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About the author
Linda Wommack
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Linda Wommack is a Colorado native, and has enjoyed Colorado History since childhood. A distant relative to Bob Womack, of Cripple Creek gold fame, Linda has written of early Colorado history across the state in publications for the past ten years, and spends much of her time giving speeches and tours throughout Colorado, and also reviews books of historical nature for local and national publications.
Her most recent project, completing three years of research, is her fourth book, Published in the Fall of 1998, with an astonishing reprint in March of 1999, by Caxton Press.
Other books
by Linda Wommack
Colorado History
For Kids
it's 5th printing.
Cripple Creek Tailings
A Centennial Reading, 1891-1991
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Calamity Jane
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She followed the man-trails of the Old West, the soldiers, the miners, the railroad gangs, the bull-wackers. She could crack a whip like no one else and everybody took notice. She dressed like a man, wore a gun like a man, and swore like a man. She drank whiskey straight, chewed tobacco and rode a horse. She did all this and more with a flair, exuberance, and a keen sense of showmanship. She was Calamity Jane, and with her own style and her own way, she rode into the folklore of the West.
Style and showmanship. That was Calamity. If there was an opportunity, she took it. If there wasn't, she invented it. For years, historians have tried to piece together the puzzle of Calamity's life. So much fiction, so little fact. Calamity herself is to blame. Her own biography is full of errors in dates and places. Her accounts of exploits are so outrageous, it is hard to know what is true, what is embellished, and what is pure nonsense.... I imagine the truth is somewhere in between.
"My maiden name was Martha Cannary, was born in Princeton, Missouri, May 1st, 1852. Down in Missouri, a hell of a long ways off." So says Calamity in her seven page autobiography. Because there are no birth records, this is all we have to go on. Calamity died on August 1st, 1903, in Terry, South Dakota. This is a proven fact, given the death certificate, the dated obituary accounts, witnesses, and her burial record. Many writers have listed August 2nd, 1903, as her death. An obvious link to the Calamity/Wild Bill Hickok love myth, as Hickok was killed on August 2nd, 1876. Another myth in the saga of Calamity Jane. But born she was and die she did and in between she led an incredible life!
Several eye-witness and written accounts put Calamity in the Old West as early as 1866. A young girl on her own, for both her parents had died, she drifted into the mining camps of Confederate Gulch, Montana. She was in Hays, Kansas in 1868, in Dodge City, and later in the Colorado towns of Leadville, Boulder, Granada, and La Junta. She lived in Billings, Cheyenne, Rawlins, Lander, and Deadwood. She never stayed long, she wandered, bummed rides, and joined scouting troops. She covered a lot of country, knew an assortment of people, had an eye for the land, and remembered the locations of creeks, rivers and divides.
Calamity scouted for the Jenny Gold Expedition in the Black Hills in 1875, and for General Crook in 1876. She was known at both Fort Fetterman and Fort Laramie. Officially, however, there are no army records that she was employed by the army. It is quite possible she was paid in cash, or swapped favors with the soldiers, as she was known to be a prostitute on occasion.
How did she come to be called Calamity? There are several stories, and once again the most far fetched of all the stories, comes from Calamity herself. She claims she was with General George Custer and General Miles in an Indian campaign in 1873. During a skirmish with Indians near present day Sheridan, Wyoming, Calamity rushed on horseback through the Indian fire and arrowheads to save Captain Egan from attack. A grateful Captain Egan thus named her "Calamity Jane, heroine of the plains." Whatever the story is, someone did indeed dub her as Calamity and it stuck.
And the legend of a love affair between Calamity and Wild Bill Hickok? Strictly imaginary folklore, the stuff dime novels were made for. Ned Buntline wrote of Calamity and Wild Bill in his dime novels and the story took on a life of its own. Even a supposed diary and daughter showed up in 1912. In time this proved to be a hoax, but people didn't care, and Hollywood continued the myth. The truth is that while both were in Hays, Kansas, their paths never crossed. Wild Bill had arrived in Deadwood in June of 1876. In three months time he would be dead. He had recently married, evidenced by a marriage certificate and a letter to his new bride. Calamity claims she was in Deadwood at the same time. In her autobiography, she claims it was she alone who apprehended Wild Bill's killer. Cornering Jack McCall in a butcher shop, she took a meat cleaver to him and delivered the killer to the sheriff. Totally false. As with most of Calamity's autobiography, this was just another attempt to get in the limelight of attention.
For attention is what Calamity craved, and under the spotlight, she was a pure showman. She signed a contract with an eastern amusement firm in 1896. In New York, and Philadelphia, her name alone made the show a sell-out. Calamity made quite an impression. She rode a bronco on stage shooting her pistols straight as an arrow. However, by the time the show reached Minneapolis and Chicago, Calamity was drinking quite heavily. After eights weeks, her contract was not renewed. A bitter Calamity replied "Listen, why don't the s.o.b.'s leave me alone and let me go to hell my own route?" Calamity's character is summed up in this single reply.
Calamity took to wandering again. She spent time in her old haunts, Wyoming, Montana, and Boulder, Colorado. She said she married Clinton or Charley Burk. (The first name differs in her many recountings.) She probably didn't. She couldn't even get the name right. She begged money for drinks. She ordered the house to buy a round and the house bought. She was Calamity Jane, after all. A good many of her tales of bravery, Indian fights, and other exaggerations were told when she was drinking. Those who listened picked up the story, retold it and the stories grew.
Early in 1903, Calamity came home to her beloved Back Hills of South Dakota. She washed clothes and cooked for a bordello in Belle Fourche. She met old friends who bought her drinks. Her health was failing and she couldn't hold her liquor well. She cussed and fired her pistol in a Lead saloon, and was escorted out of town.
In July of 1903, Calamity boarded the train at Deadwood, bound for Terry, South Dakota. At Terry, she entered a saloon where she drank into the night, becoming quite ill. She was taken to a nearby hotel where a doctor was called. Calamity Jane died on August 1, 1903. She was fifty-three years old.
Martha Jane Cannary, alias Calamity Jane, was buried in Deadwood's Mt. Moriah cemetery, next to Wild Bill Hickok. It is said she wished to be buried beside her "old friend" Wild Bill. This is most likely a complete fabrication from the powers of authority in Deadwood, an ingenious gimmick to bring business to their town. True to the end, Calamity once again showed her showmanship. In death, she was again in the limelight. The newspaper reporters jumped on the sensationalism, changing her death date to coincide with Wild Bill's, and the romantic legend took off.
Martha Jane, alias Calamity Jane, was in fact a legend, a character of the Old West. She was unruly, but not particularly lawless. She was filled with deviltry, but was not evil. In her own style, however contrived, she made history.
Calamity was Calamity.
Copyright © 2001 Linda Wommack. All rights reserved
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