The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-08-08
JANE AND HER
WILD CAREER IN THE WEST
Served Crook Other Indian Fighters Was Known
Every Lawes Mining Camp the Fronier-Heped to Hang
Mccau Slayer "Wd Bl-All Twelve Husbands but
One "Died With His On"
Special to The Journal.

Special to The Journal.
Terry, S. D., Aug. S-The body of Ca
lamity Jane" was placed this week in the
Mt. Horiah cemetery in Deadwood, be- |
side the bones of wild Bill Hickock,
her friend Of long ago.
Tho she had twelve husbands. the last
still living, it was one of her dying re-
quests that she be allowed to sleep by
the side of the man she first loved with
the love of q wild, animal heart, and
whose murder she avenged by lynching
thirty four years ago.
Physicians said it was inflammation of
the bowels that caused her death but it
was loneliness and remorse that shat
tered her health--loneliness for days that
could never come again and remorse that
she could not become like the better peo-
pie about her. Only within year had
she given UP at all her wanderings about
the west to find the reckless life in which
alone she could find pleasure.
: Somewhere in North Dakota lives
daughter her only child, but she was not
at the bedside of her mother. 1t was
SO because Of the wish of Calamity Jane,
who long ago sent away the girl that she
might find that culture which she her
self could not grasp. 1t was an outcrop-
ping of the real woman In her that
prompted her to say that her daughter
should not be hurt by looking into the face
of her mother.
SO, when friends begged her to tell her
daughters name and home, during Calam-
ity James last sickness. the broken
down border woman said with the same
firnlness:
would yer hev me shame my own
daughter? She'd wish she hedn't
seen this ugly face. Let her be. She'll
think the more Of me-"
Early History.
1t was the mold of circumstance that
made of Martha Canary, proper girl OF
10, Calamity Jane, the reckless, vice
man woman of %. Calamity Jane. was
but 81 years old when she died. But in
those years the real wild west was born
and died It's passing left her forlorn
and she was not sorry to go after.
g, 1t was not because of desertion by her
parents, as has been said, that Martha
Canary was left a lone girl In the new
mining camp OF Virginia City, New, In
1863. Shortly after their emigration from
Princeton, Mo-, an Indian war separated
child from parents. She fell into the
hands Of an unworthy old woman, VINO
allowed her to select what she would
from the law-free life of the camp. 1t
was horseback riding and crack pistol
shooting that first came to the girl and
not many years after she was found on
saloon bars RECALLING rough men with
songs and stories.
AAieAAehAh
fighting in the west began andathe girl
was eager to display the horsemanship
and Workmanship which she counted
her virtues. She applied at several posts'
sattred as a man, before she found one
where she was not known. General Crook
accepted her as a scout ana she was
happy. For a time she served under Colo
mel William F. Cody. T. 'shhE1&f 81
~' Saved Captain Egan: foog ~
She was at the camp where She had
spent much of her girlhood, now the site
~ Rutte... Mont, when an appeal came
from DeadWood for troops. she was tnen
% years old. When the troops marched
to Deadwood to relieve party or miners
surrounded by Indians, the glrl-scout was
in the van. - S~ e. -
away the Deadwood Indians; the whole
northwest was in arms and every mile OF
the way to Deadwood had to be guarded
and many of them fought for. At Goose
Creek. S. D., small detachment under
.captain Egan was surprised by large
band Of redskins. The Indians had the
soldiers at their mercy, with the relieving
'troops too far in the rear Martha Can
,ary rode like a spirit OF death into the
midst of the group Of Indians, who We're
about to make away with the wounded
Icantain Before the Indians could realize
what had happened, she had swung the
CAPTAIN to her saddle and dashed ava.
amid the patter Of bullets to place O
safety.
When the captain was told by thu
troops that he had Deen saved by d Wo
man. he remarked:
Jane. you're a good one to nave arount
IN times Of calamipty.' g.. &c.,.
And in that hour Martha Canary be
came Calamity Jane. 'r... -.a.,.
So among the miners who came t
,knowher so well, no one Of her twelve hus
bands was allowed the distinction of re
christening his wife. Each one Of then
was known wherever she was known a
Calamity James man. Strangely, all blu
the last, young man named Burk Twin
in Denver met violent deaths
The first one she killed herself; the 9th
ers found their own ends with their boot
on '..
Passion for Indian Fighting.
She was now in the prime Of her will
life. She tramped the whole west; sh
traversed every part Of Wyoming, Mon
tana and the Dakotas; she hurried to eac
new mining camp, the more laWless tn
more attractive; she ranched In Missou
and fought Indians in Kansas. She mad
her "stake'' in the mining camps with tn
rest. and, like the others, 1t went to re
gale ''the boys in true wildwest fashion
Her passion for fighting Indians we
never satiated. 1t was she who crosse
a wild country in a frightfully cold wiz
terato take important messages to Gener
Custer. The sickness that followed we
ell that saved her from being killed wit
Clusters army, for she had planned
campaign with him. ...,
When Indian fighting was not to be ha
Calamity Jane found entertaining employ
ment In carrying government mail ar
driving stage coaches. She was one Of tt
first Of the 5000 arrivals that cause
Deadwood to spring into life in nigl
and she never failed to attend lynchin
bee If she could be present; neither a.