Martha Jane “Calamity Jane” Canary (Cannary)
Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok, American Indian Wars, General Custer
A synonym for calamity: catastrophe. And should you have crossed Calamity Jane back in the late 1800s, a catastrophic ending you’d have found. “I was considered the most reckless and daring rider,” said Calamity Jane of herself in the 1870s, “and one of the best shots in the western country.” A masculine and oft-described “ugly” woman, her upbringing – or lack thereof – both catalyzed and necessitated her independence and gun-slingin’ skills.
Ms. Calamity was born Martha Jane Canary (or Cannary — the spelling is disputed, as is her birth year) in Missouri, the oldest of six children. Her parents both passed prior to her teenage years; subsequently, she was left to raise three younger sisters and two younger brothers. The Canary kids migrated north to Montana in 1865, and Martha later became an army scout under General George Custer in the American Indian Wars. “I had a great many adventures with the Indians,” Martha said.
Her growing reputation — the one that would earn her the Calamity Jane name — wasn’t fueled by her skill alone. With “no high regard for truth,” Jane was widely known as a crossdresser and a drunk, with a mouth like a sailor. Trekking to Deadwood, S.D., this repute preceded her as newspapers proclaimed, “Calamity Jane is here!”
She settled in Deadwood, by this time leathery and weather-beaten, and the Black Hills Daily Times reported that Calamity Jane looked like “the result of a cross between the gable end of a fire proof and a Sioux Indian.” Another Deadwood resident? One Wild Bill Hickok, a former member of Kansas’ Free-State army. Calamity Jane harbored a long and unsecreted infatuation with Hickok, at one point even claiming the two had wed and she’d borne his child (though zero evidence supports this – or that she ever even had children at all). Her dying request (fulfilled) was to be buried next to Wild Bill, and so reads the plaque over their gravesites in Deadwood Cemetery.
