It has come to my attention while writing these blogs, that I have always looked up to badass women; Women that turn heads in every act they take. However, these women are all seasoned alcoholics, roguish thief types who can spin stories better than Varric Tethras and get in fights at every turn; unlike me, ironically, who doesn’t drink and whose most exciting life event was finishing Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, without bursting into tears because it scared me too much. Yes, at the ripe age of 22, most women I look-up to are married and Captains of Ships or they’ve already traveled to a different galaxy and are pathfinders in the Andromeda Initiative. Calamity Jane had already joined the army, been in gun fights, had several jobs and worked as a prostitute by my age.
At one point in our lives we’ve all admired and looked-up to the fantastic Doris Day and when I was younger, I looked up to her as non-other than the gunslinging cowgirl, Calamity Jane. Today, we’re going to take a look at the real Calamity Jane and see the real reason we should probably keep looking up to the wonderful Doris Day interpretation rather than the real “Calamity”.
Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary in 1852, Missouri and was possibly the oldest of six other children born to Robert and Charlotte Cannary/Canary, apparently her parents weren’t great people, both committing petty crime to fix their financial problems. Some people believe that she got her nickname “Calamity” when at the age of either eight or twelve, her parents died – presumably from an event that she was involved in; others say it was because she was always involved in something bad. At the age of 13, she left Missouri and travelled across the Wild West for several years. With no schooling or prospects, she spent a lot of time shooting with the cowboys and did anything to keep her family alive and well; this included, working as a cook, camp follower, an ox-team driver, a nurse and some legends say she worked as a prostitute.
Now, as we’ve found out through previous blogs, a woman’s place in the army was either non-existent, or illegal – So, this was when Calamity Jane took on the age old trick of drag and dressed like a man. She had the build for it and was quite brash and burley, hence why it worked well for her. A few sources, including Canary herself say that in 1870, Canary joined General George Armstrong Custer as a scout at Fort Russell, others say that she was a laundress. In her time with General Custer, she spent most of the time in and around Arizona, moving the native Americans onto reservations and in her own words was “the most reckless and daring rider and one of the best shots in the West”. Then in around 1872, back in Fort Sanders, Wyoming she was ordered to the Muscle Shell Indian Outbreak [I did try to look into this, but I don’t think the hit “Mussel species that invaded Southeast Asian water” was the same thing.]
Canary gave another explanation on the events that led up to her infamous name, stating that when they were riding through Goose Creek they had to stop an American Indian uprising and here, Jane and Captain Egan were ambushed. Calamity supposedly ‘saved’ the life of Captain Egan, doubling back and lifting him onto her horse. Once the Captain was recovered he said “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”
Then we move onto 1875, when Jane was still enlisted in the Army. Her and the rest of her squad travelled to the Black Hills of South Dakota and eventually wound up in Deadwood. Deadwood is possibly the most quintessential Wild West town. Founded in 1874 when prospectors noticed a creek full of gold and decided to set up shop 2-years later. Outlaws, gunslinger’s and gamblers roamed the streets searching for gold and making names for themselves in a lawless town. It was in this time when our heroine, left the army (apparently due to an injury) and became a bullwhacker (one who would haul goods and machinery to other parts of the west) or a pony express rider, those who carried mail the 50-miles between Deadwood and Custer.
We’ve all heard of Wild West Bill Hickok and so, had Calamity Jane. Some say Canary met Hickok at Fort Laramie and the two adored each other; their heavy drinking and extravagant exaggerations of the truth making them the best of friends – some even say they were a married couple, who’d fallen in love and had a secret child that they gave up for adoption when he was three-years old. Others believe that she only knew Wild Bill for a few months, claiming that they met in Deadwood once or twice before he was shot and killed while playing poker. Canary claimed that she’d managed to capture Bill’s killer, Jack McCall, however, many historians deny this as the newspaper accounts during that time point to the townspeople capturing McCall instead.
Jane’s well-spun stories made her famous in the Wild West and even led to her being featured in magazines and she even wrote an auto-biography detailing her life. In 1891 she married a gentleman called Clinton (Charley) Burke, a hack driver after scandalously living with him out of wedlock for years and began to tour with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Canary tended to get drunk, leading to erratic behaviour and disorderly acts, eventually forcing them to fire her. Her health started to deteriorate (most likely due to her drinking) and on August 1st or 2nd, she died at 51 years of age in Calloway Hotel, Terry and was buried next to Wild Bill in Mount Moriah Cemetery, South Dakota.
There are many more of Calamity Jane’s accounts and there’s much more violence, shoot-outs and drunken antics throughout her book and in American folklore and legends; whether it’s all true is up to you and whether she is a hero, or merely a fantastic storyteller who filled her mundane life with heroic and brilliant acts, we will never know. Most of the Wild West was pretty boring and most cowboys spent their time as honest workers eating a lot of beans and rounding up horses, but it’s the stories like this that make us wish we could have seen what life was really like in Deadwood state.
Thanks for reading, as always!
Stay safe and to brighten up your day, here is a picture of the most wholesome woman to have lived!
Return Of The Famous Dead 