Murray H. Hall (1841 − January 16, 1901) was a New York City bail bondsman and Tammany Hall politician who became famous after he died from breast cancer in 1901. [1]
He was born in Govan, Scotland under the name "Mary Anderson" and with the assigned gender of "female". [2] At 16, he began wearing male attire and using the name "John Anderson". [3] Hall reportedly migrated to America after being reported to the police by his first wife and lived as a man for nearly 25 years, able to vote and to work as a politician at a time when women were denied such rights. [2] He also ran a commercial "intelligence office." [4] At the time of his death, he resided with his second wife and their adopted daughter. [2] His assigned sex had been a secret even to his own daughter and friends, who continued to respect his expression after death. After his death, an aide to a state senator remarked "If he was a woman he ought to have been born a man, for he lived and looked like one." [4]
His last home was an apartment in Greenwich Village, half a block north of the Jefferson Market Courthouse (now the Jefferson Market Library). [5] The building was renumbered in 1929, when Manhattan's Sixth Avenue was extended south, and is now 453 6th Avenue. The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project lists the building. [2]
Hall died from breast cancer, [2] treatment for which he seemed to have delayed for fear of exposing his assigned sex. [4] He was buried in women's clothes in an unmarked grave in Mount Olivet Cemetery. [2] [6]