AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 358, 20 May 1884, Page 5

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

I ■*" A telegram to the ' New York Herald' from .Winchester, Va., says : " One of the best-known women of the Shenandoah "Valley has turned out to be a man. Elizabeth Rebecca Payne, the alleged daughter of the lati Joseph Payne, who lived seven miles • rom here, and who for thirty-eight years has appeared as a woman, suddenly avowed herself, a few days ago, to be a man, and startled James P. Reilly, Clerk of the County Court, by applying for a . license to marry Miss ■ Hinton, who had resided in the Payne family as a domestic. This young woman fired the heart of Mr Payne with such passion as to compel him to throw off the habit of a lifetime and declare his sex. He is forty ( years old and prepossessing;. The strange affair has caused a decided sensation in the Shenandoah Valley, and nothing else is talked about. Payne is said to have appeared in this world as a female and was brought up as such. No one ever questioned his sex, and his own avowal of masculinity astonished tb.3 comunity. Elizabeth Rebecca Payne was one of a family of five or six daughters. He was brought up as a woman and was admitted into -the best society in company with other j members of the family, He was always regarded as a ■ maculine girl, but no one ever suspected that he was a man. He was a most graceful and dashing horse rider, and always challanged admiration as he frequently rode into Winchester with his habit and .■•somewhat long hair trailing in the wind. In addition to good birth and inherited acres he developed remarkable business talent for a woman when reverses in the family-fortune rendered it necessary for some one to put the shoulder to the wiieel. His sisters were distinguished for fy' their culture and personal cli arms, aud several of them married prominent gentlemen. Kebecca Payne devoted himself to the management of the farm and to supervising the store, which he had established at Rest, where he also held the appointment of postmistress. He also dealt in cattle and horses and became an expert in that \vaj r . All his enterprises prospered and he has acquired considerable -.wealth. Determining to marry, he threw of his dresses and applied for a license from the Court at Winchester, but the astonished clerk, who like everybody else, knew him as a .woman, declined to issue a license for a woman to many a woman, when Payne proved his real sex by producing a certificate from Dr li. W. Maguire of Winchester; - The license was still refused, on the ground that tbe Virginia law compels a man to have given a name which shall know his : sex, ! "before he can act as a man in the eye of tlie law. Payne then determined to have his name changed at the march term of 'the? •'■Circuit Court as soon as it meets. Payne and' Miss Hinton have not only-been associated together in business, but have lived together for; years in the closest intimacy, working,- -"eating, and sleeping together, ' without -the slightest suspicion that they belonged to Opposite sexes. Some indignation was at first expressed among their neighbours over the present discovery, but it has been removed by the explanations of the medical attendants."