ramped up her dress reform lectures, and then in eighteen sixty six she began publicly demonstrating while wearing bloomers. She strolled down the streets of San Francisco, boldly wearing what was considered men's attire and was later arrested. These public demonstrations were soon local gossip and regional newspapers as far away as Olympia were reporting on the scandal. Eliza was not deterred. Love this woman, I know, good for her.

41:40 Dress reform was an integral part of nineteenth century women's suffrages. The bloomer movement was sparked by the October eighteen forty nine issue of the Water Cure Journal, which is interesting because her and her husband had a water cure clinic. Yeah, so they must have gotten that journal, urging women to develop a healthier style of dress that represented unrestricted movement. So styles yeah. Styles at the time included heavy floorlink skirts, multiple layers of stiffed and starched petticoats that would have either horsehair or straw woven into the bottom, and of course, whale's bone corsets. Good god. By the early eighteen fifties, women began sporting versions of the Turkish dress throughout the country, a shorter skirt worn over bloomers. This clear challenge to the established gender roles and power structures threatened men everywhere. Oh Oh my gosh, uppity women her ankles, We could see her legs kind of sort of all the humanity. Bloomers became a symbol of women's rights. Even Susan B. Anthony adopted the new form of dress, calling it the Freedom Dress. Eliza continued to wear her bloomers and became more and more involved with a women's suffrage movement. She was inspired by women like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull, who was also the first woman to run for president, and I think we're going to have to do a little bonus episode on her. So she ran for president well before women even had the right to vote. She was arrested for

43:11 voting for herself too. The d Wolfs moved to San Diego, where Eliza beegame an officer for the San Diego Suffrage Society. Charles Henry passed from a stroke in eighteen sixty nine, but Eliza continued her work. In eighteen seventy two, she addressed the California judicial community with a party of delegates from the California Suffrage Society. She moved back to Santa Cruz in the eighteen seventies to be closer to her family, and operated a bookstore there in the eighteen seventies and eighties and still worked in the women's suffrage movement. Unfortunately, she passed away in nineteen oh eight, three years before women achieved the right to vote in California. The road to suffrage in the Pacific Northwest was a long and arduous journey. Arthur Dinny attempted to give white women the vote in eighteen fifty four, but failed. Susan B. Anthony toured the region in eighteen seventy one, but was met with critics who felt that giving the vote to women would undermine their domestic supremacy and moral values.

44:11 Uh. Yeah, you're going to be too busy voting to clean the house. Yeah. Honestly, I'm just so sad that all I have is the two middle fingers. You know. I thought only I could flip you off of my toe to I train. Yeah exactly. But despite these challenges, Washington became the third territory in the United States to approve women's suffrage in eighteen eighty three. For a few glorious years, women were able to have their voices heard through their ballots. Unfortunately, the powerful saloon lobby pressured the courts to find the suffrage law unconstitutional, and they lost it in eighteen eighty seven, the women went back to work, and the state Constitution was amended to guarantee women's suffrage in nineteen ten. The Nineteenth Amendment was passed in the United States in nineteen twenty, a step on the path towards equal rights and full participation in all aspects of life. Now, I love the story of Eliza Ann Woodard de Wolf because it gives us a peek into the life of an unconventional and extraordinary woman. She was fiercely individual to the end of her life. She paints a picture of what early women's suffrage look like in the Pacific Northwest, and her fearlessness and unapologetic way she lived her life should be an inspiration to all women to Despite her maybe poor taste, yeah.

45:33 I mean, hey, listen, a lot of great women that have horrific taste in men, and yeah, other things. But he also was a champion of women's rights and dress reform and women's suffrage, So he wasn't all bad. And that's your right to choose terrible, terrible men. And she believed in free love that it was her right to choose this terrible man. I mean, do you boo, yep? I hope we can celebrate more Pacific Northwest women like her in the future. And I want to thank Bethany K. Matthews, whose two zigons on Eliza Ann Woodard heard were basically all of my resources for this episode, because there's nothing else out there about her. So thank you, Bethany, and thank you to my wonderful guest Caitlin for joining me on this ride. I appreciate you being here.

46:21 Oh my goodness, this was such a blast. No, thank you for having me. You're an excellent guest, and I really do hope that I can have you back again because this was really fun. You're going to have to be my pitch hitter for the future. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to talk about the first lady who ran for president and then got arrested. If I don't get a call, I'm going to be upset. Well. Thank you again, and listeners, remember you can go to PMW Haunts and Homicides dot com to find links to their show, and again, you can always find those links and links to all the other Umbrella podcasts collective members at raindydayerrabbit Holes dot com, forward Slash Umbrella. Make sure to go listen to PMW Haunts and Homicides and make sure you give them a good review on Apple Podcasts and you can give them a five star review on Spotify. We'll have you on again because this was a deep light. So everyone, if you want to hear more of Caitlin, if you listen to their podcast and then also tell me if you want to hear more of Caitlin on our podcast.

47:23 Yeah, and please tell her that you do. Thank you so much and we will see you next time. See you down