Queer Places:
Butler, Illinois 62015

Ellis Glenn (born 1860) lived a life defined by elaborate deception, serial fraud, and gender-crossing aliases that captivated late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American newspapers. In the summer of 1899, Glenn arrived in the small town of Butler, Illinois, posing as a handsome and charming sewing machine salesman. Quickly establishing a prominent social standing, Glenn became a favorite among local society and successfully wooed Ella Dukes, the daughter of one of Butler's most respectable families. As wedding plans for that October progressed, Glenn was arrested several weeks prior to the ceremony and accused of forging a $4,000 check. Despite the serious charges, the Dukes remained fond of him, and Ella’s father even posted his bond to secure his release from jail.

Shortly after being freed, Glenn traveled to St. Louis under the pretense of purchasing wedding attire. Instead of returning to Butler, a letter arrived from a sender named T. H. Terry, claiming that Glenn had tragically drowned in the Mississippi River after falling off a wharfboat while bathing. Local law enforcement officials immediately grew suspicious, viewing the drowning story as a transparent scheme to evade an upcoming court trial. A brief investigation successfully tracked Glenn to Paducah, Kentucky, where he was found residing in a boarding house using the alias T. H. Terry. Extradited back to Illinois by the state attorney, Glenn entered a guilty plea to fraud charges at the county courthouse in Hillsboro.

The case took a bizarre turn upon Glenn’s admission to the Chester penitentiary in late November 1899, when prison wardens discovered that his physical body lacked male anatomical components. Confronted with this revelation, Glenn claimed he was not Ellis Glenn at all, but rather his twin sister, and asserted that the siblings had swapped places in Paducah. This extraordinary twist attracted the attention of authorities in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who linked him to an individual named Elbert or E. B. Glenn—a person bearing a striking physical resemblance to the Butler salesman—who had allegedly committed multiple forgeries in 1897. On the final day of July 1901, newspapers nationwide reported Glenn’s acquittal, a verdict reached because a jury could not reach a unanimous decision regarding his true legal identity.

Fewer than three months after the legal proceedings were dropped, Glenn surfaced in the news once again, this time facing new legal jeopardy in Lapeer, Michigan. Operating under male attire as a real estate agent, Glenn was accused of swindling money in a fraudulent land transaction in Clare County, Michigan. True to form, the ensuing trial concluded in November 1905 with a conviction, resulting in a sentence of one to ten years served in the Detroit House of Correction, sealing a remarkable legacy of identity manipulation and criminal enterprise.

References:


True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
by Emily Skidmore

Other references:

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