In 1845, something happened in Clarksville, Tennessee, that resulted in a piece in the June 10 issue of the Clarksville Weekly Chronicle that was reprinted in periodicals across the United States, often under titles containing variations of the word “strange.” In brief, “A Strange Adventure” involves a young person from what appears to have been a prominent family near Nashville, Tennessee, moving to Clarksville as a young man named Aaron Brown and then being identified as female before being taken away by a family member.

It’s an interesting piece in a lot of ways. It’s about gender in mid-nineteenth century America and how it was perceived. It gives us a glimpse of what appears to be a dysfunctional family. And it stumbles down the very well-worn path of asserting that reading novels could cause women to lose their minds.

Stylistically, the article wobbles from a clickbaity opening to a tsking close. The introduction by the Chronicle’s editors protests that they have only the best intentions in drawing public attention to the incident, publishing the piece “not to gratify any inordinate thirst for the novel and exciting, but rather to vindicate the name and protect the feelings of a respectable family. Reports, alike prejudicial and unfounded, have probably gone out, which may be best contradicted by an authentic statement of facts as they transpired.”

It’s an interesting performance. A paragraph of psychological analysis is followed by Aaron’s entrance into Clarksville and an editorial shift to jokiness, as the “personage in the garb of a man” is described in terms often employed to refer to young women: “[d]ark flowing locks, lustrous and languid black eyes, and sunny smiles dimpling upon the cheek”. Pronouns are emphasized by italics and used as wisecracks. Aaron’s ignorance that Aaron Brown was a prominent politician (having served Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives, Aaron V. Brown was then running for governor of Tennessee) is played for chuckles; and the attempt to find work as a tailor is a source of mockery: Aaron is incompetent, as a tailor and—because townspeople identified Aaron as female from the beginning—as a young man. Why doesn’t Aaron remove the jacket? Probably because body shape would be revealed. Why not sit on the bench? Tailors sat cross-legged at that time, a posture that wouldn’t have been habitual with Aaron, who thus would have been exposed as not an actual tailor; also, body shape could have been revealed. Aaron’s inability to handle the heavy fabric from which men’s suits were made is more probably due to a lack of experience in tailoring; the assumption that it was similar to shirt-making may have been a common one.

Having stereotyped Aaron’s feminine aspects, the author then stereotypes the pursuing father, who is presented as the long-suffering patriarch of melodrama; and Aaron becomes an ingrate, spouting defiance in a note and hiding from a loving father. The family’s respectability is emphasized; Aaron’s willfulness is thus reinforced. That the father is so readily recognized as “a highly respectable old gentleman residing near Nashville” hints that the family is prominent—and thereby steers public attention onto every prominent family near Nashville.

By now the authorial jokiness has shifted to ambivalence. Aaron’s story has inspired a citizen of Clarksville to become a protector, hiding Aaron from pursuers, and the author of the piece has stopped mocking. After Aaron is captured, the author shifts to presenting Aaron as insane, assuming that the father will take Aaron to a lunatic asylum. A paragraph sympathizes with the father and his “darling child,” so “passionate” about reading novels that it harms a family; and we’ve circled back to the theme of the first paragraph.

The piece was reprinted with variable accuracy in newspapers across the United States. The Schenectady Reflector ([Schenectady, New York] 4 July 1845; p. 1) was an early adopter, reprinting (most of) it as “Truth Stranger Than Fiction”—in keeping with the underlying theme of the effect of fiction on the female mind. The editor of the Reflector added punctuation, dropped a sentence, has Aaron arriving on the May 20 instead of May 29, and has curiosity on alert and gossip on tiptoe, instead of the other way around. The Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist ([Cincinnati, Ohio] 9 July 1845; p. 2) included a more accurate reprint of the Chronicle’s story.

It’s an interesting story leaving a reader with a lot of unanswered questions. What was going on in the family home, that inspired Aaron to flee? Whatever it was, a mere description of it persuaded a family to hide Aaron and fend off pursuers; and the father knew that the only way to get Aaron to come with him was to promise that the two wouldn’t be going home. Who was Aaron? a transman attempting to shape a new life? a young woman trying to escape something in her home life and traveling as a man for safety?

And, of course, did the incident actually happen? Perhaps: women have lived as men in every society, because they found it more freeing; because they found it safer; because they knew that they were structurally women, but actually men. That the piece appeared in a newspaper doesn’t imply that the write-up was truthful. Antebellum newspapers weren’t expected to be filled only with news and advertisements; even four-page, weekly newspapers were basically advertising circulars sprinkled with news and entertaining reading. “A Strange Adventure” is entertaining and gossipy and sort of newsy—a combination that other editors appreciated and reprinted, probably without caring whether it happened or not.