The story begins with a family on Marrs Island, Nova Scotia, March, 1873. The Clancy's have lived on the protected side of the island for three generations. Sarah Jane's husband, John O'Reilly fished with her father and uncle.
On April 1, 1873, Sarah Jane heard a strange noise, saw flares in the night sky across the island, and awakened her father, Michael, telling him people were in trouble. As he set out, he came across a man on the path, frozen and delirious. Michael sent a man to get help as bigger boats were needed for the open sea.
At dawn, the bigger boats arrived from Upper Prospect and Terence Bay. The men battled the sea, saving the survivors. The dead they piled on the granite rocks of Ryan's Island. It came to be called "the Hill of Death".
When Captain Williams tried to identify the dead, he was stunned to find that one young sailor who looked like a boy, was a woman. No one knew who she was or how she came to be on the S.S. Atlantic.
But nine months earlier, in June of 1872, in Trenton, New Jersey, Cicely offers Margaret her father's old clothing. Using the name Billy, she took the 4:25 AM train to Jersey City, then the ferry to New York.
In New York City, Billy was hired on by the captain of the S.S. Hutton. It sailed out of New York on July 1, 1872, with Billy as the Engineer's Steward. Finding Billy a good worker, the captain asked her to stay on to China, but Billy was intent on travelling only as far as England. Despite feeling self-conscious in her father's clothing, Billy liked how she was treated when dressed as a man.
In London, Billy left the ship, stayed at the Sailors' Home Boarding House, and purchased sailor clothes and oilskins. While there, Billy saw many injustices but also how women were agitating for social change. To earn money to return to New York, Billy signed on to the Eskdale which was sailing to Genoa, Italy.
On the trip, Billy was bullied by another sailor. She tried to avoid the man as much as possible but eventually Billy decided to fight back. The result was her identity as a woman was discovered by the captain's wife. Margaret admitted to the captain and his wife that she was Maggie Armstrong but that when she wore "pantaloons" she called herself Billy.
Maggie's sailor chest, clothes and oilskins that she'd purchased were confiscated and she was forced to dress in women's clothing.
In Aberdeen, Scotland, Maggie was reprimanded by the judge who ordered her to return to New York in the steerage class on the S.S. Victoria. She was told if she returned she would be jailed. On the Victoria, Margaret met Ralph Keeler, a reporter for the New York Tribune. Margaret told Keeler about her life growing up on her family's farm in New Jersey, how she began wearing her brother's clothing when she was nine-years-old, her mother's Quaker activism for social reform, her brother Jame's death during the Civil War and how his death led to their mother's early death as well.
Keeler and Margaret disembarked at Castle Gardens: he told her to seek support at Harry Hill's Concert Saloon. There Margaret dressed and lived as Bill. But she missed the sea, so she returned, working on the S.S. Atlantic, a passenger liner owned by the White Star Line. It would be Margaret/Bill's last journey at sea.
Discussion
Author Lynette Richards has crafted an engaging fictional account of the life of Margaret Armstrong, set against the tragedy of the sinking of the passenger liner, the S.S. Atlantic in 1873. Margaret, a young Dutch New Jersey woman who was able to pass herself off as a male sailor in the late 1800's. Richards, using the graphic novel format, pieces together Margaret's unusual life and her tragic death from primary sources from the Aberdeen Journal, the New York Tribune and the Halifax Chronicle, . Some of these sources are included in novel's illustrations.
The Aberdeen Journal's article mentions a Margaret Armstrong, from New Jersey, who dressed as a sailor, called herself Bill and was exposed as a young woman by the wife of the captain of the Eskdale which sailed from Aberdeen to Spain. Ralph Keeler's article in the New York Tribune also describes a young woman who calls herself Maggie Armstrong except when she wears pantaloons and is then called Billy. Maggie was hired on to the Eskdale to travel to Genoa Italy but was exposed as a woman after a fight with one of the men. Then comes the article in the Halifax Chronicle after the sinking of the Atlantic and the discovery that one of the young sailors was in fact, a young woman. As Emily Burton Rocha indicates in her informative introduction, its likely the woman described in these three articles, penned within a matter of months in 1873, is the same person.
Ralph Keeler, author of the Tribune article, is himself an interesting character: he worked in minstrel shows, dressed as a woman and did Black face. So it's not surprising that he would have been interested in the unconventional Margaret Armstrong and want to interview and write about her.
Call Me Bill is a story of resilience, grit and determination. Margaret Armstrong was a woman who felt constrained by the social norms and expectations placed on women in this era. Dressing as a man, gave Margaret the opportunity to be treated better (something she readily noticed) and to support herself - an option that was not common at this time for women. The expectation was that a woman marry. A sailor's life was hard, but it also offered the opportunity to see the world and a measure of freedom that Margaret would never have had living on a farm in New Jersey.
Richards who serves on the Board of Directors of the S.S. Atlantic Heritage Park and Society, frames Margaret's story with the sinking of the Atlantic. In her Author's Note, Richards writes, "I set out to tell the true story of the SS Atlantic wreck and the heroic rescue through the lens of the mysterious 'female sailor'. Newspapers provided facts, but did not, could not, recount the substance of the person. I recognized myself in this person, and I suspect many readers will too. This story presents the opportunity to explore identity, courage, and the radical imagination of a young person who took huge risks to occupy space that others would have had difficulty imagining."
Although she wrote a long version of this story, Richards decided to use the graphic novel format, "...to activate readers' interest and imaginations around th eimportant history of the SS Atlantic, and the heroic efforts of local Nova Scotian villagers." Her beautiful panels were rendered in grey watercolour washes which she references in her Author's Note.
Call Me Bill is well-written, interesting and beautifully illustrated. A must-read for those who love graphic novels, unusual historical figures, and Canadian history.
Book Details:
Call Me Bill by Lynette Richards
Wolfville, Nova Scotia: Conundrum Press 2022
96 pp.
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