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  • Mary Fields, Stage Coach Mail Driver, Sharp Shooter, Faithful Friend
  • Lucy Parsons, "More Dangerous Than A Thousand Rioters"
  • Lydia Maria Francis Child Travels 'Over the River and Through the Wood'
  • Anti-Suffragists Believed Women Didn't Need the Right to Vote
  • Finland's Alexandra Gripenberg Sought Universal Women's Rights
  • From Frances Slocum to Little Bear Woman and Back Again
  • Madame Elisabeth Thible is the First Woman to Ride in a Free Floating Balloon
  • Veronica Kerler Frank Pined for Germany, But Made Milwaukee Her Home
  • Mary Humphreys Stamps, Undefeated Rebel with An Educational Cause
  • Sister Monica Is One of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Early Pioneers
  • A Love Story for St. Valentine's Day - Marie Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen
  • Three Wisconsin Women of the Waves
  • Margaret Fox Kane and her Victorian Love Story
  • Francoise Marie Jacquelin, Lioness of La Tour, Lioness of Acadia, Woman in Her Own Right
  • Mary Breckinridge, Circuit Riding Nurse and Founder of the Frontier Nursing Service
  • Women Bicyclists Break Their Glass Cages and Ride into Liberation
  • Maria Mitchell, America's First Woman Astronomer Demonstrated Female Scientific Aptitude
  • Queen Alexandra of Great Britain-Queen Victoria's Daughter-in-Law, Bertie's Patient Wife, and Her Own Person!
  • Chicagoan Kate Kellogg Meets a Ghost on a Train
  • Isobel Lillian Steele Went to a Party and Ended Up in a Nazi Jail
  • Madam Sophie Blanchard - "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration"
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    • Nadine Turchin Fights Alongside Her Husband in the Civil War
    • War Stories Along Lake Erie: Ordinary Women Experience the War of 1812
    • Katie Walker Tends Robbins Reef Light Near the Statue of Liberty
    • Maria Gulovich Joined the Czech Resistance
    • Pirate Fanny Campbell Freed Her Fiance and Fought the British
    • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
    • Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt and the First Mississippi River Steamboat
    • Sophie Kwiatkowski Served as a New Guinea Nurse in World War II
    • Clara Zetkin Spoke Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
    • Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Female Fuhrer, Breathed Her Nazi Beliefs
    • Nancy Leo , the Only Woman Buried in Luxembourg American Cemetery
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    • Mildred Beltmann , Wartime Wife
    • The Courage of their Cultural Convictions - Women Missionaries in China
    • Light and Radiance - Laurence Owen and Her Sabena Fellow Travelers
    • Edna St. Vincent Millay, Passionate Poet, Candle-Lit Feminist
    • Fascinating Footnote: The Goose Down Divorce
    • Olive Higgins Prouty Juggles to Balance Home and Career
    • Mother and Daughter Journalists Agnes Meyer and Katharine Graham Shaped Journalism
    • Rose Friedman and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
    • Katharine Meyer Graham Leaves Her Mark on the Washington Post
    • Ida M. Tarbell, "Bachelor Soul," Transitional Woman, or Both?
    • Nurse Edith Cavell, the Courage to Die for Her Country
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    • Virginia Graham Pioneered in Early Television and Survived Cancer
    • Rose Conway, President Harry Truman's Secret Weapon
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    • Julia K. Tibbitts - Closet Environmentalist
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Mary Fields, Stage Coach Mail Driver, Sharp Shooter, Faithful Friend

Picture
Mary Field valued friendship and lyalty enough to uproot her life for them. She also toted a gun, drank hard liquor, and made flower bouquets for her baseball team. A picture of Stage Coach Mary Fields with a dog at her feet projects the gentle virtues of friendship. love, and loyalty, and these virtues motivated Mary throughout her life. The gun that she is holding and the myriad of documented sources that say she used it frequently and effectively, highlights some of the other elements of her personality including brashness and courage.

Born into Slavery, Mary Bonds with Her Friend Sara Therese Dunne

Mary’s career was as checkered as her personality. She began her life as a slave in Arkansas and ended it as a babysitter in Cascade, Montana. In between she worked at a convent in Toledo, Ohio, fought a duel and won countless fistfights, drank hard liquor, wore men’s clothes, smoked black cigars and delivered mail by stagecoach. She overcame the obstacles of being black and female in 19th Century America and served as a vital example of the pioneering spirit that settled the West.

Life for Mary began in 1832 or 1833- she didn’t know exactly which year so she always celebrated two birthdays. Accounts of her birth state- some say Arkansas and some say Tennessee- and owners differ.

// Some sources say an Arkansas family by the name of Warner owned Mary and one of the daughters of the Warner family married a Dunne. Other sources have it that Mary was the confidential servant of Judge Dunne, the oldest brother of Sara Therese Dunne, and Mary and Sara formed a close relationship. However it happened, Mary became acquainted with Sara Therese Dunne and eventually followed Sara to the Ursuline Convent in Toledo, Ohio. Sara Therese Dunne ultimately became Mother Amadeus.

Mary Hurries to Montana to Nurse Mother Amadeus

By the time Mary Fields stepped off of the train in Toledo, Ohio, in 1878,she stood tall and muscled and weighed over 200 pounds. Mary quickly set about making friends and carving her niche in convent life. She did laundry, bought supplies, managed the kitchen, tended the garden and grounds, and endeared herself to the sisters.

Life at the Ursuline convent moved along smoothly for Mary until 1884, when Mother Amadeus went west to Montana to open a school for Blackfeet Indian girls at St. Peter’s Mission near Cascade, Montana. The harsh climate and primitive living conditions at the school took their toll on Mother Amadeus’ health and the Ursuline sisters in Toledo received a message that Mother Amadeus lay dying in a crude log cabin.

Mary Fields hurried to Montana to see her friend. She nursed Mother Amadeus back to health and settled in to work. Mary helped build a new stone convent for the sisters and after eight years the convent was finally finished and Mary and the sisters moved from their log cabins into the convent. Mary hauled the freight for the convent, guiding her team through dangers she had not imagined in Toledo. One time a pack of wolves frightened her team and they upset her load of supplies into the snow. Mary stood guard over them all night.

On another trip, a blizzard overtook them and Mary walked herself and the team back and forth all night to keep them all from freezing to death.

Mary Delivers the Mail by Stagecoach

If Mary had been less brash and hot tempered and frequented the saloons less often, she might have spent the rest of her days peacefully at the convent with the nuns that she adored and who adored her. Her impetuous nature didn’t allow that to happen. She constantly argued with the hired men. In fact, the story goes that she fought a duel with one of them. People who didn’t see Mary’s faithful and loyal heart under the bluster and profanity complained about her to the territorial bishop and he ordered the sisters to “send that black woman away.”

Mary stormed all the way to Helena to see the Bishop “to make him bring witnesses to swear what they have said against me.” Her efforts didn’t soften the Bishop’s heart and he removed her from the convent because of her “sinful life.”

The nuns had to obey the Bishop, so a broken-hearted Mary left the convent. Mother Amadeus tried twice to set Mary up in the restaurant business, but Mary’s kind heart made her business fail. She continually fed people who couldn’t pay and carried so much credit on her books that she couldn’t stay in business. Mother Amadeus, probably behind the Bishop’s back, went to the government and convinced them to give Mary the stagecoach mail route from Cascade, Montana, to the convent. For eight years Stagecoach Mary drove the stage coach mail route, proudly wearing her male clothes, smoking her black
cigars, and never missing a day of work.


Mary is the Cascade Baseball Team's Mascot

In 1903, the Church sent Mother Amadeus to Alaska to found a new mission and Stagecoach Mary didn’t have the heart to continue delivering the mail. Mary Fields pushed close to 70 when she stopped her mail route to start a laundry business in town, but she hadn’t lost her bluster. One day when she sat drinking in a Cascade bar, a man came in who owed her a $2.00 laundry bill. She chased him down an alley, caught him, and thoroughly punched him. Then she returned to her seat at the bar reporting, “He doesn’t owe me two dollars anymore.”

Mary’s laundry business burned in 1912, and the townspeople donated time, labor, and materials to rebuild it and her home. The people of Cascade loved Stagecoach Mary and invited her to eat for free at the local hotel. She became the mascot of Cascade’s baseball team in her old age. She made buttonhole bouquets for each player with flowers from her own garden and full bouquets for the home run hitters.

In her final years, Stagecoach Mary worked as a babysitter, charging $1.50 a
day. She spent nearly all of the money she earned buying candy for the children
of Cascade.


When Stagecoach Mary died in 1914 at the age of either 81 or 82, the
townspeople of Cascade turned out for her funeral. They buried her at the foot
of the mountains near the winding road that led to the mission and convent that
she had loved so well.


References

Robert Miller. The Story of Stagecoach Mary Fields (Silver Burdett
Press, 1995)


Article in Ebony 32 (October 1977), pp.96-98.

 


Copyright Notice
All of the material on this website is copyrighted.  You are free to link to any of the articles and to download any of the PDF books to read and use as long as you credit me as the author.       kathywarnes@gmail.com
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  • Home
  • Women's Rooms
    • Womens Rooms-Anne
    • Womens Rooms-Abigail
    • The Dead Baby in a Blue Blanket: The
    • Rena Rides the Raindrops
  • Women at Work-Blog
  • E Books and Print Books for Sale
  • Women of Historical Complexion
  • Rachel and Elizabeth Knaggs
  • Elizabeth Stiles, President Lincoln's Spy
  • Loyalist Lucy Flucker Meets Patriot Henry Knox at a Boston Parade
  • Queen Maria Amelia, the Last Queen of Portugal, Stood Her Ground
  • The Lady and the Patriot: Theodosia Burr Alston's Fateful Voyage
  • Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett - More Character Than Riches
  • Florence Nightingale- Nurse, Feminist, Statistician, Author
  • Mary Todd Lincoln Considered April Her "Season of Sadness"
  • Mrs. Santa Claus - A Strong and Supportive Woman for All Seasons
  • Elizabeth Turner McCormick, Woman Voyager
  • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fought for Human Rights
  • Mary Fields, Stage Coach Mail Driver, Sharp Shooter, Faithful Friend
  • Lucy Parsons, "More Dangerous Than A Thousand Rioters"
  • Lydia Maria Francis Child Travels 'Over the River and Through the Wood'
  • Anti-Suffragists Believed Women Didn't Need the Right to Vote
  • Finland's Alexandra Gripenberg Sought Universal Women's Rights
  • From Frances Slocum to Little Bear Woman and Back Again
  • Madame Elisabeth Thible is the First Woman to Ride in a Free Floating Balloon
  • Veronica Kerler Frank Pined for Germany, But Made Milwaukee Her Home
  • Mary Humphreys Stamps, Undefeated Rebel with An Educational Cause
  • Sister Monica Is One of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Early Pioneers
  • A Love Story for St. Valentine's Day - Marie Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen
  • Three Wisconsin Women of the Waves
  • Margaret Fox Kane and her Victorian Love Story
  • Francoise Marie Jacquelin, Lioness of La Tour, Lioness of Acadia, Woman in Her Own Right
  • Mary Breckinridge, Circuit Riding Nurse and Founder of the Frontier Nursing Service
  • Women Bicyclists Break Their Glass Cages and Ride into Liberation
  • Maria Mitchell, America's First Woman Astronomer Demonstrated Female Scientific Aptitude
  • Queen Alexandra of Great Britain-Queen Victoria's Daughter-in-Law, Bertie's Patient Wife, and Her Own Person!
  • Chicagoan Kate Kellogg Meets a Ghost on a Train
  • Isobel Lillian Steele Went to a Party and Ended Up in a Nazi Jail
  • Madam Sophie Blanchard - "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration"
  • Women of Their Time and Place
    • Nadine Turchin Fights Alongside Her Husband in the Civil War
    • War Stories Along Lake Erie: Ordinary Women Experience the War of 1812
    • Katie Walker Tends Robbins Reef Light Near the Statue of Liberty
    • Maria Gulovich Joined the Czech Resistance
    • Pirate Fanny Campbell Freed Her Fiance and Fought the British
    • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
    • Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt and the First Mississippi River Steamboat
    • Sophie Kwiatkowski Served as a New Guinea Nurse in World War II
    • Clara Zetkin Spoke Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
    • Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Female Fuhrer, Breathed Her Nazi Beliefs
    • Nancy Leo , the Only Woman Buried in Luxembourg American Cemetery
    • Dickey Chapelle, Journalist and War Correspondent
    • Lucena Brockway Adapts to Life in the Keweenaw Copper Mining Country of Lake Superior
    • Does Mary Surrat's Ghost Haunt the Senate Chambers Seeking Justice?
    • The Ghostly Cyclist in Brooklyn's Prospect Park
  • Women of Contemporary 20th and 21st Century Complexion
    • Clara Ward Chimay, Gilded Age Princess
    • Ruth Becker's Faith Helps Her Survive the Titanic and Beyond
    • Mildred Beltmann , Wartime Wife
    • The Courage of their Cultural Convictions - Women Missionaries in China
    • Light and Radiance - Laurence Owen and Her Sabena Fellow Travelers
    • Edna St. Vincent Millay, Passionate Poet, Candle-Lit Feminist
    • Fascinating Footnote: The Goose Down Divorce
    • Olive Higgins Prouty Juggles to Balance Home and Career
    • Mother and Daughter Journalists Agnes Meyer and Katharine Graham Shaped Journalism
    • Rose Friedman and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
    • Katharine Meyer Graham Leaves Her Mark on the Washington Post
    • Ida M. Tarbell, "Bachelor Soul," Transitional Woman, or Both?
    • Nurse Edith Cavell, the Courage to Die for Her Country
    • Sigrid Schultz Outsmarted Hermann Goering
    • Martha Dickie Sharp Saves Jewish Refugees from the Nazi Death Machine
    • Virginia Graham Pioneered in Early Television and Survived Cancer
    • Rose Conway, President Harry Truman's Secret Weapon
    • Nancy Green, Talented Entrepreneur, Transitional Symbol
    • "Surrender on Demand:" The Friendship of Mary Jayne Gold and Miriam Ebel
    • Julia K. Tibbitts - Closet Environmentalist
    • Lee Lawrence Ansberry Reconquers the World and Reshapes Her Life
  • Christmas Cheer