Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
heading west. And I don't just mean geographically.
We are heading straight into the thick of the
American frontier mythos. We really are. We're
talking about a figure so iconic that her name
is practically a synonym for the Wild West itself.
You've definitely seen the movies. You've heard
the songs. Yeah. Martha Jane Canary. But of course,
no one knows her by that name. No. You know her
better as Calamity Jane. It really is a name
that just conjures up a very specific, very vivid
image, doesn't it? Oh, instantly. You immediately
picture the Buckskins, the Winchester rifle in
hand, riding alongside Wild Bill Hickok, maybe,
you know, tossing back a shot of whiskey in a
dusty Deadwood saloon. Right. It's the ultimate
cowgirl rebel archetype. Exactly. She's the prototype
for every, like, tough girl character in Western
fiction. But here's the thing, and this is why
I was so excited to dig into these sources with
you today. The gap between the legend of Calamity
Jane and the actual life of Martha Jane Canary
is, well, it's about the size of the Grand Canyon.
It is. And frankly, the reality is a lot darker,
grittier, and way more complex than the dime
novels ever let on. That is the perfect way to
frame it. And navigating that gap is so tricky
because Jane herself was the primary architect
of all the confusion. He was her own PR agent.
100%. She was a storyteller, a relentless self
-promoter, and just, you know, a bit of a chaotic
force. She dictated her own legend while she
was still alive, which means a lot of what we
know about her comes from publicity stunts designed
to sell tickets. So our mission for this deep
dive is to peel back those layers of fiction.
We have stacks of historical records, census
data. contemporary newspaper reports, and my
personal favorite, her own 1896 autobiographical
booklet. Ah, yes. The pamphlet. With her having
read through it, I think we can charitably describe
as creative nonfiction. That is a very, very
polite way of putting it. It's basically a superhero
origin story she wrote for herself. Right. But
today, we are going to look past that. We're
going to look at the daredevil scout and the
heartbroken lover she claimed to be and contrast
that with the reality of a woman who struggled
with severe alcoholism, poverty, and just the
brutal hardships of the frontier. We want to
find the human being underneath the buckskins.
Let's start right at the beginning, because despite
all the legends of her being born in a saddle
or sprouting from the ground fully armed with
a six -shooter, she had a childhood. And looking
at the census data, It wasn't a charmed life.
Not at all. It was a childhood defined almost
immediately by misfortune. She was born Martha
Jane Canary on May 1st, 1852, in Princeton, Missouri.
And she even fudged that, right, in her own pamphlet.
Oh, yeah. She claims she was born later to make
herself seem younger. It's a classic celebrity
move, but the records are clear. She was the
eldest of six children. And the family dynamic
she was born into seems pretty unstable from
the jump. Extremely. Her father, Robert Wilson
Canary, he had a known gambling problem. Her
mother, Charlotte, had six kids to manage. And
like so many families in the mid -19th century,
they got caught up in that post -Civil War westward
ho fever. Right. Go west. In 1865, they packed
up a wagon train and headed for Montana. And
I think it's easy for us sitting here in comfort
to just gloss over what heading to Montana by
wagon actually meant in 1865. Oh, yeah. We picture
a scenic road trip. Maybe we think about playing
the Oregon Trail video game. Right. But the reality
was just grueling. It was months of walking,
dust, disease and real danger. And for Martha
Jane, it was the beginning of the end of her
childhood. Her mother, Charlotte, she died of
pneumonia along the way in Blackfoot, Montana.
Oh, wow. On the trail. On the trail. So they
finally arrive in Virginia City in 1866, motherless.
Robert, the father, takes the six kids on to
Salt Lake City, supposedly to start farming.
But within a year, by 1867, he's dead too. So
let's just pause and really look at that picture.
By 1867, Martha Jane is 14 years old. Just 14.
Both of her parents are dead. And she is suddenly
the matriarch of a family of five younger siblings
in a territory that is incredibly unforgiving.
It is a nightmare scenario. At 14, she didn't
have the luxury of grieving or, you know, being
a teenager. She was the head of the household.
And this is the crucial turning point. This is
where the Calamity Jane grit is forged. She loaded
up their wagon herself and moved the entire family
to Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and then on to Piedmont.
That level of responsibility is just... How does
a 14 -year -old girl even support a family of
six in 1860s Wyoming? The economy wasn't exactly
overflowing with opportunities for young women.
She did whatever was necessary. And this is where
we see her start to break those Victorian gender
norms, not necessarily out of a desire to be
a social rebel or to make a statement. But out
of sheer survival. Out of sheer survival. The
sources list her jobs during this period. Dishwasher,
cook, waitress, dance hall girl, nurse. But those
jobs didn't pay well enough. Not to support five
other kids? No. So she shifts. She starts working
as an ox team driver. Driving oxen? That's heavy,
dangerous labor. Yeah. I mean, you're wrestling
with massive animals dragging freight through
mud. It is. And by 1874, she's claiming to work
as a scout at Fort Russell. And this is when
she begins wearing men's attire regularly. See,
that's such an interesting distinction. In the
movies, she wears pants because she's a tomboy
or an action hero. But you're saying it started
just because she was doing men's work? To survive.
Precisely. I mean, think about it. Long Victorian
skirts are a massive safety hazard when you're
driving oxen or navigating rough terrain or riding
horses all day. It's just practical. I think
that makes sense. She was living a rough outdoor
existence. The sources also mentioned she likely
worked as a prostitute occasionally at the Fort
Laramie Three Mile Hog Ranch. So it paints a
picture of a young woman using every single tool
at her disposal. her strength her appearance
her labor to keep herself and her siblings alive
in just a brutal environment right she wasn't
playing a character yet she was just trying to
survive so she's tough she's undeniably resilient
but at some point She transitions from Martha
Jane, the hardworking orphan, to Calamity Jane,
the legend. Everyone loves a good superhero origin
story, and Jane certainly wrote a great one for
herself. She certainly did. If you believe her
1896 pamphlet, the name was bestowed upon her
in a moment of glorious heroism that rivals anything
in a blockbuster movie. I love this story, even
if it's fake. Lay it out for us. So Jane claims
this happened during the Indian campaigns of
1872 or 73 near Goose Creek, Wyoming. She says
she was with a detachment under a Captain Egan
and they were ambushed. Captain Egan is shot
and starts reeling in his saddle about to fall
off and likely be killed. And Jane creates the
cinematic moment. Right. She claims she turned
her horse, galloped back into the line of fire,
caught the captain just before he hit the ground
and pulled him onto her horse to safety. Very
dramatic. And supposedly once they got back to
the fort and the captain recovered, he laughingly
told her, I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine
of the plains. I name you. Calamity Jane, the
heroine of the planes. It's so profound. It rhymes.
It's catchy. It's perfect branding. It's a great
line. Is there any truth to it? It is highly
unlikely. I figured as much. The rhyme is just
a little too convenient. The historical record
pushes back on this quite hard. A contemporary
of hers named Captain Jack Crawford, who actually
served under Generals Crook and Miles, the generals
Jane claimed to serve with. Okay, so a credible
source. A very credible source. He gave a pretty
scathing rebuttal in a 1904 interview. He claimed
Jane never saw service under those generals,
never fought Indians, and never even saw lynching.
He called her simply a notorious character, dissolute
and devilish. Ouch. Dislutant devilish. That's
a far cry from Heroin of the Plains. It is. So
if Captain Egan didn't christen her after a daring
rescue, where did the name come from? There is
a more grounded, more psychological theory mentioned
in the sources. Which I feel is probably closer
to the truth. I think so too. It suggested that
the nickname came from her warning men that to
offend her was to court calamity. That honestly
sounds much more in character for someone surviving
in mining camps. You know, like, don't mess with
me or it'll be a calamity. It's a defense mechanism.
Exactly. It's armor. It's a warning. And we know
the name stuck early on. By July 1876, when she
arrived in Deadwood, the local newspaper, the
Black Hills Pioneer. Ran a headline. They ran
a headline. Calamity Jane has arrived. So the
brand was already established regardless of the
origin. She walked into town as a celebrity.
You mentioned Deadwood. And you simply cannot
talk about Calamity Jane and Deadwood without
talking about the other half of that legendary
duo. Wild Bill Hickok. Wild Bill Hickok. This
is maybe the most persistent myth in the entire
American West. This idea that Jane and Wild Bill
were lovers. or secret spouses or soulmates.
It's the great romance of the frontier. I mean,
in the Doris Day movie, they end up getting married,
don't they? It's the ultimate power couple fantasy,
the king and queen of the Wild West. It is, but
the historical reality is just much, much colder.
The sources are very clear on this. They were
acquaintances. Just acquaintances. That's it.
They met in 1876 at Fort Laramie and joined the
same wagon train to Deadwood. But they weren't
longtime partners. And in fact, Hickok had famously
just married another woman, Agnes Thatcher Lake.
right before he headed to Deadwood. So he was
a newlywed when he met Jane. He was. But wait,
I've definitely heard about a diary and a daughter.
Wasn't there a woman in the 1940s who came forward
claiming to be their child? I feel like I've
seen this reference in documentaries. Yes, this
is the McCormick claim, and it is a fascinating
rabbit hole of, well, fraud. In 1941, a woman
named Jean Hickok Burkhart McCormick applied
for old age assistance. To prove her identity,
she produced a Bible signed by ministers and
a whole bundle of letters. Letters from Calamity
Jane. Allegedly written by Calamity Jane to her
daughter, Jean. And I'm guessing in these letters,
Jane confesses her undying love for Bill. You
got it. The letters claimed Jane and Bill were
married in Montana in 1873 and that Jean was
born that same year. They were very emotional,
very poetic letters explaining why she had to
give the baby up for adoption. And it convinced
some people. It did at the time. But when historians
really looked closer, the whole thing just fell
apart. How so? Was it the timeline? The timeline
was messy, yes. Jane was supposedly scouting
somewhere else during the time of the alleged
birth. But the real smoking gun is the literacy
issue. Right. We talked about her upbringing,
driving oxen, constantly moving. She wouldn't
have had a formal education. Could she even write?
The consensus among series historians is that
Jane was functionally illiterate. Census records
concern this. And her own autobiography that
we talked about. It was dictated to someone else.
And get this, in the pamphlet. Her last name
is spelled Canary, with two Ns. Her father's
census records use one N. If she couldn't even
spell her own name consistently, she certainly
wasn't writing long, poetic, introspective letters
to a secret daughter. That really seals it. It's
a complete hoax. Stepping back from the Wild
Bill fantasy for a second, did she have children
at all? Or was that part entirely made up too?
No, she did have children. The sources say she
had possibly two, maybe even four children. But
the fathers are all unknown. And there's a heartbreaking
story that really illustrates her struggle with
motherhood. It's much more telling than any of
the fake romance letters. This is the Benefit
Night story, right? Yes. So in the late 1880s,
Jane returns to Deadwood with a child, a little
girl. And she wanted the girl to get a good education.
at a Catholic boarding school nearby. Okay, so
a good intention. The great intention. And the
town, despite knowing Jane's rough edges and
her drinking, they pitched in. They held a benefit
at a local theater and raised a large sum of
money for the tuition. That's a beautiful community
moment. They wanted to help her break the cycle.
It starts that way. But that same night, Jane
took a portion of that money, got incredibly
drunk and spent it. The next day she packed up
the child and just left town. Oh, wow. That is
that's tragic. It really just highlights the
instability she was living with. It does. A local
woman who wrote about it, Esteline Bennett, she
didn't think Jane was trying to scam them. She
really believed Jane honestly wanted that education
for her daughter, but she just she couldn't curb
her impulses or execute a long term plan. It's
a classic sign of the addiction she was battling.
Exactly. It shows a woman who wants to be a mother,
who has these good intentions, but is just completely
consumed by her demons. It's so interesting because
you have this notorious, dissolute character
who fails at these domestic things, who drinks
away her daughter's tuition. But then you have
these other stories that paint her as a saint.
Right. We have to talk about the smallpox epidemic.
Yeah. Because this seems to be the one thing
everyone agrees on. This is the heroine of the
pest house chapter of her life. And unlike the
marriage to Hickok, this one is completely verified
by locals. Set the scene for us. Why was this
such a big deal? Okay, so. Late 1870s, Deadwood.
A smallpox outbreak hits the camp. Now, you have
to understand, in the 1870s, smallpox was terrifying.
Yeah, it was a death sentence for many. Absolutely.
It wasn't just a sickness. It was highly contagious,
disfiguring, and often fatal. When someone got
sick, they were usually quarantined in what they
called a pest house, basically a shack on the
edge of town, and just ignored. People were too
afraid to go near them. It's the ultimate isolation.
Exactly. Except for Jane. She stepped up. She
nursed the victims. She stayed with them in the
pest house. She cleaned them, fed them, administered
whatever medicine they had. And this wasn't for
glory. This was dirty, dangerous work. Incredibly
dangerous. And it showcased this massive, generous
streak that made the locals forgive so many of
her drunken escapades. She might, you know, shoot
up a saloon sign one night, but she would hold
a dying man's hand the next. That is a fascinating
duality. It's like she had this immense capacity
for care, even if she couldn't consistently care
for herself. Yeah. There's also the story about
the stagecoach rescue. This one feels like an
action movie again, like the Goose Creek story.
Does this one hold water? It does, and it's corroborated.
There was an overland stagecoach being pursued
by Plains Indians. The driver, a man named John
Slaughter, was shot and killed. So the coach
is out of control. It's careening out of control,
passengers inside screaming. Jane, who was apparently
nearby or on the coach, she grabbed the reins,
settled the horses, and drove the passengers
to safety in Deadwood. See, these are the moments
where the legend feels earned. She really was
capable of immense bravery. Absolutely. And I
think that's why the myth took root so strongly.
If she was just a drunk storyteller, she would
have been forgotten. But she had these genuine
moments of competence and compassion that grounded
all the wilder tales. It gave people a reason
to root for her. So we have the peak years, Deadwood,
1876 to the late 70s. She's famous. She's a local
character. But the frontier started closing.
The Wild West started getting, well... Right.
Railroads, laws, fences. What happens to a person
like Calamity Jane when civilization catches
up? The later years, sadly, were just a long,
slow decline. This is Section 5 of our dive,
and it's really tough to read. She had a serious
case of wanderlust. In 1881, she bought a ranch
in Montana, tried to run an inn. And that failed.
It failed. She moved to Boulder, tried innkeeping
again, failed again. She allegedly married a
man named Clinton Burke, but that didn't stabilize
her either. She just couldn't settle down. It's
like she wasn't built for a quiet life. No. And
as she got older, she realized her name was her
only real asset. She became a celebrity commodity.
In 1893, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild
West show. That sounds glamorous, though. Traveling
with Buffalo Bill. Playing to packed crowds.
It sounds glamorous to us, but for her it was
often humiliating. She wasn't a star, she was
a curiosity. She was hired as a storyteller,
basically to go out and be Calamity Jane for
the tourists. Performing a caricature of herself.
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. She sold
that autobiographical booklet we mentioned at
dime museums. But the reality was, she was often
poor, and her alcoholism was getting much, much
worse. She was selling the myth of her youth
to pay for the addiction of her middle age. The
source material has a specific anecdote about
a horse rental in Cheyenne that's, I mean, it's
funny in a slapstick way, but also really indicative
of how bad her problem had become. The Joyride
incident. Yeah, this actually happened a bit
earlier, but it really sets the pattern for her
chaotic relationship with alcohol and travel.
She rented a horse and buggy in Cheyenne for
a one -mile drive to Fort Russell and back. Just
a quick trip. One mile. Hard to mess that up.
Or so you'd think. She got so drunk, she completely
passed her destination. She didn't stop until
she hit Fort Laramie. Wait, wait. I'm looking
at a map. Fort Laramie is not close to Cheyenne.
It's about 90 miles. She overshot her one -mile
trip. By 90 miles. That is the level of chaos
we are talking about. Imagine being so intoxicated
you miss your turn and end up three counties
over. Wow. And as she aged, you know, the body
just couldn't take that anymore. By 1901, she's
at the Pan American Exposition, but by 1903,
she's back in the Black Hills and she's dying
penniless. What was she doing for money at the
very end? If the shows were over. She was cooking
and doing laundry for the girls at Dora Dufresne's
brothel. Wow. The heroine of the planes, the
woman who claimed to scout for generals, was
washing sheets in a brothel to earn her keep.
It's just a stark, sad image. It is. And then
comes the end, August 1st, 1903. She was on an
ore train to Terry, South Dakota. She drank heavily
on board, fell ill, and the conductor actually
had to carry her off the train. She died shortly
after at the Callaway Hotel. The cause was inflammation
of the bowels and pneumonia. And she was only
51. Just 51 years old. That's so young, even
for then. Yeah. But her story doesn't end with
her death. We have to talk about the burial.
Because she is buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery,
right next to Wild Bill Hickok. Yes, if you go
there today, you see them, side by side. And
for a century, people have looked at those two
graves and sighed romantically. Together at last.
You know, it validates the whole love story.
Right. And here's where it gets really interesting
and really cynical. This is what I call the final
joke. Go on. Because this changes everything
about that cemetery visit. So the romantic version
is that it was her dying wish to be buried next
to the man she loved. And the Society of Black
Hills pioneers organized it to honor her wish.
But. But? But four of the men who planned that
funeral. later admitted the real truth about
why they put her there. They said that Wild Bill
Hickok had, and this is a quote, absolutely no
use for Jane when he was alive. He couldn't stand
her. He found her annoying, loud, and uncouth.
So these men decided to bury her next to him
as a posthumous prank on Wild Bill. No way. Yes.
They basically said, let's bury her here so she
can annoy him for all eternity. That is dark.
That is Wild West humor at its absolute darkest.
So the greatest romantic symbol of the frontier
is actually a trolling attempt by her funeral
committee. Essentially, they were playing a practical
joke on a dead man. But, you know, regardless
of the motive, the turnout for her funeral was
massive. The church overflowed. Hope people did
care. They did. You had the morbidly curious,
sure, but you also had old friends. Despite the
drinking, despite all the lies, she meant something
to that community. She was a piece of their history.
And she became a piece of our history, too. Session
seven of our outline covers her pop culture afterlife.
And man, she had a lot of lives. It seems like
every generation just reinvents her. It started
before she even died. The Deadwood Dick dime
novels in 1877 established her as a heroine.
And she had no input on these stories, but the
public just began to conflate the fictional superhero
with the real woman. And then Hollywood got a
hold of her. And the biggest shift was in 1953,
Calamity Jane, the musical starring Doris Day.
Whip crack away. I grew up watching that movie.
Exactly. And that film portrays her as the sunny,
singing, buckskin -wearing omboy who, you know,
cleans up nice and marries Wild Bill. It is almost
entirely fictional. It completely scrubs away
the reality. Completely. It scrubs away the alcohol,
the poverty, the children, the tragedy. It turns
her into a Disney princess with a gun. And then
you swing the pendulum all the way to the other
side with HBO's Deadwood. Robin Weigert's portrayal.
And that is probably the closest we'll ever get
to the real Jane on screen. Right. She's gritty.
She's filthy. She's an alcoholic. She's emotionally
damaged. But she has this fierce loyalty. She's
not singing songs. She's barely holding it together.
It's amazing to see that range. She's in Fallout
video games. She's referenced in Fortnite. She's
in songs by Big and Rich. She's just... She is.
And what's so fascinating is how the fictional
Jane completely swallowed the real one. Most
people don't know about the laundry or the orphan
she had or the smallpox nursing. They know the
caricature. They know the buckskins. So, bringing
this all together, we have a woman who was illiterate
but is famous for writing letters. A wife of
Wild Bill, who was actually just an acquaintance
buried next to him as a joke. A rough drunk who
nursed the dying. She is a study in duality.
She represents the freedom of the West, but also
the tragedy of it. She broke every single rule
for how a woman was supposed to behave in the
19th century. She wore pants, she drank whiskey,
she drove oxen, but she paid a very, very steep
price for that freedom. It makes you wonder,
if she hadn't become Calamity, would she have
even survived? That is the ultimate question,
isn't it? Did she survive the West by becoming
a scout or did she survive history by becoming
a story? The persona she crafted and had crafted
for her ultimately consumed Martha Jane Canary.
But without that persona, without the lies and
the dime novels, we wouldn't be talking about
her 120 years later. A survival strategy that
worked a little too well. Indeed. That's going
to do it for this deep dive into the life and
legend of Calamity Jane. We hope you look at
those old Western photos a little differently
now. There's always more to the story. Thanks
for listening. We'll catch you on the next one.