Born and educated in Southern California, Margaret Bzovy has been the host for the Western Writers Chat Group on AOL since 1997, writing articles for the monthly newsletter as well as arranging guest appearances on the hour-long chat event that meets every Monday. She is a member of Western Writers of America, working as
a California Ambassador for the membership committee under Chairman Larry Brown. She has also written various nonfiction historical articles for the online American Western Magazine, and for the Tumbleweed
Newspaper in Tombstone, Arizona. She lives with her husband, Ed, at the same home where they raised their eight children. Marge is also a member of the NRA, National Outlaw and Lawman Association, and the Southern California Historical Society.

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Calamity Jane was quite a sight to see whenever she rode into town. Dressed in worn buckskin pants, drab overcoat and slouched hat with a pistol holstered around her waist, she caused heads to turn. Her gloved hands held a long rifle with such expertise that many never challenged if she could use it or not. She appeared to look just like a man. She would tie reins to the hitching post, stride into the saloon with an arrogant attitude that caused eyes to follow her as she made her way to the bar. Probably those who clung to the bar in a drunken haze blinked their red, bleary eyes a time or two to focus on her. Man or woman? She'd pushed in at the bar, order a drink and began to talk. Calamity could out talk, out cuss and drink any man in the saloon straight under the floorboards. Her stories were taller than those who tried to get a voice into the conversation and usually were the most conceited ones around. That was Calamity Jane. She dressed and acted just the way she wanted to. Anyone who didn't approve they could just get out of her way. Stand on the other side of town because Calamity wasn't taking any nonsense from man or woman. She was comfortable with the way she was and did what she wanted. Women turned away from her in disgust considering her an undesirable, sinful individual who interacted with men. Men mostly took her as she came and were compatible.

How would she have acted had she been trained to sit by the hearth to learn to cook and sew? If she had been under her mother's guidance to stitch tiny thread across hems, knitted shawls or patched quilts, would she have been more of a lady, a better housekeeper to provide a home for a man someday? Had Calamity paid attention to her mother's demands would she have turned out different? Did her mother care? Calamity, from her own words in a brief biography, explained that at a very young age she rode horses with her father and brothers. She learned to ride the most stubborn and vicious animals others could not ride. She loved the outdoors, the freedom of accomplishing whatever she set her mind on and the adventure men always created.

Calamity Jane was born in Princeton, Missouri on May 1, 1852, the eldest of six children. She had two brothers and three sisters. Her real name was Martha Cannary. She didn't receive her nickname of Calamity Jane until later in her adult life. In 1865 her Ohio born parents moved the family from Missouri to Virginia City, Montana. The move took them five months driving wagons and animals across hard trails with several other travelers. Calamity spent her time hunting with the men to find food and water sources. She was considered a very good shot and fearless rider for a girl of 13 years. Probably her father wished she were a son instead of his daughter. Nature was inclined to make strange mistakes.

Calamity said at times the wagon crew had to lower wagons with ropes over the side of the mountains when the trails ended against a rock siding. She had many exciting times fording the streams, as there was quicksand and bogs that endangered their travels causing many animals to get sunk in the thick mud that took much of their valuable time to pull them out. Rains affected their progress, as the streams would swell making the crossings dangerous and the men had to determined the best place to cross. Calamity herself swam her horse across the stream several times to investigate the depth and also for her own amusement. Her swimming event was not considered enjoyable for the men who only saw her play as a risk that could easily sweep her down stream to a certain death. But Calamity saw it as another challenge to conquer. With all the hard work and dangerous times, the wagon train managed to reach Virginia City safely, without a loss.

The Cannary family moved to Black Foot, Montana when Calamity was 14 years old. They hadn't been there too long when her mother, Charlotte came down with pneumonia and died. She was buried there in Montana. Her father, Robert tried mining but then packed up the family to go to Salt Lake City, Utah. They remained there until the summer of 1867. During this time her father died of an illness, which left Calamity, her sisters and brothers alone. Calamity, for her own reasons managed to pack up her brothers and sisters to set out for Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory. They arrived on May 1, 1868. Calamity decided to strike out on her own. She probably made sure her siblings were looked after before she left. In Piedmont, Wyoming she landed a job with the Union Pacific railroad. Calamity was hired as a bullwhacker, driving a team of oxen. The workingmen found her amusing and they often offered her whiskey to keep her talking. She bragged she could, "whip a fly off the ear of the ox four times out of five." Her association with the men infuriated the local lawmen. When she went swimming in the nude with all the men, the law told her to get out and keep moving. She did just that.

She headed for Fort Russell, Wyoming where she said in her biography that she met General Custer and convinced him she would make an expert scout for his troops. She was issued a uniform and began searching for Indians. However, Calamity seemed to become bored with her jobs as the next thing her records indicated, she joined General Crook in his campaign with the Apache Indians in Arizona. She was placed under the guidance of Bill Hickok, who she believed was a very handsome man. In 1871 she saw many adventures and dangerous missions with narrow escapes. She rode into adventures that other woman never had to think about. The men in the troops considered her one of the best shots and a most daring, fearless rider. Bill Hickox wrote about her saying that while she could not do heavier work she captured the men's admiration with her enthusiasm and good service with her scouting.

In 1872, Calamity returned with the troops to Fort Sanders, Wyoming where they engaged in the efforts to settle Indian uprising in the Muscle Shell section. General Crook managed this campaign that lasted until 1873. While out on one patrol, Captain Egan and the men were attached by Indians. They fought off this band and drove them out of the area. Six men were killed and several wounded when they headed back to the Fort. During the return Calamity heard shots fired and looked back among the men to see a band of Indians that had evidently doubled back and came at them with renewed force. She saw Captain Eagan slump in the saddle and knew he had been wounded. She turned her horse and urged the animal into a fast run. Eagan fell out of the saddle and she rushed forward to pull him onto her horse and run back to the Fort. The rest of the troops were slaughtered. When Captain Egan recovered, he sent for her, grateful that she had saved his life. As she walked into his room, he began to laugh and told her that he had named her "Calamity Jane, heroine of the plains". This nickname stuck to her for the rest of her life.

In 1874, the troops were ordered to Fort Custer where they remained for several months.

The following year they were ordered to the Black Hills of North Dakota to protect the miners who were being threatened by the Sioux Indians. Calamity followed the troops as they wintered at Fort Laramie. From there she went with Generals Custer and Crook to the Big Horn River. During this campaign she was entrusted with important dispatches to be delivered and she had to swim the Platte River in order to accomplish the mission. She rode ninety some miles in wet clothes and came down with a dreadful fever. She was sent back to Fort Fetterman in General Crooks ambulance wagon where she laid in the hospital for fourteen days. She said if she hadn't been ill she would probably have followed General Custer into the battle of Little Big Horn.

Recovering, she rode to Fort Laramie where she again meets Bill Hickok, who she greatly admired. She returned to Deadwood with Bill and his men. While there she had the occasion to ride as a pony express messenger carrying U.S mail between Deadwood and Fort Custer a distance of 50 miles over the roughest territory in the Black Hills. She made the trip every two days without any problems. She remained around the Deadwood camps visiting the different mining sections. She would see her friend Bill ever so often around Deadwood. One day she was told that Bill Hickok had been murdered at the Number 10 saloon in town. A man called Jack McCall had come behind Bill and shot him in the back of the head. The act had been such a surprise that McCall was not apprehended.

Calamity became tremendously saddened and extremely angry. Some people claimed she was in love with Bill Hickox but she never wrote anything in her biography to claim this. However, when exceedingly drunk she'd often brag that she and Bill were married. She did write that she went on a hunt for Jack McCall and found him in a butcher shop where she grabbed a clever and made the man throw up his hands. She watched as he was dragged off and placed in a log cabin to await the authorities. She learned later that Jack McCall escaped but was later found and captured at Fagan's ranch on Horse Creek. He was taken to Yanton, Dakota where he had a trial and was later hung for the murder of Bill Hickok.

One morning, Calamity saddled her horse and headed toward Crook's City. She had ridden about twelve miles out of Deadwood toward the mouth of the Whitewood creek, when she saw a stage coming toward her. She recognized this stage as the Cheyenne to Deadwood mail couch. When the stage passed her, she noticed that the driver was not on top. Alerted to the fact that the stage was without a driver, she turned her horse around to follow. As she rode next to the stage she saw that the driver was lying face down in the boot. The horses ran into the stage station and being a trained team of horses they came to a firm halt. Calamity noticed that the Indians had pulled back into the trees and brush. She climbed aboard the stage, swung the rig back onto the trail and raced toward Deadwood, taking the dead driver, six passengers and the mail to safety.

In the late fall of 1877, Calamity left Deadwood and rode into Bear Butte Creek where she joined with the 7th Calvary. She helped the troops settle in as they built Fort Meade and formed the town of Sturgis. The next year she packed her things and headed for Rapid City where she settled in for a year of prospecting.

Arriving in Fort Pierre in 1879, Calamity went to work for a man named Frank Witc. She was the engineer on the train from Rapid City to Fort Pierre. Later, Fred Evans hired her to drive a team of oxen across rough trails from Fort Pierce to Sturgis. Calamity could handle any animal or rig with as much stamina as a man.

Her trails forged forward toward different areas and then in August of 1885 she rode into El Paso where she met a Texas man named Clinton "Charley" Burk. She rather fancied this quiet man. While becoming friendly with Charley she realized she had become lonely traveling around without a real home of her own. She was thirty-three years old and had the need to be with someone. As Calamity said in her biography, "I had traveled alone long enough and was about time to take on a partner." Two years later, Calamity found herself pregnant and she gave birth to a girl. She claimed the baby looked like Charley but had a temper as bad as her own.

In 1889, the traveling urge grabbed hold of Calamity after living four years in Texas.

She encouraged Charley to ride off to Boulder, Colorado where they bought a hotel. They kept this place going until 1893, when Calamity decided to sell out and pack up the family to head for Wyoming. But the travels didn't stop in Wyoming, they continued to Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, then back to Montana and on to Deadwood. When Calamity came into Deadwood after being away for some seventeen years, many of her old friends greeted her with warm enthusiasm. This eagerness spurred her interest to join her friends and leave Charley. Somewhere, her beloved husband and child became lost to Calamity as she turned toward her old stand of adventure seeking. She met a couple of eastern men who encouraged her to go east so the people there could see the famous "Woman Scout" who most newspaper reporters wrote about. Her first engagement began on January 20th, 1896 in the Minneapolis Palace Museum. People crowded the theater to see her and she portrayed what they had come to see, a hard adventurous woman who appeared to be more of a man. She was a sight to behold. Women shook their heads but men were fascinated with her tales and accomplishments with her guns.

Soon Calamity was found telling her tall stories in the local saloons. She missed several engagements at the theater and even through she had drawn large crowds the manager fired her. She wasn't put down with the loss of this job as she had become weary of being stared at as if she was some strange animal. In 1901, she was hired in Buffalo, New York at a Pan American Exposition. Here she had more action. Bugles would announce her arrival and she would charge into the arena on a fancy horse. She was dressed in new buckskins and waving her hat she would yell and holler at the audience who loved the excitement. She stole the whole show as many came to see the woman who looked like a man. However, Calamity didn't stop her show at the Exposition, she'd get roaring drunk and harass the town. She supposedly shot up the fair grounds and gave a police officer a black eye. She spent over night in the town jail. When they released her Calamity laughed and handed out free show tickets to the policemen.

In 1902, she claimed Buffalo Bill dropped by the show and she begged him, "Get me out of this damned show, I need money for a ticket home." Evidently Bill Cody came across with the money as Calamity was packed and on a train headed for Montana. She began to drink heavily and wandered from place to place. She depended on handouts from her friends.

In 1903, she wandered into Deadwood where she was stared at in amazement. Everyone whispered that she looked like walking death. At fifty-one years old the heavy drinking took a hard toll upon her life. Her friends in Deadwood took pity on her and gave her a room over one of the saloons. One morning, dressed in a long black dress she climbed to the cemetery and visited Bill Hickox's grave. Then she wandered around seeing her old friends. Many agreed that she had aged and appeared old and tired.

On August 1, 1903 Calamity trudged into the town of Terry some eight miles from Deadwood and stumbled into the Calloway Hotel where she collapsed. She was put to bed and they sent for a doctor, who claimed her drinking had caused liver damage.

When she looked at the doctor she asked him what the date was. He mistakenly said it was August 2nd. She smiled and said this was the date Bill was murdered and asked if they would bury her next to Bill. She turned her head toward the wall and slipped into a deep sleep, from which she never recovered.

The town of Deadwood gave her a magnificent funeral. Bands played as they walked the casket through town to the cemetery. She was dressed in a gown that might have displeased her had she known. The Society of the Black Hills Pioneers paid the burial expenses and buried her at Mount Moriah cemetery. Her grave was placed in back of Bill Hickox's grave, exactly where she wanted her final rest.

Copyright © 2004  Margaret Bzovy. No unauthorized reproduction or transmission by any means whatsoever permitted under federal criminal law.