An 1897 Tale of Women's Liberation in Southeastern Kentucky

These two articles from the Mountain Echo, a Clay County, Kentucky newspaper, provide an unusual insight into the status of women in Southeastern Kentucky at the close of the 19th century:

Jan. 11, 1897

PROBABLY MURDERED HYDEN, KY.
This community is greatly excited over the disappearance
of Miss Polly Feltner, a young lady living about two miles
from this place across the mountain. January 2d she left
home telling her parents she was coming to town to spend
the week with the family of Mr.J.W. Johnson and would
return last Saturday evening, but she did not return and
Sunday her father came to town to see why she had failed
to return home, when to his surprise he found that she had
not been to Mr. Johnson's at any time during last week.
Her father then became alarmed and began a search. Her
hat and dress were found in the mountain pass between her
home and this place, and her underclothing was found still
further away from the road and nearer the mountain top,
her clothing was torn as if they had been torn off her. The
general supposition is that she has been murdered and the
body hid. Large numbers of men are in the mountains now
hunting for the body, She has been missing nine days.
Excitement is at fever heat over the matter.

Jan. 18, 1897

NOT MURDERED......BUT TURNED BOY!
The mystery of the disappearance of Miss Polly Feltner
has been cleared up. She was found on the head of a creek
called Leatherwood in Perry county, forty miles from here.
She became angry at her parents because they refused to
send her to Charlie Mutzenburg's writing school, and resolved
to leave home and friends, and on Saturday, January 2d she
left home going to the top of the mountain, where she had
previously prepared a suit of male attire, and in which she
clothed herself, then by following a torturous and unused
mountain path she avoided discovery until she had left the
immediate neighborhood. Stopping at a country store several
miles from home, she purchased a hat, pants and suspenders
and other things necessary to complete her masculine attire,
then going to the above named vicinity she found employment
under the name of Ray Feltner. When found by the searching party
she was busily engaged in clearing ground and splitting rails. She
positively refused to return under any circumstances, preferring
to cast her lot among strangers and pass her days acting the man.
She is the daughter of Louis Feltner, a well to do and highly respected
citizen of this county, and twenty one years of age, consequently
Mr. Feltner will not make any effort to get her to return, but let her
try the experiment of being a "farmer's boy."