Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1903-09-01
CALAMITY JANE.
True Story of Remarkable Femals
Character of the Wild West.

SHGfHml SHNGs
True Story of Remarkable Female
Character of the Wild West.
The body of Calamity Jane. says a
Terry, S. D., letter Of August 4, was
placed this week in the Mount Moriah
cemetery in Deadwood, beside the
bones Of wild Bilr' Hickok, her friend
Of long ago, whose murderer she caused
to be lynched twenty-four years ago.
Though she had had twelve husbands,
the last still living it was one Of her
dying requests that she be allowed to
sleep by the side of the man she first
loved.
Somewhere in North Dakota lives a
daughter, her only child, but the girl
was not at the bedside Of her mother.
Calamity Jane long ago sent her away
for her own good. It was an outcrop-
ping of the real woman that prompted
Jane to say long ago that her daugh-
ter should not be shocked by looking
into the face of her mother.
So, when friends begged her to tell
her daughters name and home during
her last sickness, the broken-down
pioneer said with firmness.
Would yer hev me shame my own
daughter? She'd wish she hedn't seen
this ugly face. Let her be-
And indeed there was no trace In
her cross-lined, leathern features of
the prettiness which. 1t was said, be-
longed to the Missouri girl who went
over the mountains to Nevada forty
years ago. Calamity Jane was only
flfty-one years old when she died, but
in those years the real Wild West was
born and died. It's passing left her
forlorn.
Martha Canary-for that was her
real name-was left a lone girl in the
mining camp Of Virginia City. New, In
1862. Shortly after their emigration
from Princeton, Mo-, an Indian war
separated the child from her parents.
She fell into the hands Of an old wo-
man who allowed her to select what
she would from the rough life of the
camp. 1t was horseback riding and
crack pistol shooting first, and not
many years later the girl sat on sa-
loon bars and regaled the men with
songs and stories.
1t was about that time that the real
Indian fighting began and the girl was
eager to display her horsemanship
and craftsmanship. She applied at
number of posts, attired as a man, be-
fore she found one where she was not
known to be a woman. Gen. Crook
accepted her as a scout and she was
happy. For time she served in that
capacity under Buffalo Bill, and he,
her lifelong friend recently said of
her record:
Though she did not do a mans
share Of the heavy work, she has gone
in places where old frontiersmen were
unwilling to trust themselves, and her
courage and good fellowship made her
popular with every man in the COM
mand. In her nsat scouts uniform,
Martha Canary made a handsome pic
ture, especially when astride good
horse and riding like mad over the
plains on some wild expedition. She
was eccentric then, and she is eccen-
trio now, but the winsome Martha
Canary of those days was not the Ca
lamity Jane of today"
She was at the camp where she had
spent much Of her girlhood, now the
site of Butte, Mon, when an appeal
came from Deadwood for troops. She
was then twenty-five years old. Wnen
the soldiers marched to Deadwood to
relieve a party Of miners surrounded
by Indians she went along.
It was not alone a matter of driving
away the Deadwood Indians: the whole
northwest was in arms. At Goose
Camp, S. D., a small detachment under
Capt. Egan was surrounded by large
band of redskins. They had the SOL
diers at their mercy, with the reliev-
ing troops too far in the rear.
Martha Canary rode like the spirit
of death into a group of Indians who
were about to kill the wounded cap
tain. Before the Indians could realize
what had happened she mad swung
the captain to her saddle and dashed
away, amid the patter Of bullets, to a
place Of safety.
When the captain was told by the
troops that he had been saved by a
woman he said:
Jane, you're a good one to have
around in times of calamity"
And from that time on Martha Ca
nary was known as Calamity Jane"
Among the miners, who came to
know her so we'll, none Of her twelve
husbands was allowed to change his
wife's name. Each of them was
known as Calamity James man." All
but the last met violent deaths. The
fir:t one she killed herself.
When she was in the prime Of her
wild life, she traversed every part Of
Wyoming Montana and the Dakotas,
ranched in Missouri and fought In
dians in Kansas. She made her stake
in the mining camps, and it went to
regale the boys in wild west fashion.
Her passion for fighting Indians was
never satisfied.
She crossed a wild country in a
frightfully cold winter to take import
ant messages to Gen. Custer ?he
sickness that followed the trying ex-
perience was all that saved her from
being killed with Clusters army, for
she had planned to campaign with