Early Life
She was born Elizabeth Bigley 10 October 1857 Eastwood, Ontario Her parents, Dan and Annie owned a small farm in Eastwood. She had three sisters: Alice, Mary, and Emily, and a brother, Bill. Her father worked for the Grand Trunk Railway as a section boss and was often away from the homestead.
“Betsy”, as she was known to her family, was known to daydream and tell fibs as a child.
At the age of 14, Chadwick went to Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. There she opened a bank account with a dubious letter of inheritance from an "unknown" uncle in England and a small amount of cash. While there, Chadwick passed several worthless cheques to various merchants. In 1870, she was arrested in Woodstock for forgery. She was released due to her age and on the grounds of insanity.
Following a three-year absence from Eastwood, she returned to discover her sister Alice had married Bill York, a carpenter from Cleveland, Ohio, in 1875. Alice had moved to Cleveland with her new husband. Chadwick promptly boarded a train and headed south for the United States of America.
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