True Life Tuesday: Kate Warne

March is Women's History Month so I am going to highlight some lesser known women in history. Kate Warne is known to be the first female detective in the United States.

Little is known about Kate Warne's early life. We do know that she was born in 1833 in Erin, New York. Her father was a minister and the family was fairly poor. She wanted to be an actress but her parents discouraged this idea. We also know that she was married at some point but was a widow by the age of 23.

In 1856 she walked into the office of Allen Pinkerton looking for a job. He originally told her that he did not need a secretary but she told him that she wanted to be a detective. She stated that she would be able to see and hear things a man could not because no one would suspect that a woman was a detective. Pinkerton agrees to hire her and she quickly became one of the company's leading investigators. 

One of the big cases she worked was in Montgomery, Alabama in 1859. She posed as a southern belle and befriended the wife of Nathan Maroney. She was able to get him to confess to embezzling money from the Adams Express Company.

In 1860 she was placed in charge of the Pinkerton's newly created Female Detective Bureau. Here she was in charge of recruiting and training new female detectives for the company. She would hold this position for the rest of her life. 

The most famous case Kate worked on was the failed 1861 assassination plot against then president-elect Abraham Lincoln. She once again went under cover and befriended the wives and sisters of the plotters. The Pinkerton group was able to sneak Lincoln out of the city of Baltimore before the plot could be carried out. They disguised him as an invalid and Kate posed as his sister and caregiver. 

Allen Pinkerton was a well know abolitionist. During the Civil War Kate again posed as a southern belle to gain information on the confederacy. She then passed this information onto Pinkerton who provided it to the union government. 

Unfortunately Kate did not live a very long life. She died from pneumonia on January 28, 1868 at either 34 or 35 years old. Allen Pinkerton was at her side when she died. He also paid for her to be buried in his family plot in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.