Bandits, wolves, and weather were no match for Stagecoach Mary
And after that she was ready for a good cigar and a drink
In spite of a temperament that was likened to a grizzly bear, Stagecoach Mary was beloved by her neighbors in early-day Montana. She delivered the mail, covering over 300 miles every week, and when snow blocked the roads, she threw a mail sack on her shoulder and walked over 30 miles on snowshoes. “Montanans applauded Mary Fields for her commitment – and her kindness,” writes history professor Genevieve Carlton on AllThatsInteresting.com.
Stagecoach Mary was the first African American woman to carry mail on a Star Route for the US. Post Office Department, and it seems timely to share her story during Black History Month and at a time when the Postal Service is in peril.
Mary Fields was born into slavery in 1832. She was emancipated shortly after the Civil War and moved from West Virginia to work on steamboats on the Mississippi River. From there, she landed in Toledo, Ohio, working at the serene and disciplined Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart where she washed laundry, managed the kitchen, bought supplies, and maintained the garden and grounds.
Journalist Erin Blakemore reports on History.com that Field’s “gruff style and penchant for cursing raised eyebrows in the quiet convent. When asked how her journey to Toledo was, she reportedly told one of the nuns that she was ready for ‘a good cigar and a drink.’” Historical records show that the nuns complained about her volatile temper and her “difficult” nature.
According to historian Dee Garceau-Hagen, one nun remembered Fields’ wrath when anyone disturbed her lovingly kept grounds, saying “God help anyone who walked on the lawn after Mary had cut it.” Fields also tussled with the nuns over her wages—behavior that would have shocked white women who expected African Americans to be well behaved and subservient.
Mary was a big woman, six feet tall and powerful, and she often dressed in men’s clothing. She became friends with the convent’s Mother Superior Amadeus Dunne, and in 1885, Mary left Ohio behind to travel west to St. Peter’s Convent in the wilds of Montana where Mother Amadeus had established a children’s boarding school for the Blackfeet Nation.* Mother Amadeus had fallen ill with pneumonia and personally called for Fields to serve the nuns and nurse her back to health.
Mary worked for the mission in Cascade, Montana, for a while, but then she lost that job, dismissed for her crass behavior, unruly temper, and penchant for drinking and smoking with men in saloons.
After that, she tried to open several eateries but they failed, some said because she allowed folks who could not pay to eat for free, and she did other jobs to make money.
In her early 60s, in 1895, Mary was awarded a contract by the U.S. Post Office Department to be a Star Route Carrier. That meant that she was an independent contractor who delivered mail in northern Montana via stagecoach. On her route, Mary carried both a rifle and a revolver. Her job was to deliver the mail and protect it from bandits, thieves, wolves, and the weather. She spent eight years working as a Star Route Carrier.
After she retired, she started a laundry in town and opened an eatery, and babysat local children. She was much loved by the people of Cascade and drank in saloons for free and ate for free at local restaurants and hotels.
Carlton’s research revealed that on Mary’s 81st birthday, the local newspaper Anaconda Standard wrote:
“Mary’s friends claimed if a fly landed on the ear of one of [her horses], she could use her choice of either shooting it off or picking it off with her whip end. And if she was in a mind to, she could break the fly’s hind leg with her whip and then shoot its eye out with a revolver.”
Other tidbits from Carlton’s research:
When Mary’s home and business burned to the ground, the townspeople all came together to build her a new home.
Despite her grit, Stagecoach Mary was beloved by her neighbors who entrusted her with their children. She made bouquets of flowers for the local baseball team as one of their biggest supporters.
Gary Cooper, who was a Hollywood star in dozens of Westerns, met Mary Fields in Cascade, Montana, when he was nine years old. Years later, Cooper eulogized: “Born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, some say in 1832, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls to ever draw a breath or a .38.”
Stagecoach Mary died on December 5, 1914. Townspeople raised money to bury her in a cemetery on a road she often drove that linked Cascade to the mission. Her funeral was said to be one of the largest in town.
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* St. Peter’s boarding school followed much of the same sad history as other Native American boarding schools.
Sources:
Carlton, Genevieve. "Stagecoach Mary Fields: America’s First Black Postwoman Who Was A Gunslinging Badass." AllThatsInteresting.com, February 19, 2020, https://allthatsinteresting.com/stagecoach-mary-fields
Blakemore, Erin. https://www.history.com/news/meet-stagecoach-mary-the-daring-black-pioneer-who-protected-wild-west-stagecoaches
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Cowboy/Cowgirl Lingo of the Day:
Gee Up – A term used by teamsters to their horses and oxen, when they wish them to go faster. “To Gee” means to agree.
Daisy – Good; excellent.
As in: Stagecoach Mary was a daisy.
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What a great story. A part of Western history we would otherwise never see on the big screen.