Calamity Jane

History 6 Minutes

Calamity Jane was born May 1, 1852 and to celebrate her birthday, I went searching for some interesting facts about her.

From the All That’s Interesting website comes the story of Calamity Jane:

The life of Calamity Jane may be more fiction than fact, but her story is enthralling either way.

In the hyper-masculine world of the Wild West, Calamity Jane could shoot, ride, and drink with the toughest cowboys of her day.

Growing Up on The Frontier

From the mix of tall tales and exaggerations that make up the life of Calamity Jane, facts are like the nuggets of gold in the west — rare. She herself published an autobiography in 1896 that most historians peg as trumped-up fiction, and most accounts of her life weave together legend and truth.

Still, there are a few parts of Calamity’s life that are mostly certain.

Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary (sometimes written as “Cannary”) in 1856 — though she claimed she was born in 1852 — near Princeton, Missouri, right on the Iowa border. It was nine years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Her father, Robert, was a farmer. Her mother, Charlotte, was by some accounts an illiterate prostitute whose husband tried to reform her.

In her book The Autobiography of Calamity Jane, Calamity claims to have been the oldest of five siblings, two brothers and three sisters, spending the better part of her Missouri childhood riding horses.

In the early 1860s, Canary’s family headed to Montana for gold. Her mother died in Blackfoot, Montana, possibly of pneumonia, and her father died soon after taking his children to Salt Lake City. It’s not clear what happened to her siblings, but by the time she was around 15 Canary was on her own.

She went to Piedmont, Wyoming, about 75 miles northeast of Salt Lake, where she worked at a boarding house and danced with soldiers at night. Though she later claimed to have spent her teens riding “many dangerous missions” in the American Indian Wars in Arizona — “I was considered the most reckless and daring rider and one of the best shots in the western country,” her autobiography reads — she most likely worked as a laundress, dancer, and prostitute along the Wyoming railroad.

Becoming Calamity Jane

How did Martha Jane Canary go from an orphaned prostitute to one of the most famous women in the Wild West? In Wyoming, she began to develop the identity that would make her famous as Calamity Jane.

Canary knew how to shoot, she liked to dress as a man (or perhaps more accurately, she refused to dress like women of the era), and, like men, she chewed tobacco and drank a lot of alcohol. That set her apart from her cohorts; she was reportedly one of the first white women to enter the Black Hills of South Dakota.

“The first place that attracted her attention,” according to one train captain who saw her there when she was 20 years old, “was a saloon, where she was soon made blind as a bat from looking through the bottom of a glass.”

Canary quickly gained notoriety in 1876 Deadwood, South Dakota, where she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Wild Bill Hickok. Her personality caught the attention of dime novel writer Edward Wheeler, who worked Calamity Jane into his popular stories as a Wild West heroine.

But how did Canary become Calamity Jane? The origin of the “Calamity Jane” moniker is, as with the rest of her life, unknown for certain. But there are a few of theories.

In the first, Martha Jane rescued a man from his horse during a raid by Native Americans. Shot by the Indians, Martha Jane pulled him onto her own steed. He said to her: “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.” In another version, it’s said that to offend Martha Jane was to “court calamity.”

Another is a bit simpler: Jane was a popular nickname for women in the Wild West (Lewis and Clark called Sacagawea “Jane”), and her life had been such a calamity.

In any case, the nickname stuck.

Calamity Jane’s Maybe-Romance with Wild Bill Hickok

A big element of Calamity Jane’s reputation today – and part of the reason she became famous in her own time — was her purported romance with American folk hero James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok.

In her 1896 autobiography, she calls Hickok her “friend,” and by 1902 she told the press he was her “affianced husband.” In 1941, a 68-year-old woman named Jean McCormick went on the CBS radio program We the People to announce that she was long-lost daughter of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, and she supposedly had a trove of handwritten letters from Calamity – and a marriage certificate between Calamity and Hickok — to prove it.

The real story? They may have been casual friends — they were both in Deadwood in 1876 — but in all likelihood Hickok and Calamity were never lovers.

In fact, Calamity only knew Hickok for six weeks before his murder at the Nuttal & Mann Salon in Deadwood. (Killed during a poker game, Bill held two aces and an eight, now called the “dead man’s hand.”) The marriage certificate and album of purported letters from Calamity to her daughter Jean were very likely made up by McCormick as a last-ditch effort to get some money and a few minutes of fame in the last years of her life.

Calamity also claimed to have married Clinton Burke in El Paso, Texas in 1885, and to have remained there until 1889. But news reports show she wasn’t even in Texas at that time.

More likely was that she married a man named Bill Steers in Wyoming, with whom she had two children: a boy who died in infancy, and a girl who lived into the 1960s.

Acts Of Bravery and Kindness

Calamity Jane has a tough reputation, but during her life she was known for her acts of kindness and bravery

Although the moniker of “Calamity Jane” evokes an image of a gunslinging, tobacco-spitting outlaw, much of Calamity’s reputation came from her bravery and good heart. Upon her return to Deadwood in 1895, after a 16-year absence, the Black Hills Daily Times wrote:

“She has always been known for her friendliness, generosity and happy cordial manner. It didn’t matter to her whether a person was rich or poor, white or black, or what their circumstances were, Calamity Jane was just the same to all. Her purse was always open to help a hungry fellow, and she was one of the first to proffer her help in cases of sickness, accidents or any distress.”

The story goes that when smallpox ravaged Deadwood in 1878, Calamity Jane cared for eight afflicted gold miners.

One man described her as “the last person to hold the head of and administer consolation to the troubled gambler or erstwhile bad man who was about to depart into the new country.”

Martha Jane Canary’s Late Life: Alcoholism and Death

Calamity Jane poses at Wild Bill’s grave. She would later be buried next to him.

English professor Margot Mifflin put it succinctly:

“[Calamity Jane] was the Courtney Love of her day: A talented pioneer in a man’s world, she was a chronic substance abuser prone to outrageous behavior and forever linked in the public mind to a dead man whose fame overshadowed her own.”

With the success of Wheeler’s Calamity Jane stories, Calamity supported herself by banking on her notoriety and selling photos of herself for extra cash. After publishing her 1896 autobiography — which Calamity, likely illiterate, recited to a scribe — she appeared in dime museum shows and rodeos, from Minneapolis to Buffalo, New York.

In 1903 she died near Deadwood of “inflammation of the bowels,” likely caused by alcoholism. She was only in her late 40s, but years of drinking made her look much older.

Calamity was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok. Why? The reasoning varies from the romantic (Calamity Jane died with his name on her lips) to the vengeful (his friends thought it’d be a funny prank). It could also be because she swore she married Hickok, even though every piece of evidence points to the contrary.

Calamity Jane: The Character

With so much misinformation surrounding the life of Calamity Jane, her persona has easily taken on a variety of forms in popular fiction. In the 1953 film Calamity Jane, Doris Day provided a G-rated, ted, light-hearted portrayal of the tough Calamity Jane — singing, dancing, and engaging in cheerful mischief.

In the TV series Deadwood, on the other hand, Calamity Jane, portrayed by Robin Weigert, is a tough, hard-drinking frontierswoman who can keep up with the boys.

Her life’s story, which Calamity herself happily confused with fiction, may never be fully known.

SOURCE: All That’s Interesting

Unknown's avatar

Published by pat frederick

Published

27 thoughts on “Calamity Jane”

    1. Morning, Pat! 61 here, sunny, with a few clouds here and there. Glad those nasty raccoons gave you a break today!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Morning Filly!
        hubby had the trap secured to the railing (and on a piece of plywood) because they will use their claws to scratch the deck trying to move the trap and get out. they have bent the metal door on the trap and the last one got one side of the top handle OFF…sigh
        anyway, this last one also shredded the rope hubby used to keep the trap stable.
        so he had to rig something else up yesterday. they are intelligent little things

        Liked by 2 people

        1. I haven’t seen my Pesky the Racoon today, but he has been terrorizing my Speckles. I’m enjoying following y’all’s conversation about the Trump show. And I liked the write-up about Calamity Jane.

          Like

        2. Two minutes after I said Pesky hadn’t showed, he appeared. I gave him the rest of the corn cob the chickens hadn’t eaten. I think it will satisfy him awhile.

          Like

    1. Personally, I’m not all in on this insistence on anonymity or punishing people simply because they expose someone’s real identity. I’ve always considered my “screen name” to be a true identifier since my real name is so common – there are tons of Judy Greens out there but I’ve not seen any other Nebraska Filly monikers. I’ve used that same screen name for many years expressly for that purpose – so people will know who it’s coming from. But, then, I’m not famous….perhaps if I ever became famous it might concern me? Nah! Mamma don’t GAS!!!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. well if the intent in releasing your name (and really we should scrub it form here imo) were to send people to your home to intimidate or harm you…then that’s wrong.
        and just because you disagree with his views on traditional family life?
        and there may be many women with your name–but you use NF–and you have the right to remain NF if you want to. these people exposed his real name (he was not using it) and his location. sorry…that’s not right.
        they are exposing not only him but his family to al sorts of lunatics.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’m not worried, Pat – I’m a nobody out here in never-never-land. I mean, no-one here in town even pays any attention to me. I can’t “influence” anyone! LOL – like I said….if I were well-known or “famous,” I would probably feel different about it.

          Liked by 1 person

  9. get a load of this bullshit…

    Mike Lee

    @BasedMikeLee

    The AG’s mistaken if he’s saying that, between DOJ & Congress, the former is more “fundamental” as an “institution of our democracy.” Congress is (1) an elected body that was (2) created by the Constitution. So it’s both “democratic” & “fundamental.” DOJ is less of both.

    Daily Caller

    @DailyCaller

    AG Merrick Garland claims that because the DOJ is “a fundamental institution of our democracy” it shouldn’t obey a subpoena from elected lawmakers.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Patrick Colbeck

    @pjcolbeck

    IMPORTANT: During today’s court proceedings, Dominion authenticated all of the data released by

    @SheriffLeaf

    . I.E.: – Dominion machines are designed to connect to internet. – Dominion employs Serbian developers not subject to thorough background checks Plus much, much more… We’ve been lied to for years. Now the truth is FINALLY being exposed…IN COURT! Thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. “It’s Rally Time Patriots”

    Newsletter | May 16, 2024

    American Eagle over American Flag

    “The coming months will be some of the most trying in our nation’s history as the 2024 election season heats up. With breaking news this week that the two leading 2024 presidential candidates have agreed to debate each other at least twice, one thing is certain: The 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, will finally get a chance to confront his accuser. He might ask whether all those indictments brought by his successor’s partisan hacks mean he’s really a threat to America or…just Joe Biden.

    The last thing the current President wants is to let his record speak for itself. His open borders policy has ushered 7 million, and counting, illegal aliens into the country he is sworn to protect. The felons who have entered under his watch have contributed to the soaring crime rates in virtually every major city. Inflation continues to surge to historic levels and American families feel it every day at the grocery store and the gas pump. The White House’s climate change agenda and other boutique policies are crushing American industry while boosting China’s economy.

    And it’s bad abroad, too. The administration continues to fund an endless and unwinnable war on the borders of nuclear-armed Russia. America’s trillion-dollar Navy can’t or won’t stop Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from threatening shipping lanes in the Red Sea. And U.S. allies in the Middle East and elsewhere reconsider their commitments, and loyalties, as they watch the White House betray longtime regional partner Israel to support a murderous Palestinian terror organization.

    Everyone can see America, and the world, was better off when Trump was in charge. It seems Biden’s only play is to paint Trump as public enemy number one. With CNN hosting the first debate on June 27 and ABC hosting the rematch on September 10, it is doubtless the moderators will help flesh out the false narrative, cribbing lines from Trump’s torturers — Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and Alvin Bragg — anything to prop up the increasingly feeble incumbent.

    Trump could play it for laughs if he likes and wear a black cape, top hat, and a fake mustache like a silent movie villain. But the opposition leader knows there’s nothing funny about what’s happened to our country in the last four years. He wears the scars to show what happens when the ruling party weaponizes the justice system to turn our constitutional republic into a banana republic. Sure, Trump is one of the most entertaining and engaging speakers in our long history, but he’ll be playing for keeps.

    It’s a matter of life and death for our country. So, what we’ll be watching is a real-time enactment of America at the crossroads. The Biden administration has pushed us to the edge of the abyss — are we going to go over the edge and fall through space until we hit rock bottom? Or are Americans going to choose to join forces and put an end to this death spiral? Do we choose national suicide or a revival of American greatness? It’s rally time Patriots. We were meant for this time. It’s our time to fight for America’s future.”

    Additional articles: https://www.americasfuture.net/newsletter/its-rally-time-patriots/

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Just The News: “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned a former Army sergeant on Thursday, who fatally shot a protester during the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020.

    Daniel Perry was convicted of murder for the shooting of Garrett Foster last year, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Republicans have united around Perry since the conviction, including Abbott, and claimed the shooting was done in self-defense. 

    “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney,” Abbott said in a statement, per the Associated Press.

    The pardon comes after Abbott asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to review Perry’s case, and pledged to give him a full pardon if one was recommended. The pardon was signed just a few minutes after the recommendation was announced.

    Prosecutors in the case had claimed that Perry could have driven away from Foster, and did not need to shoot him. They also argued that Foster, who was white, never raised his gun at Perry. But defense lawyers claimed he did raise his gun, forcing Perry, who is also white, to shoot. The jury debated the conviction for two days.

    Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza slammed the pardon in a statement shared with the AP.

    “The board and the governor have put their politics over justice,” Garza said. “They should be ashamed of themselves. Their actions are contrary to the law and demonstrate that there are two classes of people in this state where some lives matter and some lives do not. They have sent a message to Garrett Foster’s family, to his partner, and to our community that his life does not matter.”

    Liked by 1 person

  14. T. Turtle
    T. Turtle
    May 17, 2024 10:53 am

    Representative Anna Paulin Luna is proving what America First looks like…so far.

    “Pro-MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) had a busy day on Thursday.”

    Excerpts:
    The pro-Trump representative traveled to New York City with several of her peers to sit with President Trump during his ongoing show trial.

    Then as the hearing continued, Anna Paulina warned crooked Attorney General Merrick Garland that he is not above the law and that his imminent arrest may be coming.

    Rep. Anna Paulina Luna: During my time off for maternity, after I was told that I could not vote, I actually spent that time reading the House Rulebook Emmanuel. And there’s something that hasn’t been used since the early 1900s called Inherent Contempt of Congress. It’s actually something that any one individual member reserves.

    The Attorney General thought he was above the law and did not comply not just with one subpoena, but with two subpoenas. Those are subpoenas from both Chairman Jordan and Chairman Comer.
    I want to read this to you because ultimately, if in 10 days, the Department of Justice does not do their job and hold the attorney general responsible, just like they would any other American, I think that it should be our job in the House of Representatives to bring an inherent contempt proceeding against the Attorney General, of which I’ve already filed that privileged motion over a week ago.

    I would like to read it real quickly in saying that, “Resolved that if in 10 days after the passage of this report, the Department of Justice has failed to indict Attorney General Garland, the speaker of the House of Representatives shall issue his warrant commanding the sergeant in arms or his duty to take into custody the body of the said Attorney General Garland, wherever found, and bring him to the said Attorney General Garland before the bar of the House of Representatives.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/fire-rep-anna-paulina-luna-warns-merrick-garland/

    Liked by 2 people

Comments are closed.