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
0f 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-fighting, energetic wOma with
mo more use for skirts than an owl for
the Book of Common Prayer" as Frank
j. Wtlstach says. A scout under General
Custer, a teamster and a pony express
rider, she was often mistaken for q man
ana led a life that would have
landed many a mere male in his grave
years sooner than h died.
Calamity Jane was decidedly nc lily.
but the old-timers in the Black Hills
called her the be~st-hearted oma that
ever lived" They tell of q smallpox cpl
demic in Deadwood and her heroic nurs-
ing Of the stricken miners. She o
what money she had garnered from gam
bling and the dance halls n rented q
house away from the town, whittier she
took the sick and successfully brought
them back to health. She died with
her boots n in a saloon at Terrfll, near
Deadwood, presumably a victim OF the
ACA CyO ohAS 1~~o
gering quantities.
Her name she was said to have acquired
from Bill Nye. when that irrepressible
humortst 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 Jam who helped lay
out the body of Preacher Henry Weston
Smith, after he had been murdered by
Indians. This simple and courageous
soul at one time preached to a solemn
audience In the gambling nous OF one
Nutshell Bill, and persisted In walking
about the country. then filled with re-
venge- seeking 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
burial, that the only man who came
here to tell us how to live had to be
killed by Indians?"
The Indians were an ever-present dan
ger, and were more or less within their
rights In warning upon the white in
vaders. for the government had not
blIOWA the blhCk f1lllb COuAtly opCd W
settlement in 1875. 1t was "Pahasapa,'
a sacred and beloved land. to the Da-
cotah Sioux, who lac fought with the
Crees and Cheyennes for its 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 Thunder's tribe by
General Harvey in 1855, the army man
for whom tho hfQheet ppak 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 q
treaty concluded with the government
that gave the Sioux all they asked, only
to have the gold seekers rush in and
dispossess them again. In 1875 the REQ
men planned a concerted attack on Dead
wood to regain their Pahasapa, but were
discovered n 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 emnant 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 and shotgun guard for the old
W~ells-Fargo Express, is still there, while
on every hand are names that breathe OF
romance half a century ago. Ri1epit
Spring, Dirty Woman Greek, Gunsight
Pass. 6hirttail Canyon and Deadhorse
Park ara . few OF then. while shadowine
over Rapid City, wherv President Cool
idge spends his working hours, Is Hang
mans HUI. = Wooded slope that harborcd
innumerahae nscktte parties In days gone
by. It's = Wild and woolly region for
New England prssident.