Calamity Jane

She was obsessed with Wild Bill Hickok and claimed to have married him. She also asserted that she had a child by him. There are no documentary proofs to establish this claim.

She married Clinton Burke in 1885 and had a daughter with him. The little girl was given to foster parents.

She was a heavy drinker and died of alcohol related illness in 1903. She was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok.

She was the eldest daughter of Robert and Charlotte Canary. She had five younger siblings - two brothers and three sisters.

Her father moved the family from Missouri to Montana; her mother died enroute of pneumonia in 1866. Her father too died the very next year. The responsibility of raising her younger siblings now fell on Martha Jane who herself was just 12 years old.

She shifted her family to Wyoming where she took up whatever jobs she could find to support her siblings. During this time she had worked as a waitress, cook, dishwasher, and a nurse. She also worked as a prostitute. It was only in 1874 that she finally found some meaningful work—as a scout at Fort Russell.

As a young girl she was pretty with dark eyes. Due to her hard life she preferred wearing men’s clothing and was much stronger than the average delicate woman. She did not receive any formal education.

With time she lost her beauty and became a tough woman with leathery skin. She started dressing and behaving like men. A fiercely independent woman, she loved adventure and roamed around mining towns and railroad camps and did hard menial work that normally only men used to do.

It is also believed that occasionally she may have disguised herself as a man to accompany soldiers on expeditions. She had actively participated in several campaigns in the military conflicts with Native American Indians, including the 1875 expedition of Gen. George Crook against the Sioux.

In 1875 she also accompanied the Newton-Jenney Party along with California Joe and Valentine McGillycuddy into the Black Hills. By this time her lifestyle had become entirely like men and she took a fondness to alcohol, often drinking to the excess.

She settled in the Black Hills in South Dakota in 1876 where she befriended the area’s leading madam Dora DuFran. During this time she also became acquainted with Wild Bill Hickok and Charlie Utter.

She was very strong, muscular and unfeminine. She had a reputation for being very loud too. She used to warn men that to offend her was to court ‘Calamity’, thus earning the nickname, Calamity Jane.

The actress Jean Arthur portrayed this famous female adventurer in the 1936 film, ‘The Plainsman’.

She was famous frontierswoman who achieved legendary fame for her shooting and riding skills. It is believed that many stories of her achievements were either fabrications or exaggerations though it cannot be denied that she was an extraordinarily brave woman with a kind heart.