Calamity Jane has a reputation for being one of the wildest women in the Old West, but it's hard to separate historical fact from fiction. Learn more about this sharp-shooting adventurer in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/calamity-jane.htm
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum Here. Calamity Jane, with her reputation for being one of the most adventurous and foul mouthed women in the Old West, is the stuff of American legend. She was known to be a sharpshooter, a whiskey lover, and an adopter of men's fashion at a time when women were largely confined to strict codes of conduct. But, as with many figures from this era, teasing out real detail from mythologized self marketing and romanticized yellow journalism isn't easy. Today, let's look into the person behind the tall tale of Calamity Jane. Calamity Jane was born as Martha Jane Canary around Princeton, Missouri, in the eighteen fifties. The exact date is unknown, but some historians think it was in eighteen fifty six. The family didn't have much money, and around eighteen sixty five they sold their farm and followed the promise of the mining boom West with the wagon train of other settlers. By then, Canary was the oldest of three two six siblings. Accounts very she spent most of the five month migration hunting with the men in the caravan. By the time the group reached their destination, a Virginia City, Montana, Canary had earned a reputation for being, in her own words, a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age. Sadly, they arrived without Canary's mother. She had died along the way. Her father passed two around eighteen sixty seven, leaving Canary to support herself. By about the age of twelve, her siblings seemed to have wound up in Utah. She moved on to Wyoming. While wandering there, she took on a variety of jobs, reportedly everything from dishwasher, waitress and cook to nurse to dancer. She may have been a scout for General Custer and a writer in the Pony Express, at least that's what she later said in her semi fictional autobiography Life and Adventures of Calamity. She wrote that by the eighteen seventies she was quote the most reckless and daring rider and one of the best shots in the West. It seems that she may really have been an army scout around this time, though not for Custer and the Pony Express stories are unconfirmed. Canary reportedly earned her nickname around eighteen seventy five during the Newton Jenny Expedition, a scientific party that set out to map the Black Hills and determine the quality and quantity of gold there. Apparently, she wandered off one day, and her fellow party members hoped no calamity had befallen her. It was with this nickname that she arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota, in eighteen seventy six, alongside another much pathologized frontier figure, wild Bill Hiccock. You may have come in on the same wagon train. They became friends, though probably not more than friends, as some stories claim. Their relationship was short lived. In August of that year, Hickock was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall while sitting at a gambling table in a Deadwood saloon. Canary stayed in Deadwood, prospecting at mining camps and later nursing residents who fell ill during the smallpox outbreak. She finally left Deadwood the following year and traveled around South Dakota taking odd jobs. By this point, her reputation had made her somewhat of a celebrity, and magazine editors and dime novel authors were writing increasingly wild stories about her adventures. In eighteen eighty two, Canary bought a ranch on the Yellowstone River, but felt fancy within the year, leaving for California and then moving on to Texas. She met a man by the name of Clinton Burke in El Paso, and the two married around eighteen eighty five. They had a daughter, Jesse Elizabeth, and left Texas for Boulder, Colorado, when the girl was a toddler. For several years, the family ran a hotel and then spent time traveling yet again throughout the Northwest. By eighteen ninety five, Canary realized she could use her shooting skills to support her family and joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, performing sharp shooting tricks on tour around the Midwest, but her drinking habit cost her the job. She published her autobiography a year later, then in nineteen oh one, she was hired by the Pan American Exposition, but once again lost the job due to her alcohol misuse. Canary moved back to the Black Hills in nineteen oh three and worked as a cook and housekeeper in a brothel. She died a few years later, probably due to issues stemming from her drinking, and was buried next to Hiccock at Mount Mariah Cemetery. It's tough to know how many of the details surrounding Canary's life are true and how many were fabricated, either by the media or by Canary herself. Even pieces of her personal life are questionable because there's no existing marriage license confirming her union with Burke and no birth certificate for her daughter. In nineteen forty one, a woman claiming to be the child of Canary and Hiccock came into the public eye, but her claims were later proven to be false. Canary's tombstone itself displays what historians have found to be the incorrect name and birth date for her. Before the article this episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with Carolyn Webber, executive director of Deadwood History Incorporated. She said, Martha Jane Canary or Calamity Jane, is so much more than her body reputation. She was an unaccompanied young child and woman in the frontier American West, doing the best she could with the situations she was handed. She supported herself at a time when there were limited opportunities for women. Today's episode is based on the article Calamity Jane Roadhard drank even harder and became a Wild West legend on how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Michelle Constantinofsky. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang and Ramsey Young. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.