Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1927-07-29

Gossip has associated Calamity Jane
with Wild Bill In his short residence in
the Black Hills. 1t is said that she came
with him to the mining camp and was
his lookout in a faro game there, but all
of these reports were denied by Calamity
Jane before her death in 1908. Her real
name was Martha Jane Canary and she
was born in Princeton. Mo-, destined to
become one OF the most notorious char
acters OF the old West-a swearing, drink
Ing, gun-f1ghting, energetic woman with
no more use for skirts than an owl for
the Book Of Common Prayer" as Frank
J.. Wilstach says. A scout under General
Custer, a teamster and a pony express
rider, she was often mistaken for a man
and led a strenuous life that would have
landed many a mere male in his grave
years sooner than she died.
Calamity Jan was decidedly no lily,
but the old-timers in the Black Hills
called her the best-hesrted woman that
ever lived" They tell OF q smallpox cpl
demic in Deadwood and her heroic nurs-
Ing of the stricken miners. She took
what money she had garnered from gam
bling and the dance halls n rented a
house away from the town, whittier she
took the sick and successfully brought
them back to health. She died with
her boots ON" in a saloon at Terrill, near
Deadwood, presumably a victim OF the
red eye" she always consumed in stag
gering quantities.
from Bin Nye, when that irrepressible
humorist was editor Of the Laramie
Boomerang. She, herself, at one time
credited 1t to Captain Egan, the COM
mandant Of Goose Creek post, In Wyom-
ing. whom she saved from the Indians.
II name you Calamity Jane, the heroine
Of the plains" was her modest admission
OF his words.
Preacher Smith, Indian Victim
1t was Calamity Jane h helped lay
out the body of Preacher Henry Weston
Smith, after he nae been murdered by
Indians. This simple n courageous
soul at one time preached to a solemn
audience in the gambling house Of one
Nutshell Bill, and persisted in walking
about the country, then filled with re-
venge-sseking redskins. with only his
Bible for protection.
isn't it too bad" Calamity Jane re-
marked to another woman who was as
sisting her prepare Preacher Smith for
here to tell us how to live had to be
killed by Indians?"
The Indians were an ever-present dan
ger, and we're more or less within their
rights In warning upon the white in
vaders, for the government had not
thrown the Black Hills country open to
settlement in 1875. 1t was "~Pahasapa,"
a sacred and beloved land, to the Da-
cotah Sioux. who had fought with the
Crees and Cheyennes for It's possession
for centuries. Walter Price Hunt. fur
trader for John Jacob Aston, first found
1t In 1911, and the Indians resistance to
white ~colonizers resulted In a shameless
massacre OF Little Thunders tribe by
General Harvey in 1855, the army man
for whom the highest peak in the range
Is named.
Twenty years later came the Red Cloud
war, In which Captain Fetterman's little
force of soldiery was wiped out and a
treaty concluded with the government
that gave the Sioux all they asked, only
to have the gold seekers rush in n
dispossess them again. In 1870 the red
men planned a concerted attack on Dead
wood to regain their Pahasapa, but were
discovered and pursued to the Big Horn
range in Montana, where the Custer Mas
sacre took place. After that they were
scattered and the Black Hills opened to
settlement in 1877.
There are remnants Of the tribes In
the Black Hills today for the President
TO see, as we'll as a few scattered old set
Tiers. living in solitary squalor, waiting
for the strike that never came. The
original Deadwood Dick, Indian fighter.
miner II shotgun guard Tor the old
Wells-Fargo Express. is still there, while
on every hand are names that breathe Of
romance half a century ago. Rifiepit
Spring. Dirty Woman Creek, Gunsight
Pass. Bhirttail Canyon and Deadhorse
Park are a few OF them, while s~hadowing
over Rapid City. where President Cool
idge spends his working hours, Is Hang
mana Hill. . wooded slope that harbored
innumorable necktie parties In days gone
by. Its = wild and woolly region for a
Rew England president.