Our New York Letter [Minnie Le Compte in 1867]

[…] Several hundred followers are the result of Brigham, junior’s European trip. A part of the band proceeded directly to Utah, the remainder staid to accompany their chief. With the latter party went one of our female Bohemian’s whose life-experience has been so unusual and varied that I feel tempted to sketch it for your readers. 

Miss Minnie Le Compte is a young lady of Canadian-French parentage, with highly respectable connections, but with an unquiet drop of blood in her veins derived from some dark haired Indian ancestress. Left an orphan at an early age, she was taken into the family of a wealthy uncle, a well-bred worshipper of the proprieties, who did his best to exterminate the savage in her, and did not make broader distinctions between her and his daughter of about the same age, than is usual in similar circumstances. On one occasion a couple of little boys – cousins – were visiting at the house, and during their absence one day the two girls took a fancy to see how they would look in jacket and pantaloons. As they were enjoying their metamorphosis they were discovered by pater familias, who administered a severe rebuke to his daughter, but locked Minnie in her room with the promise of a whipping, as soon as he should be disengaged and at liberty to attend to her. The drop of Indian blood was in revolt at once; Why should she be whipped and her cousin merely reprimanded? Clearly it was an injustice not to be borne, and attired as she was, she escaped from the window and rushed to the nearest depot. A train of cars was just getting under way – intent only upon escape, she sprang aboard, chuckling at the thought of her uncle’s blank face when he should unlock her room to administer the promised whipping. The young adventurer was at this time about ten years old, and with her olive complexion, dark eyes, and short hair, passed unchallenged for a very proper boy. The conductor supposing that she belonged to some one on the train, did not disturb her, and she, quite at her ease, looked out of the windows, strolled through the cars, and greatly enjoyed this her first experience as a traveler. To be sure, she had no hat, but that did not signify; the Indian ancestress had gone through life hatless, and the privation lay lightly on the head of her descendant. The cars were destined to Toronto, and brought up at town just as it was growing dark. Minnie was a little puzzled to where she was to get get her supper and sleep, for the small pantaloons pockets were empty, and offered no silver solution to the difficulty. But here, again the habits of the dead ancestress befriended her; fasting was not difficult; she would find a place to sleep, and supper could wait till a more convenient season. So she crept into an empty car, stretched herself on the sofa of the saloon, and slept soundly till morning. Then in good earnest came the question of what was to be done. She sauntered through the streets and looked about her. Some boys were yelling newspapers. Why could not she do that? ‘Where do you get them?’ she asked a boy about her own age who was just taking pay for his last copy. ‘Where do I get ’em? It’s none of your darned business;’ and with this piece of information he ran off to replenish his stock, Minnie following close upon his heels. ‘I want some too,’ she said to the man at the office, ‘I’ll pay you when I’ve sold them.’ ‘We don’t sell papers that way, young man; you can get some by paying for them when you take them.’ ‘But I have no money,’ said the imperturbable Minnie. ‘Then you can’t have the papers,’ and the man went about his work. But great is persistency. The incipient newsboy had no idea of leaving till furnished with a stock in trade, so he, or she, stayed and continued to stay till, to get rid of her, or to reward her capacity for holding on, half a dozen papers were furnished her with which she rushed into the street. They were soon disposed of; she returned, paid for them, and got more. Her career as a newsboy was then prosperously begun; it only remained to select a name and buy a hat, both of which she did speedily, and to her own entire satisfaction. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name, but from ten to fourteen she rejoiced in it, the jolliest of newsboys, foremost in their sports, a sturdy defender of their rights, an umpire in their quarrels. Her influence among them was unbounded, and the life altogether far more to her taste than the prim propriety of her uncle’s house. The secret of her sex had never yet been suspected, and so fully had she identified herself with the class to which she had attached herself to she seemed herself to have forgotten it. 

One day she encountered her uncle in the street, and could not resist the impulse to remind him of his unfulfilled promise. ‘Hallo, uncle! how’s about that whipping?’ The uncle’s feelings can be more easily imagined than described; but upon the whole, he behaved very well. He offered to take her home with him and resume his guardianship, on condition of her maintaining profound silence on the subject of her hegira and its remarkable experiences. But the free instincts of the dead ancestress had been too long dominant to be suppressed. The bird had appreciated the joy of wings, and had no idea of walking deliberately into a cage. A compromise was at length effected, she would not return to her uncle’s house, but she would resume female attire, and allow herself to be placed at school, her stay there to depend upon its agreeableness. To school she accordingly went, and applied herself with an energy and aptitude that was the delight of her teachers. She toned down perfectly, was amenable to rules, acquired accomplishments, and seemed in a fair way to become the model young lady of the establishment. But fate had decreed otherwise, and cut, or more strictly speaking, burnt off the thread of her school life, and converted her into a heroine all in an hour. On one of the mildest of November nights the fashionable educational establishment was discovered to be on fire. Minnie and several other young ladies were forgotten or overlooked in the confusion, and only awoke to a sense of their danger when the staircases were impassable, all the building below them a rattling furnace of smoke and flame, and their only chance of egress was through windows five stories from the ground, and destitute of ladders. 

The girls were frantic; some tore their hair; others shrieked; others were about to fling themselves headlong from the windows. 

‘Be quite, you great, scared babies, and listen to me,’ cried Minnie, stamping peremptorily, while a spark of true Indian fire flashed from her eyes, ‘I for one know how to roast if it comes to that, but we can all escape unhurt if you do as I bid you.’ She showed the best qualities of a general, courage, calmness, and readiness in adapting means to ends. Sheets and blankets were rapidly tied together, and one end made fast to a bedstead piled with mattresses inside. Then one after another of the terrified girls were blindfolded that they might not see the distance beneath them, and were then sternly admonished to ‘hold on,’ and were dispatched down the hastily constructed ladder, while their dark-eyed guardian angel watched anxiously above until they were safely landed among their friends below. Finding there were still some moments to spare, the intrepid general gathered up her personal effects, made a bundle of them, and threw them down; after which she proceeded to descend herself. The building was a ruin.[1] Minnie found that she had no inclination to enter another institution. She wrote to her uncle that she had ‘finished school and would like to travel. Would he send her the money? He might, if he liked, but if not it did not signify; she could do very well without.’ Much scandalized, that gentleman desired her to report herself at home. She declined, preferring to commence her travels at once. New York was a place worth seeing; she would go there. She came accordingly, and found on her arrival that she had only a few shillings in her purse. This circumstance, rather disconcerting to a common mind, seems to have had little effect upon her. She had come to see the city, and she saw it. Its length, breadth, public buildings, charities, schools and people. Its upper ten at a distance, its lower million more nearly. In the day time she sauntered about as whim or inclination led her, sometime strolling along the docks and talking with the seamen, at others gathering the children of the alleys and lumber yards about her and telling them stories. At night, with a policeman for escort, she investigated the Inferon [infernal?] side of the metropolis, and managed to spend one night in the Tombs ‘just for information.’ Wearying of New York, she concluded to go to Hayti, where she spent several months, and had adventures enough to fill a book. Among the things that she did while there was writing a series of very sprightly letters over the signature of ‘Gipsey,’ which appeared on one of the Cincinnati papers.[2] They were extensively copied, and gave graphic pictures of the political condition, social life, and dominant interests of Hayti. Returning North in the spring, she went to Cincinnati by the way of New Orleans and the Mississippi river. On the boat she met Lola Montez, in whose character and experiences she was much interested. Quite a romantic friendship sprung up between the two women, which lasted till Lola’s death. 

During a visit to Cincinnati in the spring of 1861, the ‘Gipsey’ was pointed out to me by a literary friend, and the above portion of her singular history told to me. I called on her shortly after, wishing to get a nearer view of so unusual a character. She lived by herself in a couple of rooms in an old frame house on Sixth street, the only occupant of the building besides herself an old woman nearly blind, and so deaf that it is extremely doubtful if she will hear the last trump. I exhausted my strength in knocking to no purpose, and was turning away in despair when the Gipsey herself touched me on the shoulder, with a polite ‘Do you wish to see me?’ Upon my answering in the affirmative, I was shown into a large, bare room, whose only furniture was a small coal stove, two chairs, a board resting on a couple of barrels, which served for a table, and numberless newspapers. She made no apologies, was as self-possessed and courteous as if she had been dispensing the hospitality of a mansion in Fifth avenue, while her conversation, so full of shrewd observations of men and things, so seasoned with wit and humor, with here and there a bunch of genuine pathos, soon made me oblivious of her surroundings, and conscious only of herself. She was not in the least pretty[,] her dress was plain to the verge of rudeness, but she had that undefined something about her, which for the want a better term, we denominate charm, and to a degree that I have rarely seen equalled. I left Cincinnati soon after, and lost sight of the Gipsey, though an occasional waif from her pen caught my eye in a newspaper. 

One day last fall a friend said to me, ‘Come in this evening, and I will introduce you to my character, the editress of “The Ladies Boudoir.”’ I smiled a little incredulously at the idea of the leader of a fashion paper doing ‘a character.’ ‘She knows of a number of things beside clothes’ he added, ‘and has a history.’ I went, and was introduced to Miss Minnie Le Compte. It was an astonishing transformation. Cinderella’s god-mother could hardly have effected a greater. But, despite the latest Paris fashions, trailing dress, unexceptionable chignon, and almost imperceptible bonnet, there were the unmistakable eyes and the bright resolute face. The ex-newsboy converted into a leader of the ton. She goes to Utah to collect material for a book. She will manage to have personal experiences enough to make an interesting one.

BURLEIGH

Notes: 

1, We have found a contemporary reference which differs from this account. Fire at the Cleveland Insitute ‘one young lady, Miss Minnie Le Compte, a Southern girl, was extensively spoken of as having been the chief among them all [ie those working to save the furniture]. She was at first very much terrified, but when the first shock was over she fastened herself in the rooms, one after the other and worked like a Trojan in throwing articles through the windows to the ground. She refused to leave her post of danger until carried off by force, and we then saw her going about collecting the scattered books, &c., and “making herself generally useful.”’ Cleveland Morning Leader, 9 April 1860. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83035143/1860-04-09/ed-1/?sp=3&q=Cleveland+Institute&r=0.098,1.091,0.374,0.148,0

The 1867 account has echoes of the escape from the Oxford Female Seminary (in Oxford, Ohio) in 1860 of Sarah/ Sally Moore. 

2, The Cincinnati Daily Press did have a female correspondent called ‘Gipsey’. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84028745/1861-12-05/ed-1/?sp=3&q=gipsey+&r=0.064,0.479,0.401,0.159,0 

From: Union the Daily Vedette. 30 August 1867. https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_union-the-daily-vedette_1867-08-30_8_48/